9 files changed, 93867 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/122-0.txt b/old/122-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b833463
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/122-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17092 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Return of the Native
+
+Author: Thomas Hardy
+
+Release Date: April, 1994 [eBook #122]
+[Most recently updated: January 21, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: John Hamm and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Return of the Native
+
+by Thomas Hardy
+
+
+Contents
+
+ PREFACE
+ BOOK FIRST—THE THREE WOMEN
+ I. A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression
+ II. Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble
+ III. The Custom of the Country
+ IV. The Halt on the Turnpike Road
+ V. Perplexity among Honest People
+ VI. The Figure against the Sky
+ VII. Queen of Night
+ VIII. Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody
+ IX. Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
+ X. A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion
+ XI. The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman
+
+ BOOK SECOND—THE ARRIVAL
+ I. Tidings of the Comer
+ II. The People at Blooms-End Make Ready
+ III. How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream
+ IV. Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure
+ V. Through the Moonlight
+ VI. The Two Stand Face to Face
+ VII. A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
+ VIII. Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart
+
+ BOOK THIRD—THE FASCINATION
+ I. “My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is”
+ II. The New Course Causes Disappointment
+ III. The First Act in a Timeworn Drama
+ IV. An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness
+ V. Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
+ VI. Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete
+ VII. The Morning and the Evening of a Day
+ VIII. A New Force Disturbs the Current
+
+ BOOK FOURTH—THE CLOSED DOOR
+ I. The Rencounter by the Pool
+ II. He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song
+ III. She Goes Out to Battle against Depression
+ IV. Rough Coercion Is Employed
+ V. The Journey across the Heath
+ VI. A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian
+ VII. The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends
+ VIII. Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil
+
+ BOOK FIFTH—THE DISCOVERY
+ I. “Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery”
+ II. A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding
+ III. Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning
+ IV. The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One
+ V. An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
+ VI. Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter
+ VII. The Night of the Sixth of November
+ VIII. Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
+ IX. Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
+
+ BOOK SIXTH—AFTERCOURSES
+ I. The Inevitable Movement Onward
+ II. Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road
+ III. The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin
+ IV. Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His Vocation
+
+
+
+
+    “To sorrow
+    I bade good morrow,
+And thought to leave her far away behind;
+    But cheerly, cheerly,
+    She loves me dearly;
+She is so constant to me, and so kind.
+    I would deceive her,
+    And so leave her,
+But ah! she is so constant and so kind.”
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The date at which the following events are assumed to have occurred may
+be set down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old watering place
+herein called “Budmouth” still retained sufficient afterglow from its
+Georgian gaiety and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to
+the romantic and imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland.
+
+Under the general name of “Egdon Heath,” which has been given to the
+sombre scene of the story, are united or typified heaths of various
+real names, to the number of at least a dozen; these being virtually
+one in character and aspect, though their original unity, or partial
+unity, is now somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and slices brought
+under the plough with varying degrees of success, or planted to
+woodland.
+
+It is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract whose
+southwestern quarter is here described, may be the heath of that
+traditionary King of Wessex—Lear.
+
+T.H.
+
+_July_, 1895.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIRST—THE THREE WOMEN
+
+
+
+
+I.
+A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression
+
+
+A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight,
+and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned
+itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud
+shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its
+floor.
+
+The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the
+darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly
+marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment
+of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was
+come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood
+distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would have been
+inclined to continue work; looking down, he would have decided to
+finish his faggot and go home. The distant rims of the world and of the
+firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in
+matter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an hour
+to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon,
+anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the
+opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.
+
+In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into
+darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and
+nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at
+such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen,
+its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding
+hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true
+tale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night
+showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could be
+perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds and
+hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the
+heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it. And
+so the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed
+together in a black fraternization towards which each advanced halfway.
+
+The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other
+things sank brooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and
+listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it
+had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises
+of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last
+crisis—the final overthrow.
+
+It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who loved it with
+an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity. Smiling champaigns of
+flowers and fruit hardly do this, for they are permanently harmonious
+only with an existence of better reputation as to its issues than the
+present. Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a
+thing majestic without severity, impressive without showiness, emphatic
+in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity. The qualifications which
+frequently invest the façade of a prison with far more dignity than is
+found in the façade of a palace double its size lent to this heath a
+sublimity in which spots renowned for beauty of the accepted kind are
+utterly wanting. Fair prospects wed happily with fair times; but alas,
+if times be not fair! Men have oftener suffered from, the mockery of a
+place too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of
+surroundings oversadly tinged. Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler and
+scarcer instinct, to a more recently learnt emotion, than that which
+responds to the sort of beauty called charming and fair.
+
+Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this orthodox beauty
+is not approaching its last quarter. The new Vale of Tempe may be a
+gaunt waste in Thule; human souls may find themselves in closer and
+closer harmony with external things wearing a sombreness distasteful to
+our race when it was young. The time seems near, if it has not actually
+arrived, when the chastened sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a mountain
+will be all of nature that is absolutely in keeping with the moods of
+the more thinking among mankind. And ultimately, to the commonest
+tourist, spots like Iceland may become what the vineyards and myrtle
+gardens of South Europe are to him now; and Heidelberg and Baden be
+passed unheeded as he hastens from the Alps to the sand dunes of
+Scheveningen.
+
+The most thoroughgoing ascetic could feel that he had a natural right
+to wander on Egdon—he was keeping within the line of legitimate
+indulgence when he laid himself open to influences such as these.
+Colours and beauties so far subdued were, at least, the birthright of
+all. Only in summer days of highest feather did its mood touch the
+level of gaiety. Intensity was more usually reached by way of the
+solemn than by way of the brilliant, and such a sort of intensity was
+often arrived at during winter darkness, tempests, and mists. Then
+Egdon was aroused to reciprocity; for the storm was its lover, and the
+wind its friend. Then it became the home of strange phantoms; and it
+was found to be the hitherto unrecognized original of those wild
+regions of obscurity which are vaguely felt to be compassing us about
+in midnight dreams of flight and disaster, and are never thought of
+after the dream till revived by scenes like this.
+
+It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man’s nature—neither
+ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame;
+but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal
+and mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some persons who have
+long lived apart, solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It
+had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.
+
+This obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in Domesday. Its
+condition is recorded therein as that of heathy, furzy, briary
+wilderness—“Bruaria.” Then follows the length and breadth in leagues;
+and, though some uncertainty exists as to the exact extent of this
+ancient lineal measure, it appears from the figures that the area of
+Egdon down to the present day has but little diminished. “Turbaria
+Bruaria”—the right of cutting heath-turf—occurs in charters relating to
+the district. “Overgrown with heth and mosse,” says Leland of the same
+dark sweep of country.
+
+Here at least were intelligible facts regarding landscape—far-reaching
+proofs productive of genuine satisfaction. The untameable, Ishmaelitish
+thing that Egdon now was it always had been. Civilization was its
+enemy; and ever since the beginning of vegetation its soil had worn the
+same antique brown dress, the natural and invariable garment of the
+particular formation. In its venerable one coat lay a certain vein of
+satire on human vanity in clothes. A person on a heath in raiment of
+modern cut and colours has more or less an anomalous look. We seem to
+want the oldest and simplest human clothing where the clothing of the
+earth is so primitive.
+
+To recline on a stump of thorn in the central valley of Egdon, between
+afternoon and night, as now, where the eye could reach nothing of the
+world outside the summits and shoulders of heathland which filled the
+whole circumference of its glance, and to know that everything around
+and underneath had been from prehistoric times as unaltered as the
+stars overhead, gave ballast to the mind adrift on change, and harassed
+by the irrepressible New. The great inviolate place had an ancient
+permanence which the sea cannot claim. Who can say of a particular sea
+that it is old? Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon, it is
+renewed in a year, in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed, the fields
+changed, the rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon
+remained. Those surfaces were neither so steep as to be destructible by
+weather, nor so flat as to be the victims of floods and deposits. With
+the exception of an aged highway, and a still more aged barrow
+presently to be referred to—themselves almost crystallized to natural
+products by long continuance—even the trifling irregularities were not
+caused by pickaxe, plough, or spade, but remained as the very
+finger-touches of the last geological change.
+
+The above-mentioned highway traversed the lower levels of the heath,
+from one horizon to another. In many portions of its course it overlaid
+an old vicinal way, which branched from the great Western road of the
+Romans, the Via Iceniana, or Ikenild Street, hard by. On the evening
+under consideration it would have been noticed that, though the gloom
+had increased sufficiently to confuse the minor features of the heath,
+the white surface of the road remained almost as clear as ever.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble
+
+
+Along the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a mountain,
+bowed in the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He wore a glazed
+hat, an ancient boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons bearing an
+anchor upon their face. In his hand was a silver-headed walking stick,
+which he used as a veritable third leg, perseveringly dotting the
+ground with its point at every few inches’ interval. One would have
+said that he had been, in his day, a naval officer of some sort or
+other.
+
+Before him stretched the long, laborious road, dry, empty, and white.
+It was quite open to the heath on each side, and bisected that vast
+dark surface like the parting-line on a head of black hair, diminishing
+and bending away on the furthest horizon.
+
+The old man frequently stretched his eyes ahead to gaze over the tract
+that he had yet to traverse. At length he discerned, a long distance in
+front of him, a moving spot, which appeared to be a vehicle, and it
+proved to be going the same way as that in which he himself was
+journeying. It was the single atom of life that the scene contained,
+and it only served to render the general loneliness more evident. Its
+rate of advance was slow, and the old man gained upon it sensibly.
+
+When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van, ordinary in
+shape, but singular in colour, this being a lurid red. The driver
+walked beside it; and, like his van, he was completely red. One dye of
+that tincture covered his clothes, the cap upon his head, his boots,
+his face, and his hands. He was not temporarily overlaid with the
+colour; it permeated him.
+
+The old man knew the meaning of this. The traveller with the cart was a
+reddleman—a person whose vocation it was to supply farmers with redding
+for their sheep. He was one of a class rapidly becoming extinct in
+Wessex, filling at present in the rural world the place which, during
+the last century, the dodo occupied in the world of animals. He is a
+curious, interesting, and nearly perished link between obsolete forms
+of life and those which generally prevail.
+
+The decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his fellow-wayfarer,
+and wished him good evening. The reddleman turned his head, and replied
+in sad and occupied tones. He was young, and his face, if not exactly
+handsome, approached so near to handsome that nobody would have
+contradicted an assertion that it really was so in its natural colour.
+His eye, which glared so strangely through his stain, was in itself
+attractive—keen as that of a bird of prey, and blue as autumn mist. He
+had neither whisker nor moustache, which allowed the soft curves of the
+lower part of his face to be apparent. His lips were thin, and though,
+as it seemed, compressed by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at
+their corners now and then. He was clothed throughout in a
+tight-fitting suit of corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn,
+and well-chosen for its purpose, but deprived of its original colour by
+his trade. It showed to advantage the good shape of his figure. A
+certain well-to-do air about the man suggested that he was not poor for
+his degree. The natural query of an observer would have been, Why
+should such a promising being as this have hidden his prepossessing
+exterior by adopting that singular occupation?
+
+After replying to the old man’s greeting he showed no inclination to
+continue in talk, although they still walked side by side, for the
+elder traveller seemed to desire company. There were no sounds but that
+of the booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around them, the
+crackling wheels, the tread of the men, and the footsteps of the two
+shaggy ponies which drew the van. They were small, hardy animals, of a
+breed between Galloway and Exmoor, and were known as “heath-croppers”
+here.
+
+Now, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman occasionally left
+his companion’s side, and, stepping behind the van, looked into its
+interior through a small window. The look was always anxious. He would
+then return to the old man, who made another remark about the state of
+the country and so on, to which the reddleman again abstractedly
+replied, and then again they would lapse into silence. The silence
+conveyed to neither any sense of awkwardness; in these lonely places
+wayfarers, after a first greeting, frequently plod on for miles without
+speech; contiguity amounts to a tacit conversation where, otherwise
+than in cities, such contiguity can be put an end to on the merest
+inclination, and where not to put an end to it is intercourse in
+itself.
+
+Possibly these two might not have spoken again till their parting, had
+it not been for the reddleman’s visits to his van. When he returned
+from his fifth time of looking in the old man said, “You have something
+inside there besides your load?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Somebody who wants looking after?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Not long after this a faint cry sounded from the interior. The
+reddleman hastened to the back, looked in, and came away again.
+
+“You have a child there, my man?”
+
+“No, sir, I have a woman.”
+
+“The deuce you have! Why did she cry out?”
+
+“Oh, she has fallen asleep, and not being used to traveling, she’s
+uneasy, and keeps dreaming.”
+
+“A young woman?”
+
+“Yes, a young woman.”
+
+“That would have interested me forty years ago. Perhaps she’s your
+wife?”
+
+“My wife!” said the other bitterly. “She’s above mating with such as I.
+But there’s no reason why I should tell you about that.”
+
+“That’s true. And there’s no reason why you should not. What harm can I
+do to you or to her?”
+
+The reddleman looked in the old man’s face. “Well, sir,” he said at
+last, “I knew her before today, though perhaps it would have been
+better if I had not. But she’s nothing to me, and I am nothing to her;
+and she wouldn’t have been in my van if any better carriage had been
+there to take her.”
+
+“Where, may I ask?”
+
+“At Anglebury.”
+
+“I know the town well. What was she doing there?”
+
+“Oh, not much—to gossip about. However, she’s tired to death now, and
+not at all well, and that’s what makes her so restless. She dropped off
+into a nap about an hour ago, and ’twill do her good.”
+
+“A nice-looking girl, no doubt?”
+
+“You would say so.”
+
+The other traveller turned his eyes with interest towards the van
+window, and, without withdrawing them, said, “I presume I might look in
+upon her?”
+
+“No,” said the reddleman abruptly. “It is getting too dark for you to
+see much of her; and, more than that, I have no right to allow you.
+Thank God she sleeps so well, I hope she won’t wake till she’s home.”
+
+“Who is she? One of the neighbourhood?”
+
+“’Tis no matter who, excuse me.”
+
+“It is not that girl of Blooms-End, who has been talked about more or
+less lately? If so, I know her; and I can guess what has happened.”
+
+“’Tis no matter.... Now, sir, I am sorry to say that we shall soon have
+to part company. My ponies are tired, and I have further to go, and I
+am going to rest them under this bank for an hour.”
+
+The elder traveller nodded his head indifferently, and the reddleman
+turned his horses and van in upon the turf, saying, “Good night.” The
+old man replied, and proceeded on his way as before.
+
+The reddleman watched his form as it diminished to a speck on the road
+and became absorbed in the thickening films of night. He then took some
+hay from a truss which was slung up under the van, and, throwing a
+portion of it in front of the horses, made a pad of the rest, which he
+laid on the ground beside his vehicle. Upon this he sat down, leaning
+his back against the wheel. From the interior a low soft breathing came
+to his ear. It appeared to satisfy him, and he musingly surveyed the
+scene, as if considering the next step that he should take.
+
+To do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed, to be a
+duty in the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour, for there was that
+in the condition of the heath itself which resembled protracted and
+halting dubiousness. It was the quality of the repose appertaining to
+the scene. This was not the repose of actual stagnation, but the
+apparent repose of incredible slowness. A condition of healthy life so
+nearly resembling the torpor of death is a noticeable thing of its
+sort; to exhibit the inertness of the desert, and at the same time to
+be exercising powers akin to those of the meadow, and even of the
+forest, awakened in those who thought of it the attentiveness usually
+engendered by understatement and reserve.
+
+The scene before the reddleman’s eyes was a gradual series of ascents
+from the level of the road backward into the heart of the heath. It
+embraced hillocks, pits, ridges, acclivities, one behind the other,
+till all was finished by a high hill cutting against the still light
+sky. The traveller’s eye hovered about these things for a time, and
+finally settled upon one noteworthy object up there. It was a barrow.
+This bossy projection of earth above its natural level occupied the
+loftiest ground of the loneliest height that the heath contained.
+Although from the vale it appeared but as a wart on an Atlantean brow,
+its actual bulk was great. It formed the pole and axis of this heathery
+world.
+
+As the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware that its
+summit, hitherto the highest object in the whole prospect round, was
+surmounted by something higher. It rose from the semiglobular mound
+like a spike from a helmet. The first instinct of an imaginative
+stranger might have been to suppose it the person of one of the Celts
+who built the barrow, so far had all of modern date withdrawn from the
+scene. It seemed a sort of last man among them, musing for a moment
+before dropping into eternal night with the rest of his race.
+
+There the form stood, motionless as the hill beneath. Above the plain
+rose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow
+rose the figure. Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped
+elsewhere than on a celestial globe.
+
+Such a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did the figure give to
+the dark pile of hills that it seemed to be the only obvious
+justification of their outline. Without it, there was the dome without
+the lantern; with it the architectural demands of the mass were
+satisfied. The scene was strangely homogeneous, in that the vale, the
+upland, the barrow, and the figure above it amounted only to unity.
+Looking at this or that member of the group was not observing a
+complete thing, but a fraction of a thing.
+
+The form was so much like an organic part of the entire motionless
+structure that to see it move would have impressed the mind as a
+strange phenomenon. Immobility being the chief characteristic of that
+whole which the person formed portion of, the discontinuance of
+immobility in any quarter suggested confusion.
+
+Yet that is what happened. The figure perceptibly gave up its fixity,
+shifted a step or two, and turned round. As if alarmed, it descended on
+the right side of the barrow, with the glide of a water-drop down a
+bud, and then vanished. The movement had been sufficient to show more
+clearly the characteristics of the figure, and that it was a woman’s.
+
+The reason of her sudden displacement now appeared. With her dropping
+out of sight on the right side, a newcomer, bearing a burden, protruded
+into the sky on the left side, ascended the tumulus, and deposited the
+burden on the top. A second followed, then a third, a fourth, a fifth,
+and ultimately the whole barrow was peopled with burdened figures.
+
+The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of
+silhouettes was that the woman had no relation to the forms who had
+taken her place, was sedulously avoiding these, and had come thither
+for another object than theirs. The imagination of the observer clung
+by preference to that vanished, solitary figure, as to something more
+interesting, more important, more likely to have a history worth
+knowing than these newcomers, and unconsciously regarded them as
+intruders. But they remained, and established themselves; and the
+lonely person who hitherto had been queen of the solitude did not at
+present seem likely to return.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+The Custom of the Country
+
+
+Had a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity of the barrow, he
+would have learned that these persons were boys and men of the
+neighbouring hamlets. Each, as he ascended the barrow, had been heavily
+laden with furze faggots, carried upon the shoulder by means of a long
+stake sharpened at each end for impaling them easily—two in front and
+two behind. They came from a part of the heath a quarter of a mile to
+the rear, where furze almost exclusively prevailed as a product.
+
+Every individual was so involved in furze by his method of carrying the
+faggots that he appeared like a bush on legs till he had thrown them
+down. The party had marched in trail, like a travelling flock of sheep;
+that is to say, the strongest first, the weak and young behind.
+
+The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze thirty feet in
+circumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus, which was known as
+Rainbarrow for many miles round. Some made themselves busy with
+matches, and in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in
+loosening the bramble bonds which held the faggots together. Others,
+again, while this was in progress, lifted their eyes and swept the vast
+expanse of country commanded by their position, now lying nearly
+obliterated by shade. In the valleys of the heath nothing save its own
+wild face was visible at any time of day; but this spot commanded a
+horizon enclosing a tract of far extent, and in many cases lying beyond
+the heath country. None of its features could be seen now, but the
+whole made itself felt as a vague stretch of remoteness.
+
+While the men and lads were building the pile, a change took place in
+the mass of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red suns and
+tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country
+round. They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were
+engaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and stood
+in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale straw-like beams
+radiated around them in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near,
+glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. Some
+were Mænades, with winy faces and blown hair. These tinctured the
+silent bosom of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral caves,
+which seemed thenceforth to become scalding caldrons. Perhaps as many
+as thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole bounds of the
+district; and as the hour may be told on a clock-face when the figures
+themselves are invisible, so did the men recognize the locality of each
+fire by its angle and direction, though nothing of the scenery could be
+viewed.
+
+The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting
+all eyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to
+their own attempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the
+inner surface of the human circle—now increased by other stragglers,
+male and female—with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark
+turf around with a lively luminousness, which softened off into
+obscurity where the barrow rounded downwards out of sight. It showed
+the barrow to be the segment of a globe, as perfect as on the day when
+it was thrown up, even the little ditch remaining from which the earth
+was dug. Not a plough had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn soil.
+In the heath’s barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility to the
+historian. There had been no obliteration, because there had been no
+tending.
+
+It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some radiant upper
+story of the world, detached from and independent of the dark stretches
+below. The heath down there was now a vast abyss, and no longer a
+continuation of what they stood on; for their eyes, adapted to the
+blaze, could see nothing of the deeps beyond its influence.
+Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than usual from their
+faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp down the inclines to
+some distant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling these to
+replies of the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again. Then
+the whole black phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the
+brink by the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered
+articulations of the wind in the hollows were as complaints and
+petitions from the “souls of mighty worth” suspended therein.
+
+It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into past ages, and
+fetched therefrom an hour and deed which had before been familiar with
+this spot. The ashes of the original British pyre which blazed from
+that summit lay fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their
+tread. The flames from funeral piles long ago kindled there had shone
+down upon the lowlands as these were shining now. Festival fires to
+Thor and Woden had followed on the same ground and duly had their day.
+Indeed, it is pretty well known that such blazes as this the heathmen
+were now enjoying are rather the lineal descendants from jumbled
+Druidical rites and Saxon ceremonies than the invention of popular
+feeling about Gunpowder Plot.
+
+Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man
+when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature.
+It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against that fiat
+that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness,
+misery and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the earth
+say, Let there be light.
+
+The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled upon the skin and
+clothes of the persons standing round caused their lineaments and
+general contours to be drawn with Dureresque vigour and dash. Yet the
+permanent moral expression of each face it was impossible to discover,
+for as the nimble flames towered, nodded, and swooped through the
+surrounding air, the blots of shade and flakes of light upon the
+countenances of the group changed shape and position endlessly. All was
+unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning. Shadowy
+eye-sockets, deep as those of a death’s head, suddenly turned into pits
+of lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining; wrinkles
+were emphasized to ravines, or obliterated entirely by a changed ray.
+Nostrils were dark wells; sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings;
+things with no particular polish on them were glazed; bright objects,
+such as the tip of a furze-hook one of the men carried, were as glass;
+eyeballs glowed like little lanterns. Those whom Nature had depicted as
+merely quaint became grotesque, the grotesque became preternatural; for
+all was in extremity.
+
+Hence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like others been
+called to the heights by the rising flames, was not really the mere
+nose and chin that it appeared to be, but an appreciable quantity of
+human countenance. He stood complacently sunning himself in the heat.
+With a speaker, or stake, he tossed the outlying scraps of fuel into
+the conflagration, looking at the midst of the pile, occasionally
+lifting his eyes to measure the height of the flame, or to follow the
+great sparks which rose with it and sailed away into darkness. The
+beaming sight, and the penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a
+cumulative cheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight. With his stick
+in his hand he began to jig a private minuet, a bunch of copper seals
+shining and swinging like a pendulum from under his waistcoat: he also
+began to sing, in the voice of a bee up a flue—
+
+“The king′ call’d down′ his no-bles all′,
+By one′, by two′, by three′;
+Earl Mar′-shal, I’ll′ go shrive′-the queen′,
+And thou′ shalt wend′ with me′.
+
+“A boon′, a boon′, quoth Earl′ Mar-shal′,
+And fell′ on his bend′-ded knee′,
+That what′-so-e’er′ the queen′ shall say′,
+No harm′ there-of′ may be′.”
+
+
+Want of breath prevented a continuance of the song; and the breakdown
+attracted the attention of a firm-standing man of middle age, who kept
+each corner of his crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back into his
+cheek, as if to do away with any suspicion of mirthfulness which might
+erroneously have attached to him.
+
+“A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard ’tis too much for the
+mouldy weasand of such a old man as you,” he said to the wrinkled
+reveller. “Dostn’t wish th’ wast three sixes again, Grandfer, as you
+was when you first learnt to sing it?”
+
+“Hey?” said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his dance.
+
+“Dostn’t wish wast young again, I say? There’s a hole in thy poor
+bellows nowadays seemingly.”
+
+“But there’s good art in me? If I couldn’t make a little wind go a long
+ways I should seem no younger than the most aged man, should I,
+Timothy?”
+
+“And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet Woman
+Inn?” the other inquired, pointing towards a dim light in the direction
+of the distant highway, but considerably apart from where the reddleman
+was at that moment resting. “What’s the rights of the matter about ’em?
+You ought to know, being an understanding man.”
+
+“But a little rakish, hey? I own to it. Master Cantle is that, or he’s
+nothing. Yet ’tis a gay fault, neighbour Fairway, that age will cure.”
+
+“I heard that they were coming home tonight. By this time they must
+have come. What besides?”
+
+“The next thing is for us to go and wish ’em joy, I suppose?”
+
+“Well, no.”
+
+“No? Now, I thought we must. I must, or ’twould be very unlike me—the
+first in every spree that’s going!
+
+“Do thou′ put on′ a fri′-ar’s coat′,
+And I’ll′ put on′ a-no′-ther,
+And we′ will to′ Queen Ele′anor go′,
+Like Fri′ar and′ his bro′ther.
+
+
+I met Mis’ess Yeobright, the young bride’s aunt, last night, and she
+told me that her son Clym was coming home a’ Christmas. Wonderful
+clever, ’a believe—ah, I should like to have all that’s under that
+young man’s hair. Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry
+way, and she said, ‘O that what’s shaped so venerable should talk like
+a fool!’—that’s what she said to me. I don’t care for her, be jowned if
+I do, and so I told her. ‘Be jowned if I care for ’ee,’ I said. I had
+her there—hey?”
+
+“I rather think she had you,” said Fairway.
+
+“No,” said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly flagging. “’Tisn’t
+so bad as that with me?”
+
+“Seemingly ’tis, however, is it because of the wedding that Clym is
+coming home a’ Christmas—to make a new arrangement because his mother
+is now left in the house alone?”
+
+“Yes, yes—that’s it. But, Timothy, hearken to me,” said the Grandfer
+earnestly. “Though known as such a joker, I be an understanding man if
+you catch me serious, and I am serious now. I can tell ’ee lots about
+the married couple. Yes, this morning at six o’clock they went up the
+country to do the job, and neither vell nor mark have been seen of ’em
+since, though I reckon that this afternoon has brought ’em home again
+man and woman—wife, that is. Isn’t it spoke like a man, Timothy, and
+wasn’t Mis’ess Yeobright wrong about me?”
+
+“Yes, it will do. I didn’t know the two had walked together since last
+fall, when her aunt forbad the banns. How long has this new set-to been
+in mangling then? Do you know, Humphrey?”
+
+“Yes, how long?” said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise turning to
+Humphrey. “I ask that question.”
+
+“Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might have the man
+after all,” replied Humphrey, without removing his eyes from the fire.
+He was a somewhat solemn young fellow, and carried the hook and leather
+gloves of a furze-cutter, his legs, by reason of that occupation, being
+sheathed in bulging leggings as stiff as the Philistine’s greaves of
+brass. “That’s why they went away to be married, I count. You see,
+after kicking up such a nunny-watch and forbidding the banns ’twould
+have made Mis’ess Yeobright seem foolish-like to have a banging wedding
+in the same parish all as if she’d never gainsaid it.”
+
+“Exactly—seem foolish-like; and that’s very bad for the poor things
+that be so, though I only guess as much, to be sure,” said Grandfer
+Cantle, still strenuously preserving a sensible bearing and mien.
+
+“Ah, well, I was at church that day,” said Fairway, “which was a very
+curious thing to happen.”
+
+“If ’twasn’t my name’s Simple,” said the Grandfer emphatically. “I
+ha’n’t been there to-year; and now the winter is a-coming on I won’t
+say I shall.”
+
+“I ha’n’t been these three years,” said Humphrey; “for I’m so dead
+sleepy of a Sunday; and ’tis so terrible far to get there; and when you
+do get there ’tis such a mortal poor chance that you’ll be chose for up
+above, when so many bain’t, that I bide at home and don’t go at all.”
+
+“I not only happened to be there,” said Fairway, with a fresh
+collection of emphasis, “but I was sitting in the same pew as Mis’ess
+Yeobright. And though you may not see it as such, it fairly made my
+blood run cold to hear her. Yes, it is a curious thing; but it made my
+blood run cold, for I was close at her elbow.” The speaker looked round
+upon the bystanders, now drawing closer to hear him, with his lips
+gathered tighter than ever in the rigorousness of his descriptive
+moderation.
+
+“’Tis a serious job to have things happen to ’ee there,” said a woman
+behind.
+
+“‘Ye are to declare it,’ was the parson’s words,” Fairway continued.
+“And then up stood a woman at my side—a-touching of me. ‘Well, be
+damned if there isn’t Mis’ess Yeobright a-standing up,’ I said to
+myself. Yes, neighbours, though I was in the temple of prayer that’s
+what I said. ’Tis against my conscience to curse and swear in company,
+and I hope any woman here will overlook it. Still what I did say I did
+say, and ’twould be a lie if I didn’t own it.”
+
+“So ’twould, neighbour Fairway.”
+
+“‘Be damned if there isn’t Mis’ess Yeobright a-standing up,’ I said,”
+the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the same
+passionless severity of face as before, which proved how entirely
+necessity and not gusto had to do with the iteration. “And the next
+thing I heard was, ‘I forbid the banns,’ from her. ‘I’ll speak to you
+after the service,’ said the parson, in quite a homely way—yes, turning
+all at once into a common man no holier than you or I. Ah, her face was
+pale! Maybe you can call to mind that monument in Weatherbury
+church—the cross-legged soldier that have had his arm knocked away by
+the schoolchildren? Well, he would about have matched that woman’s
+face, when she said, ‘I forbid the banns.’”
+
+The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into the
+fire, not because these deeds were urgent, but to give themselves time
+to weigh the moral of the story.
+
+“I’m sure when I heard they’d been forbid I felt as glad as if anybody
+had gied me sixpence,” said an earnest voice—that of Olly Dowden, a
+woman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms. Her nature was to be
+civil to enemies as well as to friends, and grateful to all the world
+for letting her remain alive.
+
+“And now the maid have married him just the same,” said Humphrey.
+
+“After that Mis’ess Yeobright came round and was quite agreeable,”
+Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that his words were no
+appendage to Humphrey’s, but the result of independent reflection.
+
+“Supposing they were ashamed, I don’t see why they shouldn’t have done
+it here-right,” said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked like shoes
+whenever she stooped or turned. “’Tis well to call the neighbours
+together and to hae a good racket once now and then; and it may as well
+be when there’s a wedding as at tide-times. I don’t care for close
+ways.”
+
+“Ah, now, you’d hardly believe it, but I don’t care for gay weddings,”
+said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round. “I hardly blame
+Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet, if I must
+own it. A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by the hour;
+and they do a man’s legs no good when he’s over forty.”
+
+“True. Once at the woman’s house you can hardly say nay to being one in
+a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself worth
+your victuals.”
+
+“You be bound to dance at Christmas because ’tis the time o’ year; you
+must dance at weddings because ’tis the time o’ life. At christenings
+folk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if ’tis no further on than the
+first or second chiel. And this is not naming the songs you’ve got to
+sing.... For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as anything.
+You’ve as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties, and even
+better. And it don’t wear your legs to stumps in talking over a poor
+fellow’s ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes.”
+
+“Nine folks out of ten would own ’twas going too far to dance then, I
+suppose?” suggested Grandfer Cantle.
+
+“’Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the mug
+have been round a few times.”
+
+“Well, I can’t understand a quiet ladylike little body like Tamsin
+Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way,” said Susan Nunsuch,
+the wide woman, who preferred the original subject. “’Tis worse than
+the poorest do. And I shouldn’t have cared about the man, though some
+may say he’s good-looking.”
+
+“To give him his due he’s a clever, learned fellow in his way—a’most as
+clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought up to better things
+than keeping the Quiet Woman. An engineer—that’s what the man was, as
+we know; but he threw away his chance, and so ’a took a public house to
+live. His learning was no use to him at all.”
+
+“Very often the case,” said Olly, the besom-maker. “And yet how people
+do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn’t use to
+make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names
+now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot—what
+do I say?—why, almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and elbows
+upon.”
+
+“True—’tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to,” said
+Humphrey.
+
+“Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called),
+in the year four,” chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, “I didn’t know
+no more what the world was like than the commonest man among ye. And
+now, jown it all, I won’t say what I bain’t fit for, hey?”
+
+“Couldst sign the book, no doubt,” said Fairway, “if wast young enough
+to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and Mis’ess Tamsin,
+which is more than Humph there could do, for he follows his father in
+learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy
+father’s mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name. He
+and your mother were the couple married just afore we were and there
+stood they father’s cross with arms stretched out like a great banging
+scarecrow. What a terrible black cross that was—thy father’s very
+likeness in en! To save my soul I couldn’t help laughing when I zid en,
+though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the marrying,
+and what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack Changley
+and a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window. But the next
+moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I called to mind
+that if thy father and mother had had high words once, they’d been at
+it twenty times since they’d been man and wife, and I zid myself as the
+next poor stunpoll to get into the same mess.... Ah—well, what a day
+’twas!”
+
+“Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few summers. A pretty
+maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to tear her
+smock for a man like that.”
+
+The speaker, a peat- or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group,
+carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large
+dimensions used in that species of labour, and its well-whetted edge
+gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.
+
+“A hundred maidens would have had him if he’d asked ’em,” said the wide
+woman.
+
+“Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would marry?”
+inquired Humphrey.
+
+“I never did,” said the turf-cutter.
+
+“Nor I,” said another.
+
+“Nor I,” said Grandfer Cantle.
+
+“Well, now, I did once,” said Timothy Fairway, adding more firmness to
+one of his legs. “I did know of such a man. But only once, mind.” He
+gave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it were the duty of every
+person not to be mistaken through thickness of voice. “Yes, I knew of
+such a man,” he said.
+
+“And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been like,
+Master Fairway?” asked the turf-cutter.
+
+“Well, ’a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man. What
+’a was I don’t say.”
+
+“Is he known in these parts?” said Olly Dowden.
+
+“Hardly,” said Timothy; “but I name no name.... Come, keep the fire up
+there, youngsters.”
+
+“Whatever is Christian Cantle’s teeth a-chattering for?” said a boy
+from amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze. “Be ye
+a-cold, Christian?”
+
+A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, “No, not at all.”
+
+“Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn’t know you were
+here,” said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that quarter.
+
+Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a
+great quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes, advanced a step
+or two by his own will, and was pushed by the will of others half a
+dozen steps more. He was Grandfer Cantle’s youngest son.
+
+“What be ye quaking for, Christian?” said the turf-cutter kindly.
+
+“I’m the man.”
+
+“What man?”
+
+“The man no woman will marry.”
+
+“The deuce you be!” said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to cover
+Christian’s whole surface and a great deal more, Grandfer Cantle
+meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.
+
+“Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard,” said Christian. “D’ye think
+’twill hurt me? I shall always say I don’t care, and swear to it,
+though I do care all the while.”
+
+“Well, be damned if this isn’t the queerest start ever I know’d,” said
+Mr. Fairway. “I didn’t mean you at all. There’s another in the country,
+then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune, Christian?”
+
+“’Twas to be if ’twas, I suppose. I can’t help it, can I?” He turned
+upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by concentric lines
+like targets.
+
+“No, that’s true. But ’tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran cold
+when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had
+thought only one. ’Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How’st know the
+women won’t hae thee?”
+
+“I’ve asked ’em.”
+
+“Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what did
+the last one say to ye? Nothing that can’t be got over, perhaps, after
+all?”
+
+“‘Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
+fool,’ was the woman’s words to me.”
+
+“Not encouraging, I own,” said Fairway. “‘Get out of my sight, you
+slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,’ is rather a hard way of
+saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as
+to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy’s head. How old be
+you, Christian?”
+
+“Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway.”
+
+“Not a boy—not a boy. Still there’s hope yet.”
+
+“That’s my age by baptism, because that’s put down in the great book of
+the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but Mother told me I was
+born some time afore I was christened.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“But she couldn’t tell when, to save her life, except that there was no
+moon.”
+
+“No moon—that’s bad. Hey, neighbours, that’s bad for him!”
+
+“Yes, ’tis bad,” said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.
+
+“Mother know’d ’twas no moon, for she asked another woman that had an
+almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the
+saying, ‘No moon, no man,’ which made her afeard every man-child she
+had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no
+moon?”
+
+“Yes. ‘No moon, no man.’ ’Tis one of the truest sayings ever spit out.
+The boy never comes to anything that’s born at new moon. A bad job for
+thee, Christian, that you should have showed your nose then of all days
+in the month.”
+
+“I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?” said
+Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.
+
+“Well, ’a was not new,” Mr. Fairway replied, with a disinterested gaze.
+
+“I’d sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of no moon,”
+continued Christian, in the same shattered recitative. “’Tis said I be
+only the rames of a man, and no good for my race at all; and I suppose
+that’s the cause o’t.”
+
+“Ay,” said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; “and yet his
+mother cried for scores of hours when ’a was a boy, for fear he should
+outgrow hisself and go for a soldier.”
+
+“Well, there’s many just as bad as he.” said Fairway.
+
+“Wethers must live their time as well as other sheep, poor soul.”
+
+“So perhaps I shall rub on? Ought I to be afeared o’ nights, Master
+Fairway?”
+
+“You’ll have to lie alone all your life; and ’tis not to married
+couples but to single sleepers that a ghost shows himself when ’a do
+come. One has been seen lately, too. A very strange one.”
+
+“No—don’t talk about it if ’tis agreeable of ye not to! ’Twill make my
+skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. But you will—ah, you will,
+I know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night o’t! A very strange one?
+What sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye said, a very strange one,
+Timothy?—no, no—don’t tell me.”
+
+“I don’t half believe in spirits myself. But I think it ghostly
+enough—what I was told. ’Twas a little boy that zid it.”
+
+“What was it like?—no, don’t—”
+
+“A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if it had been
+dipped in blood.”
+
+Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand his body, and
+Humphrey said, “Where has it been seen?”
+
+“Not exactly here; but in this same heth. But ’tisn’t a thing to talk
+about. What do ye say,” continued Fairway in brisker tones, and turning
+upon them as if the idea had not been Grandfer Cantle’s—“what do you
+say to giving the new man and wife a bit of a song tonight afore we go
+to bed—being their wedding-day? When folks are just married ’tis as
+well to look glad o’t, since looking sorry won’t unjoin ’em. I am no
+drinker, as we know, but when the womenfolk and youngsters have gone
+home we can drop down across to the Quiet Woman, and strike up a ballet
+in front of the married folks’ door. ’Twill please the young wife, and
+that’s what I should like to do, for many’s the skinful I’ve had at her
+hands when she lived with her aunt at Blooms-End.”
+
+“Hey? And so we will!” said Grandfer Cantle, turning so briskly that
+his copper seals swung extravagantly. “I’m as dry as a kex with biding
+up here in the wind, and I haven’t seen the colour of drink since
+nammet-time today. ’Tis said that the last brew at the Woman is very
+pretty drinking. And, neighbours, if we should be a little late in the
+finishing, why, tomorrow’s Sunday, and we can sleep it off?”
+
+“Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless for an old man,” said
+the wide woman.
+
+“I take things careless; I do—too careless to please the women! Klk!
+I’ll sing the ‘Jovial Crew,’ or any other song, when a weak old man
+would cry his eyes out. Jown it; I am up for anything.
+
+“The king′ look’d o′-ver his left′ shoul-der′,
+And a grim′ look look′-ed hee′,
+Earl Mar′-shal, he said′, but for′ my oath′
+Or hang′-ed thou′ shouldst bee′.”
+
+
+“Well, that’s what we’ll do,” said Fairway. “We’ll give ’em a song, an’
+it please the Lord. What’s the good of Thomasin’s cousin Clym a-coming
+home after the deed’s done? He should have come afore, if so be he
+wanted to stop it, and marry her himself.”
+
+“Perhaps he’s coming to bide with his mother a little time, as she must
+feel lonely now the maid’s gone.”
+
+“Now, ’tis very odd, but I never feel lonely—no, not at all,” said
+Grandfer Cantle. “I am as brave in the nighttime as a’ admiral!”
+
+The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for the fuel had
+not been of that substantial sort which can support a blaze long. Most
+of the other fires within the wide horizon were also dwindling weak.
+Attentive observation of their brightness, colour, and length of
+existence would have revealed the quality of the material burnt, and
+through that, to some extent the natural produce of the district in
+which each bonfire was situate. The clear, kingly effulgence that had
+characterized the majority expressed a heath and furze country like
+their own, which in one direction extended an unlimited number of
+miles; the rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the compass
+showed the lightest of fuel—straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste from
+arable land. The most enduring of all—steady unaltering eyes like
+Planets—signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots, and
+stout billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare, and
+though comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient blazes,
+now began to get the best of them by mere long continuance. The great
+ones had perished, but these remained. They occupied the remotest
+visible positions—sky-backed summits rising out of rich coppice and
+plantation districts to the north, where the soil was different, and
+heath foreign and strange.
+
+Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the whole
+shining throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to that of the
+little window in the vale below. Its nearness was such that,
+notwithstanding its actual smallness, its glow infinitely transcended
+theirs.
+
+This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and when
+their own fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more; some even
+of the wood fires more recently lighted had reached their decline, but
+no change was perceptible here.
+
+“To be sure, how near that fire is!” said Fairway. “Seemingly. I can
+see a fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and good must be
+said of that fire, surely.”
+
+“I can throw a stone there,” said the boy.
+
+“And so can I!” said Grandfer Cantle.
+
+“No, no, you can’t, my sonnies. That fire is not much less than a mile
+off, for all that ’a seems so near.”
+
+“’Tis in the heath, but no furze,” said the turf-cutter.
+
+“’Tis cleft-wood, that’s what ’tis,” said Timothy Fairway. “Nothing
+would burn like that except clean timber. And ’tis on the knap afore
+the old captain’s house at Mistover. Such a queer mortal as that man
+is! To have a little fire inside your own bank and ditch, that nobody
+else may enjoy it or come anigh it! And what a zany an old chap must
+be, to light a bonfire when there’s no youngsters to please.”
+
+“Cap’n Vye has been for a long walk today, and is quite tired out,”
+said Grandfer Cantle, “so ’tisn’t likely to be he.”
+
+“And he would hardly afford good fuel like that,” said the wide woman.
+
+“Then it must be his granddaughter,” said Fairway. “Not that a body of
+her age can want a fire much.”
+
+“She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and such
+things please her,” said Susan.
+
+“She’s a well-favoured maid enough,” said Humphrey the furze-cutter,
+“especially when she’s got one of her dandy gowns on.”
+
+“That’s true,” said Fairway. “Well, let her bonfire burn an’t will.
+Ours is well-nigh out by the look o’t.”
+
+“How dark ’tis now the fire’s gone down!” said Christian Cantle,
+looking behind him with his hare eyes. “Don’t ye think we’d better get
+home-along, neighbours? The heth isn’t haunted, I know; but we’d better
+get home.... Ah, what was that?”
+
+“Only the wind,” said the turf-cutter.
+
+“I don’t think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by night except
+in towns. It should be by day in outstep, ill-accounted places like
+this!”
+
+“Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy, dear, you
+and I will have a jig—hey, my honey?—before ’tis quite too dark to see
+how well-favoured you be still, though so many summers have passed
+since your husband, a son of a witch, snapped you up from me.”
+
+This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of which
+the beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron’s broad form
+whisking off towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled. She
+was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway’s arm, which had been flung round her
+waist before she had become aware of his intention. The site of the
+fire was now merely a circle of ashes flecked with red embers and
+sparks, the furze having burnt completely away. Once within the circle
+he whirled her round and round in a dance. She was a woman noisily
+constructed; in addition to her enclosing framework of whalebone and
+lath, she wore pattens summer and winter, in wet weather and in dry, to
+preserve her boots from wear; and when Fairway began to jump about with
+her, the clicking of the pattens, the creaking of the stays, and her
+screams of surprise, formed a very audible concert.
+
+“I’ll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!” said Mrs. Nunsuch,
+as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like
+drumsticks among the sparks. “My ankles were all in a fever before,
+from walking through that prickly furze, and now you must make ’em
+worse with these vlankers!”
+
+The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter seized
+old Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with her
+likewise. The young men were not slow to imitate the example of their
+elders, and seized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in
+the form of a three-legged object among the rest; and in half a minute
+all that could be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling of dark shapes amid
+a boiling confusion of sparks, which leapt around the dancers as high
+as their waists. The chief noises were women’s shrill cries, men’s
+laughter, Susan’s stays and pattens, Olly Dowden’s “heu-heu-heu!” and
+the strumming of the wind upon the furze-bushes, which formed a kind of
+tune to the demoniac measure they trod. Christian alone stood aloof,
+uneasily rocking himself as he murmured, “They ought not to do it—how
+the vlankers do fly! ’tis tempting the Wicked one, ’tis.”
+
+“What was that?” said one of the lads, stopping.
+
+“Ah—where?” said Christian, hastily closing up to the rest.
+
+The dancers all lessened their speed.
+
+“’Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it—down here.”
+
+“Yes—’tis behind me!” Christian said. “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
+bless the bed that I lie on; four angels guard—”
+
+“Hold your tongue. What is it?” said Fairway.
+
+“Hoi-i-i-i!” cried a voice from the darkness.
+
+“Halloo-o-o-o!” said Fairway.
+
+“Is there any cart track up across here to Mis’ess Yeobright’s, of
+Blooms-End?” came to them in the same voice, as a long, slim indistinct
+figure approached the barrow.
+
+“Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as ’tis
+getting late?” said Christian. “Not run away from one another, you
+know; run close together, I mean.”
+
+“Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze, so that we can
+see who the man is,” said Fairway.
+
+When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight raiment, and red
+from top to toe. “Is there a track across here to Mis’ess Yeobright’s
+house?” he repeated.
+
+“Ay—keep along the path down there.”
+
+“I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?”
+
+“Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The track is
+rough, but if you’ve got a light your horses may pick along wi’ care.
+Have ye brought your cart far up, neighbour reddleman?”
+
+“I’ve left it in the bottom, about half a mile back, I stepped on in
+front to make sure of the way, as ’tis night-time, and I han’t been
+here for so long.”
+
+“Oh, well you can get up,” said Fairway. “What a turn it did give me
+when I saw him!” he added to the whole group, the reddleman included.
+“Lord’s sake, I thought, whatever fiery mommet is this come to trouble
+us? No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain’t bad-looking in
+the groundwork, though the finish is queer. My meaning is just to say
+how curious I felt. I half thought it ’twas the devil or the red ghost
+the boy told of.”
+
+“It gied me a turn likewise,” said Susan Nunsuch, “for I had a dream
+last night of a death’s head.”
+
+“Don’t ye talk o’t no more,” said Christian. “If he had a handkerchief
+over his head he’d look for all the world like the Devil in the picture
+of the Temptation.”
+
+“Well, thank you for telling me,” said the young reddleman, smiling
+faintly. “And good night t’ye all.”
+
+He withdrew from their sight down the barrow.
+
+“I fancy I’ve seen that young man’s face before,” said Humphrey. “But
+where, or how, or what his name is, I don’t know.”
+
+The reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when another
+person approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to be a
+well-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing
+which can only be expressed by the word genteel. Her face, encompassed
+by the blackness of the receding heath, showed whitely, and without
+half-lights, like a cameo.
+
+She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of the type
+usually found where perspicacity is the chief quality enthroned within.
+At moments she seemed to be regarding issues from a Nebo denied to
+others around. She had something of an estranged mien; the solitude
+exhaled from the heath was concentrated in this face that had risen
+from it. The air with which she looked at the heathmen betokened a
+certain unconcern at their presence, or at what might be their opinions
+of her for walking in that lonely spot at such an hour, thus indirectly
+implying that in some respect or other they were not up to her level.
+The explanation lay in the fact that though her husband had been a
+small farmer she herself was a curate’s daughter, who had once dreamt
+of doing better things.
+
+Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their
+atmospheres along with them in their orbits; and the matron who entered
+now upon the scene could, and usually did, bring her own tone into a
+company. Her normal manner among the heathfolk had that reticence which
+results from the consciousness of superior communicative power. But the
+effect of coming into society and light after lonely wandering in
+darkness is a sociability in the comer above its usual pitch, expressed
+in the features even more than in words.
+
+“Why, ’tis Mis’ess Yeobright,” said Fairway. “Mis’ess Yeobright, not
+ten minutes ago a man was here asking for you—a reddleman.”
+
+“What did he want?” said she.
+
+“He didn’t tell us.”
+
+“Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss to
+understand.”
+
+“I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home at Christmas,
+ma’am,” said Sam, the turf-cutter. “What a dog he used to be for
+bonfires!”
+
+“Yes. I believe he is coming,” she said.
+
+“He must be a fine fellow by this time,” said Fairway.
+
+“He is a man now,” she replied quietly.
+
+“’Tis very lonesome for ’ee in the heth tonight, mis’ess,” said
+Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto maintained. “Mind
+you don’t get lost. Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in, and the
+winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard ’em afore. Them that
+know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times.”
+
+“Is that you, Christian?” said Mrs. Yeobright. “What made you hide away
+from me?”
+
+“’Twas that I didn’t know you in this light, mis’ess; and being a man
+of the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that’s all. Oftentimes
+if you could see how terrible down I get in my mind, ’twould make ’ee
+quite nervous for fear I should die by my hand.”
+
+“You don’t take after your father,” said Mrs. Yeobright, looking
+towards the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of originality,
+was dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others had done before.
+
+“Now, Grandfer,” said Timothy Fairway, “we are ashamed of ye. A
+reverent old patriarch man as you be—seventy if a day—to go hornpiping
+like that by yourself!”
+
+“A harrowing old man, Mis’ess Yeobright,” said Christian despondingly.
+“I wouldn’t live with him a week, so playward as he is, if I could get
+away.”
+
+“’Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome Mis’ess
+Yeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle,” said the
+besom-woman.
+
+“Faith, and so it would,” said the reveller checking himself
+repentantly. “I’ve such a bad memory, Mis’ess Yeobright, that I forget
+how I’m looked up to by the rest of ’em. My spirits must be wonderful
+good, you’ll say? But not always. ’Tis a weight upon a man to be looked
+up to as commander, and I often feel it.”
+
+“I am sorry to stop the talk,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “But I must be
+leaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road, towards my
+niece’s new home, who is returning tonight with her husband; and seeing
+the bonfire and hearing Olly’s voice among the rest I came up here to
+learn what was going on. I should like her to walk with me, as her way
+is mine.”
+
+“Ay, sure, ma’am, I’m just thinking of moving,” said Olly.
+
+“Why, you’ll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of,” said
+Fairway. “He’s only gone back to get his van. We heard that your niece
+and her husband were coming straight home as soon as they were married,
+and we are going down there shortly, to give ’em a song o’ welcome.”
+
+“Thank you indeed,” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you can go with
+long clothes; so we won’t trouble you to wait.”
+
+“Very well—are you ready, Olly?”
+
+“Yes, ma’am. And there’s a light shining from your niece’s window, see.
+It will help to keep us in the path.”
+
+She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley which Fairway
+had pointed out; and the two women descended the tumulus.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+The Halt on the Turnpike Road
+
+
+Down, downward they went, and yet further down—their descent at each
+step seeming to outmeasure their advance. Their skirts were scratched
+noisily by the furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which,
+though dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winter
+weather having as yet arrived to beat them down. Their Tartarean
+situation might by some have been called an imprudent one for two
+unattended women. But these shaggy recesses were at all seasons a
+familiar surrounding to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the addition of
+darkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.
+
+“And so Tamsin has married him at last,” said Olly, when the incline
+had become so much less steep that their foot-steps no longer required
+undivided attention.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright answered slowly, “Yes; at last.”
+
+“How you will miss her—living with ’ee as a daughter, as she always
+have.”
+
+“I do miss her.”
+
+Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely,
+was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive.
+Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with
+impunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright’s acquiescence in the
+revival of an evidently sore subject.
+
+“I was quite strook to hear you’d agreed to it, ma’am, that I was,”
+continued the besom-maker.
+
+“You were not more struck by it than I should have been last year this
+time, Olly. There are a good many sides to that wedding. I could not
+tell you all of them, even if I tried.”
+
+“I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with your
+family. Keeping an inn—what is it? But ’a’s clever, that’s true, and
+they say he was an engineering gentleman once, but has come down by
+being too outwardly given.”
+
+“I saw that, upon the whole, it would be better she should marry where
+she wished.”
+
+“Poor little thing, her feelings got the better of her, no doubt. ’Tis
+nature. Well, they may call him what they will—he’ve several acres of
+heth-ground broke up here, besides the public house, and the
+heth-croppers, and his manners be quite like a gentleman’s. And what’s
+done cannot be undone.”
+
+“It cannot,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “See, here’s the wagon-track at last.
+Now we shall get along better.”
+
+The wedding subject was no further dwelt upon; and soon a faint
+diverging path was reached, where they parted company, Olly first
+begging her companion to remind Mr. Wildeve that he had not sent her
+sick husband the bottle of wine promised on the occasion of his
+marriage. The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house,
+behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright followed the straight
+track, which further on joined the highway by the Quiet Woman Inn,
+whither she supposed her niece to have returned with Wildeve from their
+wedding at Anglebury that day.
+
+She first reached Wildeve’s Patch, as it was called, a plot of land
+redeemed from the heath, and after long and laborious years brought
+into cultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilled
+died of the labour; the man who succeeded him in possession ruined
+himself in fertilizing it. Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, and
+received the honours due to those who had gone before.
+
+When Mrs. Yeobright had drawn near to the inn, and was about to enter,
+she saw a horse and vehicle some two hundred yards beyond it, coming
+towards her, a man walking alongside with a lantern in his hand. It was
+soon evident that this was the reddleman who had inquired for her.
+Instead of entering the inn at once, she walked by it and towards the
+van.
+
+The conveyance came close, and the man was about to pass her with
+little notice, when she turned to him and said, “I think you have been
+inquiring for me? I am Mrs. Yeobright of Blooms-End.”
+
+The reddleman started, and held up his finger. He stopped the horses,
+and beckoned to her to withdraw with him a few yards aside, which she
+did, wondering.
+
+“You don’t know me, ma’am, I suppose?” he said.
+
+“I do not,” said she. “Why, yes, I do! You are young Venn—your father
+was a dairyman somewhere here?”
+
+“Yes; and I knew your niece, Miss Tamsin, a little. I have something
+bad to tell you.”
+
+“About her—no! She has just come home, I believe, with her husband.
+They arranged to return this afternoon—to the inn beyond here.”
+
+“She’s not there.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Because she’s here. She’s in my van,” he added slowly.
+
+“What new trouble has come?” murmured Mrs. Yeobright, putting her hand
+over her eyes.
+
+“I can’t explain much, ma’am. All I know is that, as I was going along
+the road this morning, about a mile out of Anglebury, I heard something
+trotting after me like a doe, and looking round there she was, white as
+death itself. ‘Oh, Diggory Venn!’ she said, ‘I thought ’twas you—will
+you help me? I am in trouble.’”
+
+“How did she know your Christian name?” said Mrs. Yeobright doubtingly.
+
+“I had met her as a lad before I went away in this trade. She asked
+then if she might ride, and then down she fell in a faint. I picked her
+up and put her in, and there she has been ever since. She has cried a
+good deal, but she has hardly spoke; all she has told me being that she
+was to have been married this morning. I tried to get her to eat
+something, but she couldn’t; and at last she fell asleep.”
+
+“Let me see her at once,” said Mrs. Yeobright, hastening towards the
+van.
+
+The reddleman followed with the lantern, and, stepping up first,
+assisted Mrs. Yeobright to mount beside him. On the door being opened
+she perceived at the end of the van an extemporized couch, around which
+was hung apparently all the drapery that the reddleman possessed, to
+keep the occupant of the little couch from contact with the red
+materials of his trade. A young girl lay thereon, covered with a cloak.
+She was asleep, and the light of the lantern fell upon her features.
+
+A fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed, reposing in a nest
+of wavy chestnut hair. It was between pretty and beautiful. Though her
+eyes were closed, one could easily imagine the light necessarily
+shining in them as the culmination of the luminous workmanship around.
+The groundwork of the face was hopefulness; but over it now lay like a
+foreign substance a film of anxiety and grief. The grief had been there
+so shortly as to have abstracted nothing of the bloom, and had as yet
+but given a dignity to what it might eventually undermine. The scarlet
+of her lips had not had time to abate, and just now it appeared still
+more intense by the absence of the neighbouring and more transient
+colour of her cheek. The lips frequently parted, with a murmur of
+words. She seemed to belong rightly to a madrigal—to require viewing
+through rhyme and harmony.
+
+One thing at least was obvious: she was not made to be looked at thus.
+The reddleman had appeared conscious of as much, and, while Mrs.
+Yeobright looked in upon her, he cast his eyes aside with a delicacy
+which well became him. The sleeper apparently thought so too, for the
+next moment she opened her own.
+
+The lips then parted with something of anticipation, something more of
+doubt; and her several thoughts and fractions of thoughts, as signalled
+by the changes on her face, were exhibited by the light to the utmost
+nicety. An ingenuous, transparent life was disclosed, as if the flow of
+her existence could be seen passing within her. She understood the
+scene in a moment.
+
+“O yes, it is I, Aunt,” she cried. “I know how frightened you are, and
+how you cannot believe it; but all the same, it is I who have come home
+like this!”
+
+“Tamsin, Tamsin!” said Mrs. Yeobright, stooping over the young woman
+and kissing her. “O my dear girl!”
+
+Thomasin was now on the verge of a sob, but by an unexpected
+self-command she uttered no sound. With a gentle panting breath she sat
+upright.
+
+“I did not expect to see you in this state, any more than you me,” she
+went on quickly. “Where am I, Aunt?”
+
+“Nearly home, my dear. In Egdon Bottom. What dreadful thing is it?”
+
+“I’ll tell you in a moment. So near, are we? Then I will get out and
+walk. I want to go home by the path.”
+
+“But this kind man who has done so much will, I am sure, take you right
+on to my house?” said the aunt, turning to the reddleman, who had
+withdrawn from the front of the van on the awakening of the girl, and
+stood in the road.
+
+“Why should you think it necessary to ask me? I will, of course,” said
+he.
+
+“He is indeed kind,” murmured Thomasin. “I was once acquainted with
+him, Aunt, and when I saw him today I thought I should prefer his van
+to any conveyance of a stranger. But I’ll walk now. Reddleman, stop the
+horses, please.”
+
+The man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped them
+
+Aunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright saying to
+its owner, “I quite recognize you now. What made you change from the
+nice business your father left you?”
+
+“Well, I did,” he said, and looked at Thomasin, who blushed a little.
+“Then you’ll not be wanting me any more tonight, ma’am?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills, at the
+perishing bonfires, and at the lighted window of the inn they had
+neared. “I think not,” she said, “since Thomasin wishes to walk. We can
+soon run up the path and reach home—we know it well.”
+
+And after a few further words they parted, the reddleman moving onwards
+with his van, and the two women remaining standing in the road. As soon
+as the vehicle and its driver had withdrawn so far as to be beyond all
+possible reach of her voice, Mrs. Yeobright turned to her niece.
+
+“Now, Thomasin,” she said sternly, “what’s the meaning of this
+disgraceful performance?”
+
+
+
+
+V.
+Perplexity among Honest People
+
+
+Thomasin looked as if quite overcome by her aunt’s change of manner.
+“It means just what it seems to mean: I am—not married,” she replied
+faintly. “Excuse me—for humiliating you, Aunt, by this mishap—I am
+sorry for it. But I cannot help it.”
+
+“Me? Think of yourself first.”
+
+“It was nobody’s fault. When we got there the parson wouldn’t marry us
+because of some trifling irregularity in the license.”
+
+“What irregularity?”
+
+“I don’t know. Mr. Wildeve can explain. I did not think when I went
+away this morning that I should come back like this.” It being dark,
+Thomasin allowed her emotion to escape her by the silent way of tears,
+which could roll down her cheek unseen.
+
+“I could almost say that it serves you right—if I did not feel that you
+don’t deserve it,” continued Mrs. Yeobright, who, possessing two
+distinct moods in close contiguity, a gentle mood and an angry, flew
+from one to the other without the least warning. “Remember, Thomasin,
+this business was none of my seeking; from the very first, when you
+began to feel foolish about that man, I warned you he would not make
+you happy. I felt it so strongly that I did what I would never have
+believed myself capable of doing—stood up in the church, and made
+myself the public talk for weeks. But having once consented, I don’t
+submit to these fancies without good reason. Marry him you must after
+this.”
+
+“Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?” said Thomasin,
+with a heavy sigh. “I know how wrong it was of me to love him, but
+don’t pain me by talking like that, Aunt! You would not have had me
+stay there with him, would you?—and your house is the only home I have
+to return to. He says we can be married in a day or two.”
+
+“I wish he had never seen you.”
+
+“Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not
+let him see me again. No, I won’t have him!”
+
+“It is too late to speak so. Come with me. I am going to the inn to see
+if he has returned. Of course I shall get to the bottom of this story
+at once. Mr. Wildeve must not suppose he can play tricks upon me, or
+any belonging to me.”
+
+“It was not that. The license was wrong, and he couldn’t get another
+the same day. He will tell you in a moment how it was, if he comes.”
+
+“Why didn’t he bring you back?”
+
+“That was me!” again sobbed Thomasin. “When I found we could not be
+married I didn’t like to come back with him, and I was very ill. Then I
+saw Diggory Venn, and was glad to get him to take me home. I cannot
+explain it any better, and you must be angry with me if you will.”
+
+“I shall see about that,” said Mrs. Yeobright; and they turned towards
+the inn, known in the neighbourhood as the Quiet Woman, the sign of
+which represented the figure of a matron carrying her head under her
+arm. The front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose
+dark shape seemed to threaten it from the sky. Upon the door was a
+neglected brass plate, bearing the unexpected inscription, “Mr.
+Wildeve, Engineer”—a useless yet cherished relic from the time when he
+had been started in that profession in an office at Budmouth by those
+who had hoped much from him, and had been disappointed. The garden was
+at the back, and behind this ran a still deep stream, forming the
+margin of the heath in that direction, meadow-land appearing beyond the
+stream.
+
+But the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be visible of any
+scene at present. The water at the back of the house could be heard,
+idly spinning whirpools in its creep between the rows of dry
+feather-headed reeds which formed a stockade along each bank. Their
+presence was denoted by sounds as of a congregation praying humbly,
+produced by their rubbing against each other in the slow wind.
+
+The window, whence the candlelight had shone up the vale to the eyes of
+the bonfire group, was uncurtained, but the sill lay too high for a
+pedestrian on the outside to look over it into the room. A vast shadow,
+in which could be dimly traced portions of a masculine contour, blotted
+half the ceiling.
+
+“He seems to be at home,” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Must I come in, too, Aunt?” asked Thomasin faintly. “I suppose not; it
+would be wrong.”
+
+“You must come, certainly—to confront him, so that he may make no false
+representations to me. We shall not be five minutes in the house, and
+then we’ll walk home.”
+
+Entering the open passage, she tapped at the door of the private
+parlour, unfastened it, and looked in.
+
+The back and shoulders of a man came between Mrs. Yeobright’s eyes and
+the fire. Wildeve, whose form it was, immediately turned, arose, and
+advanced to meet his visitors.
+
+He was quite a young man, and of the two properties, form and motion,
+the latter first attracted the eye in him. The grace of his movement
+was singular—it was the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing career.
+Next came into notice the more material qualities, among which was a
+profuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face, lending to his
+forehead the high-cornered outline of an early Gothic shield; and a
+neck which was smooth and round as a cylinder. The lower half of his
+figure was of light build. Altogether he was one in whom no man would
+have seen anything to admire, and in whom no woman would have seen
+anything to dislike.
+
+He discerned the young girl’s form in the passage, and said, “Thomasin,
+then, has reached home. How could you leave me in that way, darling?”
+And turning to Mrs. Yeobright—“It was useless to argue with her. She
+would go, and go alone.”
+
+“But what’s the meaning of it all?” demanded Mrs. Yeobright haughtily.
+
+“Take a seat,” said Wildeve, placing chairs for the two women. “Well,
+it was a very stupid mistake, but such mistakes will happen. The
+license was useless at Anglebury. It was made out for Budmouth, but as
+I didn’t read it I wasn’t aware of that.”
+
+“But you had been staying at Anglebury?”
+
+“No. I had been at Budmouth—till two days ago—and that was where I had
+intended to take her; but when I came to fetch her we decided upon
+Anglebury, forgetting that a new license would be necessary. There was
+not time to get to Budmouth afterwards.”
+
+“I think you are very much to blame,” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“It was quite my fault we chose Anglebury,” Thomasin pleaded. “I
+proposed it because I was not known there.”
+
+“I know so well that I am to blame that you need not remind me of it,”
+replied Wildeve shortly.
+
+“Such things don’t happen for nothing,” said the aunt. “It is a great
+slight to me and my family; and when it gets known there will be a very
+unpleasant time for us. How can she look her friends in the face
+tomorrow? It is a very great injury, and one I cannot easily forgive.
+It may even reflect on her character.”
+
+“Nonsense,” said Wildeve.
+
+Thomasin’s large eyes had flown from the face of one to the face of the
+other during this discussion, and she now said anxiously, “Will you
+allow me, Aunt, to talk it over alone with Damon for five minutes? Will
+you, Damon?”
+
+“Certainly, dear,” said Wildeve, “if your aunt will excuse us.” He led
+her into an adjoining room, leaving Mrs. Yeobright by the fire.
+
+As soon as they were alone, and the door closed, Thomasin said, turning
+up her pale, tearful face to him, “It is killing me, this, Damon! I did
+not mean to part from you in anger at Anglebury this morning; but I was
+frightened and hardly knew what I said. I’ve not let Aunt know how much
+I suffered today; and it is so hard to command my face and voice, and
+to smile as if it were a slight thing to me; but I try to do so, that
+she may not be still more indignant with you. I know you could not help
+it, dear, whatever Aunt may think.”
+
+“She is very unpleasant.”
+
+“Yes,” Thomasin murmured, “and I suppose I seem so now.... Damon, what
+do you mean to do about me?”
+
+“Do about you?”
+
+“Yes. Those who don’t like you whisper things which at moments make me
+doubt you. We mean to marry, I suppose, don’t we?”
+
+“Of course we do. We have only to go to Budmouth on Monday, and we
+marry at once.”
+
+“Then do let us go!—O Damon, what you make me say!” She hid her face in
+her handkerchief. “Here am I asking you to marry me, when by rights you
+ought to be on your knees imploring me, your cruel mistress, not to
+refuse you, and saying it would break your heart if I did. I used to
+think it would be pretty and sweet like that; but how different!”
+
+“Yes, real life is never at all like that.”
+
+“But I don’t care personally if it never takes place,” she added with a
+little dignity; “no, I can live without you. It is Aunt I think of. She
+is so proud, and thinks so much of her family respectability, that she
+will be cut down with mortification if this story should get abroad
+before—it is done. My cousin Clym, too, will be much wounded.”
+
+“Then he will be very unreasonable. In fact, you are all rather
+unreasonable.”
+
+Thomasin coloured a little, and not with love. But whatever the
+momentary feeling which caused that flush in her, it went as it came,
+and she humbly said, “I never mean to be, if I can help it. I merely
+feel that you have my aunt to some extent in your power at last.”
+
+“As a matter of justice it is almost due to me,” said Wildeve. “Think
+what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is to
+any man to have the banns forbidden—the double insult to a man unlucky
+enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven
+knows what, as I am. I can never forget those banns. A harsher man
+would rejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your aunt by
+going no further in the business.”
+
+She looked wistfully at him with her sorrowful eyes as he said those
+words, and her aspect showed that more than one person in the room
+could deplore the possession of sensitiveness. Seeing that she was
+really suffering he seemed disturbed and added, “This is merely a
+reflection you know. I have not the least intention to refuse to
+complete the marriage, Tamsie mine—I could not bear it.”
+
+“You could not, I know!” said the fair girl, brightening. “You, who
+cannot bear the sight of pain in even an insect, or any disagreeable
+sound, or unpleasant smell even, will not long cause pain to me and
+mine.”
+
+“I will not, if I can help it.”
+
+“Your hand upon it, Damon.”
+
+He carelessly gave her his hand.
+
+“Ah, by my crown, what’s that?” he said suddenly.
+
+There fell upon their ears the sound of numerous voices singing in
+front of the house. Among these, two made themselves prominent by their
+peculiarity: one was a very strong bass, the other a wheezy thin
+piping. Thomasin recognized them as belonging to Timothy Fairway and
+Grandfer Cantle respectively.
+
+“What does it mean—it is not skimmity-riding, I hope?” she said, with a
+frightened gaze at Wildeve.
+
+“Of course not; no, it is that the heath-folk have come to sing to us a
+welcome. This is intolerable!” He began pacing about, the men outside
+singing cheerily—
+
+“He told′ her that she′ was the joy′ of his life′,
+And if′ she’d con-sent′ he would make her his wife′;
+She could′ not refuse′ him; to church′ so they went′,
+Young Will was forgot′, and young Sue′ was content′;
+And then′ was she kiss’d′ and set down′ on his knee′,
+No man′ in the world′ was so lov′-ing as he′!”
+
+
+Mrs. Yeobright burst in from the outer room. “Thomasin, Thomasin!” she
+said, looking indignantly at Wildeve; “here’s a pretty exposure! Let us
+escape at once. Come!”
+
+It was, however, too late to get away by the passage. A rugged knocking
+had begun upon the door of the front room. Wildeve, who had gone to the
+window, came back.
+
+“Stop!” he said imperiously, putting his hand upon Mrs. Yeobright’s
+arm. “We are regularly besieged. There are fifty of them out there if
+there’s one. You stay in this room with Thomasin; I’ll go out and face
+them. You must stay now, for my sake, till they are gone, so that it
+may seem as if all was right. Come, Tamsie dear, don’t go making a
+scene—we must marry after this; that you can see as well as I. Sit
+still, that’s all—and don’t speak much. I’ll manage them. Blundering
+fools!”
+
+He pressed the agitated girl into a seat, returned to the outer room
+and opened the door. Immediately outside, in the passage, appeared
+Grandfer Cantle singing in concert with those still standing in front
+of the house. He came into the room and nodded abstractedly to Wildeve,
+his lips still parted, and his features excruciatingly strained in the
+emission of the chorus. This being ended, he said heartily, “Here’s
+welcome to the new-made couple, and God bless ’em!”
+
+“Thank you,” said Wildeve, with dry resentment, his face as gloomy as a
+thunderstorm.
+
+At the Grandfer’s heels now came the rest of the group, which included
+Fairway, Christian, Sam the turf-cutter, Humphrey, and a dozen others.
+All smiled upon Wildeve, and upon his tables and chairs likewise, from
+a general sense of friendliness towards the articles as well as towards
+their owner.
+
+“We be not here afore Mrs. Yeobright after all,” said Fairway,
+recognizing the matron’s bonnet through the glass partition which
+divided the public apartment they had entered from the room where the
+women sat. “We struck down across, d’ye see, Mr. Wildeve, and she went
+round by the path.”
+
+“And I see the young bride’s little head!” said Grandfer, peeping in
+the same direction, and discerning Thomasin, who was waiting beside her
+aunt in a miserable and awkward way. “Not quite settled in yet—well,
+well, there’s plenty of time.”
+
+Wildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner he treated
+them the sooner they would go, he produced a stone jar, which threw a
+warm halo over matters at once.
+
+“That’s a drop of the right sort, I can see,” said Grandfer Cantle,
+with the air of a man too well-mannered to show any hurry to taste it.
+
+“Yes,” said Wildeve, “’tis some old mead. I hope you will like it.”
+
+“O ay!” replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural when the words
+demanded by politeness coincide with those of deepest feeling. “There
+isn’t a prettier drink under the sun.”
+
+“I’ll take my oath there isn’t,” added Grandfer Cantle. “All that can
+be said against mead is that ’tis rather heady, and apt to lie about a
+man a good while. But tomorrow’s Sunday, thank God.”
+
+“I feel’d for all the world like some bold soldier after I had had some
+once,” said Christian.
+
+“You shall feel so again,” said Wildeve, with condescension, “Cups or
+glasses, gentlemen?”
+
+“Well, if you don’t mind, we’ll have the beaker, and pass ’en round;
+’tis better than heling it out in dribbles.”
+
+“Jown the slippery glasses,” said Grandfer Cantle. “What’s the good of
+a thing that you can’t put down in the ashes to warm, hey, neighbours;
+that’s what I ask?”
+
+“Right, Grandfer,” said Sam; and the mead then circulated.
+
+“Well,” said Timothy Fairway, feeling demands upon his praise in some
+form or other, “’tis a worthy thing to be married, Mr. Wildeve; and the
+woman you’ve got is a dimant, so says I. Yes,” he continued, to
+Grandfer Cantle, raising his voice so as to be heard through the
+partition, “her father (inclining his head towards the inner room) was
+as good a feller as ever lived. He always had his great indignation
+ready against anything underhand.”
+
+“Is that very dangerous?” said Christian.
+
+“And there were few in these parts that were upsides with him,” said
+Sam. “Whenever a club walked he’d play the clarinet in the band that
+marched before ’em as if he’d never touched anything but a clarinet all
+his life. And then, when they got to church door he’d throw down the
+clarinet, mount the gallery, snatch up the bass viol, and rozum away as
+if he’d never played anything but a bass viol. Folk would say—folk that
+knowed what a true stave was—‘Surely, surely that’s never the same man
+that I saw handling the clarinet so masterly by now!’”
+
+“I can mind it,” said the furze-cutter. “’Twas a wonderful thing that
+one body could hold it all and never mix the fingering.”
+
+“There was Kingsbere church likewise,” Fairway recommenced, as one
+opening a new vein of the same mine of interest.
+
+Wildeve breathed the breath of one intolerably bored, and glanced
+through the partition at the prisoners.
+
+“He used to walk over there of a Sunday afternoon to visit his old
+acquaintance Andrew Brown, the first clarinet there; a good man enough,
+but rather screechy in his music, if you can mind?”
+
+“’A was.”
+
+“And neighbour Yeobright would take Andrey’s place for some part of the
+service, to let Andrey have a bit of a nap, as any friend would
+naturally do.”
+
+“As any friend would,” said Grandfer Cantle, the other listeners
+expressing the same accord by the shorter way of nodding their heads.
+
+“No sooner was Andrey asleep and the first whiff of neighbour
+Yeobright’s wind had got inside Andrey’s clarinet than everyone in
+church feeled in a moment there was a great soul among ’em. All heads
+would turn, and they’d say, ‘Ah, I thought ’twas he!’ One Sunday I can
+well mind—a bass viol day that time, and Yeobright had brought his own.
+’Twas the Hundred-and-thirty-third to ‘Lydia’; and when they’d come to
+‘Ran down his beard and o’er his robes its costly moisture shed,’
+neighbour Yeobright, who had just warmed to his work, drove his bow
+into them strings that glorious grand that he e’en a’most sawed the
+bass viol into two pieces. Every winder in church rattled as if ’twere
+a thunderstorm. Old Pa’son Williams lifted his hands in his great holy
+surplice as natural as if he’d been in common clothes, and seemed to
+say hisself, ‘Oh for such a man in our parish!’ But not a soul in
+Kingsbere could hold a candle to Yeobright.”
+
+“Was it quite safe when the winder shook?” Christian inquired.
+
+He received no answer, all for the moment sitting rapt in admiration of
+the performance described. As with Farinelli’s singing before the
+princesses, Sheridan’s renowned Begum Speech, and other such examples,
+the fortunate condition of its being for ever lost to the world
+invested the deceased Mr. Yeobright’s tour de force on that memorable
+afternoon with a cumulative glory which comparative criticism, had that
+been possible, might considerably have shorn down.
+
+“He was the last you’d have expected to drop off in the prime of life,”
+said Humphrey.
+
+“Ah, well; he was looking for the earth some months afore he went. At
+that time women used to run for smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill
+Fair, and my wife that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid,
+hardly husband-high, went with the rest of the maidens, for ’a was a
+good runner afore she got so heavy. When she came home I said—we were
+then just beginning to walk together—‘What have ye got, my honey?’
+‘I’ve won—well, I’ve won—a gown-piece,’ says she, her colours coming up
+in a moment. ’Tis a smock for a crown, I thought; and so it turned out.
+Ay, when I think what she’ll say to me now without a mossel of red in
+her face, it do seem strange that ’a wouldn’t say such a little thing
+then.... However, then she went on, and that’s what made me bring up
+the story, ‘Well, whatever clothes I’ve won, white or figured, for eyes
+to see or for eyes not to see’ (’a could do a pretty stroke of modesty
+in those days), ‘I’d sooner have lost it than have seen what I have.
+Poor Mr. Yeobright was took bad directly he reached the fair ground,
+and was forced to go home again.’ That was the last time he ever went
+out of the parish.”
+
+“’A faltered on from one day to another, and then we heard he was
+gone.”
+
+“D’ye think he had great pain when ’a died?” said Christian.
+
+“O no—quite different. Nor any pain of mind. He was lucky enough to be
+God A’mighty’s own man.”
+
+“And other folk—d’ye think ’twill be much pain to ’em, Mister Fairway?”
+
+“That depends on whether they be afeard.”
+
+“I bain’t afeard at all, I thank God!” said Christian strenuously. “I’m
+glad I bain’t, for then ’twon’t pain me.... I don’t think I be
+afeard—or if I be I can’t help it, and I don’t deserve to suffer. I
+wish I was not afeard at all!”
+
+There was a solemn silence, and looking from the window, which was
+unshuttered and unblinded, Timothy said, “Well, what a fess little
+bonfire that one is, out by Cap’n Vye’s! ’Tis burning just the same now
+as ever, upon my life.”
+
+All glances went through the window, and nobody noticed that Wildeve
+disguised a brief, telltale look. Far away up the sombre valley of
+heath, and to the right of Rainbarrow, could indeed be seen the light,
+small, but steady and persistent as before.
+
+“It was lighted before ours was,” Fairway continued; “and yet every one
+in the country round is out afore ’n.”
+
+“Perhaps there’s meaning in it!” murmured Christian.
+
+“How meaning?” said Wildeve sharply.
+
+Christian was too scattered to reply, and Timothy helped him.
+
+“He means, sir, that the lonesome dark-eyed creature up there that some
+say is a witch—ever I should call a fine young woman such a name—is
+always up to some odd conceit or other; and so perhaps ’tis she.”
+
+“I’d be very glad to ask her in wedlock, if she’d hae me and take the
+risk of her wild dark eyes ill-wishing me,” said Grandfer Cantle
+staunchly.
+
+“Don’t ye say it, Father!” implored Christian.
+
+“Well, be dazed if he who do marry the maid won’t hae an uncommon
+picture for his best parlour,” said Fairway in a liquid tone, placing
+down the cup of mead at the end of a good pull.
+
+“And a partner as deep as the North Star,” said Sam, taking up the cup
+and finishing the little that remained. “Well, really, now I think we
+must be moving,” said Humphrey, observing the emptiness of the vessel.
+
+“But we’ll gie ’em another song?” said Grandfer Cantle. “I’m as full of
+notes as a bird!”
+
+“Thank you, Grandfer,” said Wildeve. “But we will not trouble you now.
+Some other day must do for that—when I have a party.”
+
+“Be jown’d if I don’t learn ten new songs for’t, or I won’t learn a
+line!” said Grandfer Cantle. “And you may be sure I won’t disappoint ye
+by biding away, Mr. Wildeve.”
+
+“I quite believe you,” said that gentleman.
+
+All then took their leave, wishing their entertainer long life and
+happiness as a married man, with recapitulations which occupied some
+time. Wildeve attended them to the door, beyond which the deep-dyed
+upward stretch of heath stood awaiting them, an amplitude of darkness
+reigning from their feet almost to the zenith, where a definite form
+first became visible in the lowering forehead of Rainbarrow. Diving
+into the dense obscurity in a line headed by Sam the turf-cutter, they
+pursued their trackless way home.
+
+When the scratching of the furze against their leggings had fainted
+upon the ear, Wildeve returned to the room where he had left Thomasin
+and her aunt. The women were gone.
+
+They could only have left the house in one way, by the back window; and
+this was open.
+
+Wildeve laughed to himself, remained a moment thinking, and idly
+returned to the front room. Here his glance fell upon a bottle of wine
+which stood on the mantelpiece. “Ah—old Dowden!” he murmured; and going
+to the kitchen door shouted, “Is anybody here who can take something to
+old Dowden?”
+
+There was no reply. The room was empty, the lad who acted as his
+factotum having gone to bed. Wildeve came back, put on his hat, took
+the bottle, and left the house, turning the key in the door, for there
+was no guest at the inn tonight. As soon as he was on the road the
+little bonfire on Mistover Knap again met his eye.
+
+“Still waiting, are you, my lady?” he murmured.
+
+However, he did not proceed that way just then; but leaving the hill to
+the left of him, he stumbled over a rutted road that brought him to a
+cottage which, like all other habitations on the heath at this hour,
+was only saved from being visible by a faint shine from its bedroom
+window. This house was the home of Olly Dowden, the besom-maker, and he
+entered.
+
+The lower room was in darkness; but by feeling his way he found a
+table, whereon he placed the bottle, and a minute later emerged again
+upon the heath. He stood and looked northeast at the undying little
+fire—high up above him, though not so high as Rainbarrow.
+
+We have been told what happens when a woman deliberates; and the
+epigram is not always terminable with woman, provided that one be in
+the case, and that a fair one. Wildeve stood, and stood longer, and
+breathed perplexedly, and then said to himself with resignation,
+“Yes—by Heaven, I must go to her, I suppose!”
+
+Instead of turning in the direction of home he pressed on rapidly by a
+path under Rainbarrow towards what was evidently a signal light.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+The Figure against the Sky
+
+
+When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to its
+accustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached the
+barrow from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay. Had
+the reddleman been watching he might have recognized her as the woman
+who had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the approach
+of strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top, where the
+red coals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes in the
+corpse of day. There she stood still around her stretching the vast
+night atmosphere, whose incomplete darkness in comparison with the
+total darkness of the heath below it might have represented a venial
+beside a mortal sin.
+
+That she was tall and straight in build, that she was lady-like in her
+movements, was all that could be learnt of her just now, her form being
+wrapped in a shawl folded in the old cornerwise fashion, and her head
+in a large kerchief, a protection not superfluous at this hour and
+place. Her back was towards the wind, which blew from the northwest;
+but whether she had avoided that aspect because of the chilly gusts
+which played about her exceptional position, or because her interest
+lay in the southeast, did not at first appear.
+
+Her reason for standing so dead still as the pivot of this circle of
+heath-country was just as obscure. Her extraordinary fixity, her
+conspicuous loneliness, her heedlessness of night, betokened among
+other things an utter absence of fear. A tract of country unaltered
+from that sinister condition which made Cæsar anxious every year to get
+clear of its glooms before the autumnal equinox, a kind of landscape
+and weather which leads travellers from the South to describe our
+island as Homer’s Cimmerian land, was not, on the face of it, friendly
+to women.
+
+It might reasonably have been supposed that she was listening to the
+wind, which rose somewhat as the night advanced, and laid hold of the
+attention. The wind, indeed, seemed made for the scene, as the scene
+seemed made for the hour. Part of its tone was quite special; what was
+heard there could be heard nowhere else. Gusts in innumerable series
+followed each other from the northwest, and when each one of them raced
+past the sound of its progress resolved into three. Treble, tenor, and
+bass notes were to be found therein. The general ricochet of the whole
+over pits and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. Next
+there could be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in
+force, above them in pitch, a dwindled voice strove hard at a husky
+tune, which was the peculiar local sound alluded to. Thinner and less
+immediately traceable than the other two, it was far more impressive
+than either. In it lay what may be called the linguistic peculiarity of
+the heath; and being audible nowhere on earth off a heath, it afforded
+a shadow of reason for the woman’s tenseness, which continued as
+unbroken as ever.
+
+Throughout the blowing of these plaintive November winds that note bore
+a great resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain to the
+throat of fourscore and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and
+it brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, the
+material minutiæ in which it originated could be realized as by touch.
+It was the united products of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these
+were neither stems, leaves, fruit, blades, prickles, lichen, nor moss.
+
+They were the mummied heathbells of the past summer, originally tender
+and purple, now washed colourless by Michaelmas rains, and dried to
+dead skins by October suns. So low was an individual sound from these
+that a combination of hundreds only just emerged from silence, and the
+myriads of the whole declivity reached the woman’s ear but as a
+shrivelled and intermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent
+among the many afloat tonight could have such power to impress a
+listener with thoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the infinity of
+those combined multitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny trumpets
+was seized on entered, scoured and emerged from by the wind as
+thoroughly as if it were as vast as a crater.
+
+“The spirit moved them.” A meaning of the phrase forced itself upon the
+attention; and an emotional listener’s fetichistic mood might have
+ended in one of more advanced quality. It was not, after all, that the
+left-hand expanse of old blooms spoke, or the right-hand, or those of
+the slope in front; but it was the single person of something else
+speaking through each at once.
+
+Suddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild rhetoric of
+night a sound which modulated so naturally into the rest that its
+beginning and ending were hardly to be distinguished. The bluffs, and
+the bushes, and the heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so did
+the woman; and her articulation was but as another phrase of the same
+discourse as theirs. Thrown out on the winds it became twined in with
+them, and with them it flew away.
+
+What she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at something in
+her mind which had led to her presence here. There was a spasmodic
+abandonment about it as if, in allowing herself to utter the sound the
+woman’s brain had authorized what it could not regulate. One point was
+evident in this; that she had been existing in a suppressed state, and
+not in one of languor, or stagnation.
+
+Far away down the valley the faint shine from the window of the inn
+still lasted on; and a few additional moments proved that the window,
+or what was within it, had more to do with the woman’s sigh than had
+either her own actions or the scene immediately around. She lifted her
+left hand, which held a closed telescope. This she rapidly extended, as
+if she were well accustomed to the operation, and raising it to her eye
+directed it towards the light beaming from the inn.
+
+The handkerchief which had hooded her head was now a little thrown
+back, her face being somewhat elevated. A profile was visible against
+the dull monochrome of cloud around her; and it was as though side
+shadows from the features of Sappho and Mrs. Siddons had converged
+upwards from the tomb to form an image like neither but suggesting
+both. This, however, was mere superficiality. In respect of character a
+face may make certain admissions by its outline; but it fully confesses
+only in its changes. So much is this the case that what is called the
+play of the features often helps more in understanding a man or woman
+than the earnest labours of all the other members together. Thus the
+night revealed little of her whose form it was embracing, for the
+mobile parts of her countenance could not be seen.
+
+At last she gave up her spying attitude, closed the telescope, and
+turned to the decaying embers. From these no appreciable beams now
+radiated, except when a more than usually smart gust brushed over their
+faces and raised a fitful glow which came and went like the blush of a
+girl. She stooped over the silent circle, and selecting from the brands
+a piece of stick which bore the largest live coal at its end, brought
+it to where she had been standing before.
+
+She held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal with her mouth
+at the same time; till it faintly illuminated the sod, and revealed a
+small object, which turned out to be an hourglass, though she wore a
+watch. She blew long enough to show that the sand had all slipped
+through.
+
+“Ah!” she said, as if surprised.
+
+The light raised by her breath had been very fitful, and a momentary
+irradiation of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. That
+consisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being still
+enveloped. She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand, the
+telescope under her arm, and moved on.
+
+Along the ridge ran a faint foot-track, which the lady followed. Those
+who knew it well called it a path; and, while a mere visitor would have
+passed it unnoticed even by day, the regular haunters of the heath were
+at no loss for it at midnight. The whole secret of following these
+incipient paths, when there was not light enough in the atmosphere to
+show a turnpike road, lay in the development of the sense of touch in
+the feet, which comes with years of night-rambling in little-trodden
+spots. To a walker practised in such places a difference between impact
+on maiden herbage, and on the crippled stalks of a slight footway, is
+perceptible through the thickest boot or shoe.
+
+The solitary figure who walked this beat took no notice of the windy
+tune still played on the dead heathbells. She did not turn her head to
+look at a group of dark creatures further on, who fled from her
+presence as she skirted a ravine where they fed. They were about a
+score of the small wild ponies known as heath-croppers. They roamed at
+large on the undulations of Egdon, but in numbers too few to detract
+much from the solitude.
+
+The pedestrian noticed nothing just now, and a clue to her abstraction
+was afforded by a trivial incident. A bramble caught hold of her skirt,
+and checked her progress. Instead of putting it off and hastening
+along, she yielded herself up to the pull, and stood passively still.
+When she began to extricate herself it was by turning round and round,
+and so unwinding the prickly switch. She was in a desponding reverie.
+
+Her course was in the direction of the small undying fire which had
+drawn the attention of the men on Rainbarrow and of Wildeve in the
+valley below. A faint illumination from its rays began to glow upon her
+face, and the fire soon revealed itself to be lit, not on the level
+ground, but on a salient corner or redan of earth, at the junction of
+two converging bank fences. Outside was a ditch, dry except immediately
+under the fire, where there was a large pool, bearded all round by
+heather and rushes. In the smooth water of the pool the fire appeared
+upside down.
+
+The banks meeting behind were bare of a hedge, save such as was formed
+by disconnected tufts of furze, standing upon stems along the top, like
+impaled heads above a city wall. A white mast, fitted up with spars and
+other nautical tackle, could be seen rising against the dark clouds
+whenever the flames played brightly enough to reach it. Altogether the
+scene had much the appearance of a fortification upon which had been
+kindled a beacon fire.
+
+Nobody was visible; but ever and anon a whitish something moved above
+the bank from behind, and vanished again. This was a small human hand,
+in the act of lifting pieces of fuel into the fire, but for all that
+could be seen the hand, like that which troubled Belshazzar, was there
+alone. Occasionally an ember rolled off the bank, and dropped with a
+hiss into the pool.
+
+At one side of the pool rough steps built of clods enabled everyone who
+wished to do so to mount the bank; which the woman did. Within was a
+paddock in an uncultivated state, though bearing evidence of having
+once been tilled; but the heath and fern had insidiously crept in, and
+were reasserting their old supremacy. Further ahead were dimly visible
+an irregular dwelling-house, garden, and outbuildings, backed by a
+clump of firs.
+
+The young lady—for youth had revealed its presence in her buoyant bound
+up the bank—walked along the top instead of descending inside, and came
+to the corner where the fire was burning. One reason for the permanence
+of the blaze was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces of
+wood, cleft and sawn—the knotty boles of old thorn trees which grew in
+twos and threes about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed pile of these lay
+in the inner angle of the bank; and from this corner the upturned face
+of a little boy greeted her eyes. He was dilatorily throwing up a piece
+of wood into the fire every now and then, a business which seemed to
+have engaged him a considerable part of the evening, for his face was
+somewhat weary.
+
+“I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia,” he said, with a sigh of
+relief. “I don’t like biding by myself.”
+
+“Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. I have been gone
+only twenty minutes.”
+
+“It seemed long,” murmured the sad boy. “And you have been so many
+times.”
+
+“Why, I thought you would be pleased to have a bonfire. Are you not
+much obliged to me for making you one?”
+
+“Yes; but there’s nobody here to play wi’ me.”
+
+“I suppose nobody has come while I’ve been away?”
+
+“Nobody except your grandfather—he looked out of doors once for ’ee. I
+told him you were walking round upon the hill to look at the other
+bonfires.”
+
+“A good boy.”
+
+“I think I hear him coming again, miss.”
+
+An old man came into the remoter light of the fire from the direction
+of the homestead. He was the same who had overtaken the reddleman on
+the road that afternoon. He looked wistfully to the top of the bank at
+the woman who stood there, and his teeth, which were quite unimpaired,
+showed like parian from his parted lips.
+
+“When are you coming indoors, Eustacia?” he asked. “’Tis almost
+bedtime. I’ve been home these two hours, and am tired out. Surely ’tis
+somewhat childish of you to stay out playing at bonfires so long, and
+wasting such fuel. My precious thorn roots, the rarest of all firing,
+that I laid by on purpose for Christmas—you have burnt ’em nearly all!”
+
+“I promised Johnny a bonfire, and it pleases him not to let it go out
+just yet,” said Eustacia, in a way which told at once that she was
+absolute queen here. “Grandfather, you go in to bed. I shall follow you
+soon. You like the fire, don’t you, Johnny?”
+
+The boy looked up doubtfully at her and murmured, “I don’t think I want
+it any longer.”
+
+Her grandfather had turned back again, and did not hear the boy’s
+reply. As soon as the white-haired man had vanished she said in a tone
+of pique to the child, “Ungrateful little boy, how can you contradict
+me? Never shall you have a bonfire again unless you keep it up now.
+Come, tell me you like to do things for me, and don’t deny it.”
+
+The repressed child said, “Yes, I do, miss,” and continued to stir the
+fire perfunctorily.
+
+“Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence,” said
+Eustacia, more gently. “Put in one piece of wood every two or three
+minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge a
+little longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a
+frog jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure
+you run and tell me, because it is a sign of rain.”
+
+“Yes, Eustacia.”
+
+“Miss Vye, sir.”
+
+“Miss Vy—stacia.”
+
+“That will do. Now put in one stick more.”
+
+The little slave went on feeding the fire as before. He seemed a mere
+automaton, galvanized into moving and speaking by the wayward
+Eustacia’s will. He might have been the brass statue which Albertus
+Magnus is said to have animated just so far as to make it chatter, and
+move, and be his servant.
+
+Before going on her walk again the young girl stood still on the bank
+for a few instants and listened. It was to the full as lonely a place
+as Rainbarrow, though at rather a lower level; and it was more
+sheltered from wind and weather on account of the few firs to the
+north. The bank which enclosed the homestead, and protected it from the
+lawless state of the world without, was formed of thick square clods,
+dug from the ditch on the outside, and built up with a slight batter or
+incline, which forms no slight defense where hedges will not grow
+because of the wind and the wilderness, and where wall materials are
+unattainable. Otherwise the situation was quite open, commanding the
+whole length of the valley which reached to the river behind Wildeve’s
+house. High above this to the right, and much nearer thitherward than
+the Quiet Woman Inn, the blurred contour of Rainbarrow obstructed the
+sky.
+
+After her attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow ravines a
+gesture of impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant words every
+now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden
+listenings between her sighs. Descending from her perch she again
+sauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she did not go the
+whole way.
+
+Twice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes and each time she
+said—
+
+“Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?”
+
+“No, Miss Eustacia,” the child replied.
+
+“Well,” she said at last, “I shall soon be going in, and then I will
+give you the crooked sixpence, and let you go home.”
+
+“Thank’ee, Miss Eustacia,” said the tired stoker, breathing more
+easily. And Eustacia again strolled away from the fire, but this time
+not towards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and went round to the
+wicket before the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the
+scene.
+
+Fifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks, with the
+fire upon it; within the bank, lifting up to the fire one stick at a
+time, just as before, the figure of the little child. She idly watched
+him as he occasionally climbed up in the nook of the bank and stood
+beside the brands. The wind blew the smoke, and the child’s hair, and
+the corner of his pinafore, all in the same direction; the breeze died,
+and the pinafore and hair lay still, and the smoke went up straight.
+
+While Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy’s form visibly
+started—he slid down the bank and ran across towards the white gate.
+
+“Well?” said Eustacia.
+
+“A hopfrog have jumped into the pond. Yes, I heard ’en!”
+
+“Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. You will not be
+afraid?” She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leapt into her throat
+at the boy’s words.
+
+“No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence.”
+
+“Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can—not that way—through the
+garden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a bonfire as
+yours.”
+
+The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched away
+into the shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving her
+telescope and hourglass by the gate, brushed forward from the wicket
+towards the angle of the bank, under the fire.
+
+Here, screened by the outwork, she waited. In a few moments a splash
+was audible from the pond outside. Had the child been there he would
+have said that a second frog had jumped in; but by most people the
+sound would have been likened to the fall of a stone into the water.
+Eustacia stepped upon the bank.
+
+“Yes?” she said, and held her breath.
+
+Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against the
+low-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool.
+He came round it and leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh
+escaped her—the third utterance which the girl had indulged in tonight.
+The first, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed anxiety; the
+second, on the ridge, had expressed impatience; the present was one of
+triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes rest upon him without
+speaking, as upon some wondrous thing she had created out of chaos.
+
+“I have come,” said the man, who was Wildeve. “You give me no peace.
+Why do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the
+evening.” The words were not without emotion, and retained their level
+tone as if by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.
+
+At this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover the girl seemed to
+repress herself also. “Of course you have seen my fire,” she answered
+with languid calmness, artificially maintained. “Why shouldn’t I have a
+bonfire on the Fifth of November, like other denizens of the heath?”
+
+“I knew it was meant for me.”
+
+“How did you know it? I have had no word with you since you—you chose
+her, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely, as if I had
+never been yours life and soul so irretrievably!”
+
+“Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day of the
+month and at this same place you lighted exactly such a fire as a
+signal for me to come and see you? Why should there have been a bonfire
+again by Captain Vye’s house if not for the same purpose?”
+
+“Yes, yes—I own it,” she cried under her breath, with a drowsy fervour
+of manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her. “Don’t begin
+speaking to me as you did, Damon; you will drive me to say words I
+would not wish to say to you. I had given you up, and resolved not to
+think of you any more; and then I heard the news, and I came out and
+got the fire ready because I thought that you had been faithful to me.”
+
+“What have you heard to make you think that?” said Wildeve, astonished.
+
+“That you did not marry her!” she murmured exultingly. “And I knew it
+was because you loved me best, and couldn’t do it.... Damon, you have
+been cruel to me to go away, and I have said I would never forgive you.
+I do not think I can forgive you entirely, even now—it is too much for
+a woman of any spirit to quite overlook.”
+
+“If I had known you wished to call me up here only to reproach me, I
+wouldn’t have come.”
+
+“But I don’t mind it, and I do forgive you now that you have not
+married her, and have come back to me!”
+
+“Who told you that I had not married her?”
+
+“My grandfather. He took a long walk today, and as he was coming home
+he overtook some person who told him of a broken-off wedding—he thought
+it might be yours, and I knew it was.”
+
+“Does anybody else know?”
+
+“I suppose not. Now Damon, do you see why I lit my signal fire? You did
+not think I would have lit it if I had imagined you to have become the
+husband of this woman. It is insulting my pride to suppose that.”
+
+Wildeve was silent; it was evident that he had supposed as much.
+
+“Did you indeed think I believed you were married?” she again demanded
+earnestly. “Then you wronged me; and upon my life and heart I can
+hardly bear to recognize that you have such ill thoughts of me! Damon,
+you are not worthy of me—I see it, and yet I love you. Never mind, let
+it go—I must bear your mean opinion as best I may.... It is true, is it
+not,” she added with ill-concealed anxiety, on his making no
+demonstration, “that you could not bring yourself to give me up, and
+are still going to love me best of all?”
+
+“Yes; or why should I have come?” he said touchily. “Not that fidelity
+will be any great merit in me after your kind speech about my
+unworthiness, which should have been said by myself if by anybody, and
+comes with an ill grace from you. However, the curse of inflammability
+is upon me, and I must live under it, and take any snub from a woman.
+It has brought me down from engineering to innkeeping—what lower stage
+it has in store for me I have yet to learn.” He continued to look upon
+her gloomily.
+
+She seized the moment, and throwing back the shawl so that the
+firelight shone full upon her face and throat, said with a smile, “Have
+you seen anything better than that in your travels?”
+
+Eustacia was not one to commit herself to such a position without good
+ground. He said quietly, “No.”
+
+“Not even on the shoulders of Thomasin?”
+
+“Thomasin is a pleasing and innocent woman.”
+
+“That’s nothing to do with it,” she cried with quick passionateness.
+“We will leave her out; there are only you and me now to think of.”
+After a long look at him she resumed with the old quiescent warmth,
+“Must I go on weakly confessing to you things a woman ought to conceal;
+and own that no words can express how gloomy I have been because of
+that dreadful belief I held till two hours ago—that you had quite
+deserted me?”
+
+“I am sorry I caused you that pain.”
+
+“But perhaps it is not wholly because of you that I get gloomy,” she
+archly added. “It is in my nature to feel like that. It was born in my
+blood, I suppose.”
+
+“Hypochondriasis.”
+
+“Or else it was coming into this wild heath. I was happy enough at
+Budmouth. O the times, O the days at Budmouth! But Egdon will be
+brighter again now.”
+
+“I hope it will,” said Wildeve moodily. “Do you know the consequence of
+this recall to me, my old darling? I shall come to see you again as
+before, at Rainbarrow.”
+
+“Of course you will.”
+
+“And yet I declare that until I got here tonight I intended, after this
+one good-bye, never to meet you again.”
+
+“I don’t thank you for that,” she said, turning away, while indignation
+spread through her like subterranean heat. “You may come again to
+Rainbarrow if you like, but you won’t see me; and you may call, but I
+shall not listen; and you may tempt me, but I won’t give myself to you
+any more.”
+
+“You have said as much before, sweet; but such natures as yours don’t
+so easily adhere to their words. Neither, for the matter of that, do
+such natures as mine.”
+
+“This is the pleasure I have won by my trouble,” she whispered
+bitterly. “Why did I try to recall you? Damon, a strange warring takes
+place in my mind occasionally. I think when I become calm after you
+woundings, ‘Do I embrace a cloud of common fog after all?’ You are a
+chameleon, and now you are at your worst colour. Go home, or I shall
+hate you!”
+
+He looked absently towards Rainbarrow while one might have counted
+twenty, and said, as if he did not much mind all this, “Yes, I will go
+home. Do you mean to see me again?”
+
+“If you own to me that the wedding is broken off because you love me
+best.”
+
+“I don’t think it would be good policy,” said Wildeve, smiling. “You
+would get to know the extent of your power too clearly.”
+
+“But tell me!”
+
+“You know.”
+
+“Where is she now?”
+
+“I don’t know. I prefer not to speak of her to you. I have not yet
+married her; I have come in obedience to your call. That is enough.”
+
+“I merely lit that fire because I was dull, and thought I would get a
+little excitement by calling you up and triumphing over you as the
+Witch of Endor called up Samuel. I determined you should come; and you
+have come! I have shown my power. A mile and half hither, and a mile
+and half back again to your home—three miles in the dark for me. Have I
+not shown my power?”
+
+He shook his head at her. “I know you too well, my Eustacia; I know you
+too well. There isn’t a note in you which I don’t know; and that hot
+little bosom couldn’t play such a cold-blooded trick to save its life.
+I saw a woman on Rainbarrow at dusk looking down towards my house. I
+think I drew out you before you drew out me.”
+
+The revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly in Wildeve now; and
+he leant forward as if about to put his face towards her cheek.
+
+“O no,” she said, intractably moving to the other side of the decayed
+fire. “What did you mean by that?”
+
+“Perhaps I may kiss your hand?”
+
+“No, you may not.”
+
+“Then I may shake your hand?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then I wish you good night without caring for either. Good-bye,
+good-bye.”
+
+She returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-master he
+vanished on the other side of the pool as he had come.
+
+Eustacia sighed—it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which shook
+her like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like an electric
+light upon her lover—as it sometimes would—and showed his
+imperfections, she shivered thus. But it was over in a second, and she
+loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on. She
+scattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately, and up to
+her bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles which denoted her to be
+undressing in the darkness other heavy breaths frequently came; and the
+same kind of shudder occasionally moved through her when, ten minutes
+later, she lay on her bed asleep.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+Queen of Night
+
+
+Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would
+have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and
+instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not
+quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to
+be entirely in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff, the
+spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world would
+have noticed the change of government. There would have been the same
+inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely
+there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas,
+the same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we endure now.
+
+She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness, as
+without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair was
+to fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form
+its shadow—it closed over her forehead like nightfall extinguishing the
+western glow.
+
+Her nerves extended into those tresses, and her temper could always be
+softened by stroking them down. When her hair was brushed she would
+instantly sink into stillness and look like the Sphinx. If, in passing
+under one of the Egdon banks, any of its thick skeins were caught, as
+they sometimes were, by a prickly tuft of the large _Ulex
+Europæus_—which will act as a sort of hairbrush—she would go back a few
+steps, and pass against it a second time.
+
+She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light, as it
+came and went, and came again, was partially hampered by their
+oppressive lids and lashes; and of these the under lid was much fuller
+than it usually is with English women. This enabled her to indulge in
+reverie without seeming to do so—she might have been believed capable
+of sleeping without closing them up. Assuming that the souls of men and
+women were visible essences, you could fancy the colour of Eustacia’s
+soul to be flamelike. The sparks from it that rose into her dark pupils
+gave the same impression.
+
+The mouth seemed formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiver
+than to kiss. Some might have added, less to kiss than to curl. Viewed
+sideways, the closing-line of her lips formed, with almost geometric
+precision, the curve so well known in the arts of design as the
+cima-recta, or ogee. The sight of such a flexible bend as that on grim
+Egdon was quite an apparition. It was felt at once that the mouth did
+not come over from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates whose lips met
+like the two halves of a muffin. One had fancied that such lip-curves
+were mostly lurking underground in the South as fragments of forgotten
+marbles. So fine were the lines of her lips that, though full, each
+corner of her mouth was as clearly cut as the point of a spear. This
+keenness of corner was only blunted when she was given over to sudden
+fits of gloom, one of the phases of the night-side of sentiment which
+she knew too well for her years.
+
+Her presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon roses, rubies,
+and tropical midnight; her moods recalled lotus-eaters and the march in
+Athalie; her motions, the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, the
+viola. In a dim light, and with a slight rearrangement of her hair, her
+general figure might have stood for that of either of the higher female
+deities. The new moon behind her head, an old helmet upon it, a diadem
+of accidental dewdrops round her brow, would have been adjuncts
+sufficient to strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or Hera respectively,
+with as close an approximation to the antique as that which passes
+muster on many respected canvases.
+
+But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be
+somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, and
+the consciousness of this limitation had biassed her development. Egdon
+was her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was
+dark in its tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciled thereto.
+Her appearance accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness, and
+the shady splendour of her beauty was the real surface of the sad and
+stifled warmth within her. A true Tartarean dignity sat upon her brow,
+and not factitiously or with marks of constraint, for it had grown in
+her with years.
+
+Across the upper part of her head she wore a thin fillet of black
+velvet, restraining the luxuriance of her shady hair, in a way which
+added much to this class of majesty by irregularly clouding her
+forehead. “Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow
+band drawn over the brow,” says Richter. Some of the neighbouring girls
+wore coloured ribbon for the same purpose, and sported metallic
+ornaments elsewhere; but if anyone suggested coloured ribbon and
+metallic ornaments to Eustacia Vye she laughed and went on.
+
+Why did a woman of this sort live on Egdon Heath? Budmouth was her
+native place, a fashionable seaside resort at that date. She was the
+daughter of the bandmaster of a regiment which had been quartered
+there—a Corfiote by birth, and a fine musician—who met his future wife
+during her trip thither with her father the captain, a man of good
+family. The marriage was scarcely in accord with the old man’s wishes,
+for the bandmaster’s pockets were as light as his occupation. But the
+musician did his best; adopted his wife’s name, made England
+permanently his home, took great trouble with his child’s education,
+the expenses of which were defrayed by the grandfather, and throve as
+the chief local musician till her mother’s death, when he left off
+thriving, drank, and died also. The girl was left to the care of her
+grandfather, who, since three of his ribs became broken in a shipwreck,
+had lived in this airy perch on Egdon, a spot which had taken his fancy
+because the house was to be had for next to nothing, and because a
+remote blue tinge on the horizon between the hills, visible from the
+cottage door, was traditionally believed to be the English Channel. She
+hated the change; she felt like one banished; but here she was forced
+to abide.
+
+Thus it happened that in Eustacia’s brain were juxtaposed the strangest
+assortment of ideas, from old time and from new. There was no middle
+distance in her perspective—romantic recollections of sunny afternoons
+on an esplanade, with military bands, officers, and gallants around,
+stood like gilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding Egdon.
+Every bizarre effect that could result from the random intertwining of
+watering-place glitter with the grand solemnity of a heath, was to be
+found in her. Seeing nothing of human life now, she imagined all the
+more of what she had seen.
+
+Where did her dignity come from? By a latent vein from Alcinous’ line,
+her father hailing from Phæacia’s isle?—or from Fitzalan and De Vere,
+her maternal grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage? Perhaps it
+was the gift of Heaven—a happy convergence of natural laws. Among other
+things opportunity had of late years been denied her of learning to be
+undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation on a heath renders
+vulgarity well-nigh impossible. It would have been as easy for the
+heath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her. A narrow life
+in Budmouth might have completely demeaned her.
+
+The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over
+is to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a triumph.
+In the captain’s cottage she could suggest mansions she had never seen.
+Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion than any of
+them, the open hills. Like the summer condition of the place around
+her, she was an embodiment of the phrase “a populous
+solitude”—apparently so listless, void, and quiet, she was really busy
+and full.
+
+To be loved to madness—such was her great desire. Love was to her the
+one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.
+And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more
+than for any particular lover.
+
+She could show a most reproachful look at times, but it was directed
+less against human beings than against certain creatures of her mind,
+the chief of these being Destiny, through whose interference she dimly
+fancied it arose that love alighted only on gliding youth—that any love
+she might win would sink simultaneously with the sand in the glass. She
+thought of it with an ever-growing consciousness of cruelty, which
+tended to breed actions of reckless unconventionality, framed to snatch
+a year’s, a week’s, even an hour’s passion from anywhere while it could
+be won. Through want of it she had sung without being merry, possessed
+without enjoying, outshone without triumphing. Her loneliness deepened
+her desire. On Egdon, coldest and meanest kisses were at famine prices,
+and where was a mouth matching hers to be found?
+
+Fidelity in love for fidelity’s sake had less attraction for her than
+for most women; fidelity because of love’s grip had much. A blaze of
+love, and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same
+which should last long years. On this head she knew by prevision what
+most women learn only by experience—she had mentally walked round love,
+told the towers thereof, considered its palaces, and concluded that
+love was but a doleful joy. Yet she desired it, as one in a desert
+would be thankful for brackish water.
+
+She often repeated her prayers; not at particular times, but, like the
+unaffectedly devout, when she desired to pray. Her prayer was always
+spontaneous, and often ran thus, “O deliver my heart from this fearful
+gloom and loneliness; send me great love from somewhere, else I shall
+die.”
+
+Her high gods were William the Conqueror, Strafford, and Napoleon
+Buonaparte, as they had appeared in the Lady’s History used at the
+establishment in which she was educated. Had she been a mother she
+would have christened her boys such names as Saul or Sisera in
+preference to Jacob or David, neither of whom she admired. At school
+she had used to side with the Philistines in several battles, and had
+wondered if Pontius Pilate were as handsome as he was frank and fair.
+
+Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed, weighed in
+relation to her situation among the very rearward of thinkers, very
+original. Her instincts towards social non-comformity were at the root
+of this. In the matter of holidays, her mood was that of horses who,
+when turned out to grass, enjoy looking upon their kind at work on the
+highway. She only valued rest to herself when it came in the midst of
+other people’s labour. Hence she hated Sundays when all was at rest,
+and often said they would be the death of her. To see the heathmen in
+their Sunday condition, that is, with their hands in their pockets,
+their boots newly oiled, and not laced up (a particularly Sunday sign),
+walking leisurely among the turves and furze-faggots they had cut
+during the week, and kicking them critically as if their use were
+unknown, was a fearful heaviness to her. To relieve the tedium of this
+untimely day she would overhaul the cupboards containing her
+grandfather’s old charts and other rubbish, humming Saturday-night
+ballads of the country people the while. But on Saturday nights she
+would frequently sing a psalm, and it was always on a weekday that she
+read the Bible, that she might be unoppressed with a sense of doing her
+duty.
+
+Such views of life were to some extent the natural begettings of her
+situation upon her nature. To dwell on a heath without studying its
+meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue. The
+subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught its
+vapours. An environment which would have made a contented woman a poet,
+a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy
+woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.
+
+Eustacia had got beyond the vision of some marriage of inexpressible
+glory; yet, though her emotions were in full vigour, she cared for no
+meaner union. Thus we see her in a strange state of isolation. To have
+lost the godlike conceit that we may do what we will, and not to have
+acquired a homely zest for doing what we can, shows a grandeur of
+temper which cannot be objected to in the abstract, for it denotes a
+mind that, though disappointed, forswears compromise. But, if congenial
+to philosophy, it is apt to be dangerous to the commonwealth. In a
+world where doing means marrying, and the commonwealth is one of hearts
+and hands, the same peril attends the condition.
+
+And so we see our Eustacia—for at times she was not altogether
+unlovable—arriving at that stage of enlightenment which feels that
+nothing is worth while, and filling up the spare hours of her existence
+by idealizing Wildeve for want of a better object. This was the sole
+reason of his ascendency: she knew it herself. At moments her pride
+rebelled against her passion for him, and she even had longed to be
+free. But there was only one circumstance which could dislodge him, and
+that was the advent of a greater man.
+
+For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits, and took
+slow walks to recover them, in which she carried her grandfather’s
+telescope and her grandmother’s hourglass—the latter because of a
+peculiar pleasure she derived from watching a material representation
+of time’s gradual glide away. She seldom schemed, but when she did
+scheme, her plans showed rather the comprehensive strategy of a general
+than the small arts called womanish, though she could utter oracles of
+Delphian ambiguity when she did not choose to be direct. In heaven she
+will probably sit between the Héloïses and the Cleopatras.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody
+
+
+As soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire he clasped
+the money tight in the palm of his hand, as if thereby to fortify his
+courage, and began to run. There was really little danger in allowing a
+child to go home alone on this part of Egdon Heath. The distance to the
+boy’s house was not more than three-eighths of a mile, his father’s
+cottage, and one other a few yards further on, forming part of the
+small hamlet of Mistover Knap: the third and only remaining house was
+that of Captain Vye and Eustacia, which stood quite away from the small
+cottages and was the loneliest of lonely houses on these thinly
+populated slopes.
+
+He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more courageous,
+walked leisurely along, singing in an old voice a little song about a
+sailor-boy and a fair one, and bright gold in store. In the middle of
+this the child stopped—from a pit under the hill ahead of him shone a
+light, whence proceeded a cloud of floating dust and a smacking noise.
+
+Only unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy. The shrivelled voice
+of the heath did not alarm him, for that was familiar. The thornbushes
+which arose in his path from time to time were less satisfactory, for
+they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit after dark of putting
+on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling giants, and hideous
+cripples. Lights were not uncommon this evening, but the nature of all
+of them was different from this. Discretion rather than terror prompted
+the boy to turn back instead of passing the light, with a view of
+asking Miss Eustacia Vye to let her servant accompany him home.
+
+When the boy had reascended to the top of the valley he found the fire
+to be still burning on the bank, though lower than before. Beside it,
+instead of Eustacia’s solitary form, he saw two persons, the second
+being a man. The boy crept along under the bank to ascertain from the
+nature of the proceedings if it would be prudent to interrupt so
+splendid a creature as Miss Eustacia on his poor trivial account.
+
+After listening under the bank for some minutes to the talk he turned
+in a perplexed and doubting manner and began to withdraw as silently as
+he had come. That he did not, upon the whole, think it advisable to
+interrupt her conversation with Wildeve, without being prepared to bear
+the whole weight of her displeasure, was obvious.
+
+Here was a Scyllæo-Charybdean position for a poor boy. Pausing when
+again safe from discovery, he finally decided to face the pit
+phenomenon as the lesser evil. With a heavy sigh he retraced the slope,
+and followed the path he had followed before.
+
+The light had gone, the rising dust had disappeared—he hoped for ever.
+He marched resolutely along, and found nothing to alarm him till,
+coming within a few yards of the sandpit, he heard a slight noise in
+front, which led him to halt. The halt was but momentary, for the noise
+resolved itself into the steady bites of two animals grazing.
+
+“Two he’th-croppers down here,” he said aloud. “I have never known ’em
+come down so far afore.”
+
+The animals were in the direct line of his path, but that the child
+thought little of; he had played round the fetlocks of horses from his
+infancy. On coming nearer, however, the boy was somewhat surprised to
+find that the little creatures did not run off, and that each wore a
+clog, to prevent his going astray; this signified that they had been
+broken in. He could now see the interior of the pit, which, being in
+the side of the hill, had a level entrance. In the innermost corner the
+square outline of a van appeared, with its back towards him. A light
+came from the interior, and threw a moving shadow upon the vertical
+face of gravel at the further side of the pit into which the vehicle
+faced.
+
+The child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy, and his dread of
+those wanderers reached but to that mild pitch which titillates rather
+than pains. Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and his family from
+being gipsies themselves. He skirted the gravel pit at a respectful
+distance, ascended the slope, and came forward upon the brow, in order
+to look into the open door of the van and see the original of the
+shadow.
+
+The picture alarmed the boy. By a little stove inside the van sat a
+figure red from head to heels—the man who had been Thomasin’s friend.
+He was darning a stocking, which was red like the rest of him.
+Moreover, as he darned he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of which
+were red also.
+
+At this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the outer shadows
+was audibly shaking off the clog attached to its foot. Aroused by the
+sound, the reddleman laid down his stocking, lit a lantern which hung
+beside him, and came out from the van. In sticking up the candle he
+lifted the lantern to his face, and the light shone into the whites of
+his eyes and upon his ivory teeth, which, in contrast with the red
+surrounding, lent him a startling aspect enough to the gaze of a
+juvenile. The boy knew too well for his peace of mind upon whose lair
+he had lighted. Uglier persons than gipsies were known to cross Egdon
+at times, and a reddleman was one of them.
+
+“How I wish ’twas only a gipsy!” he murmured.
+
+The man was by this time coming back from the horses. In his fear of
+being seen the boy rendered detection certain by nervous motion. The
+heather and peat stratum overhung the brow of the pit in mats, hiding
+the actual verge. The boy had stepped beyond the solid ground; the
+heather now gave way, and down he rolled over the scarp of grey sand to
+the very foot of the man.
+
+The red man opened the lantern and turned it upon the figure of the
+prostrate boy.
+
+“Who be ye?” he said.
+
+“Johnny Nunsuch, master!”
+
+“What were you doing up there?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Watching me, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes, master.”
+
+“What did you watch me for?”
+
+“Because I was coming home from Miss Vye’s bonfire.”
+
+“Beest hurt?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why, yes, you be—your hand is bleeding. Come under my tilt and let me
+tie it up.”
+
+“Please let me look for my sixpence.”
+
+“How did you come by that?”
+
+“Miss Vye gied it to me for keeping up her bonfire.”
+
+The sixpence was found, and the man went to the van, the boy behind,
+almost holding his breath.
+
+The man took a piece of rag from a satchel containing sewing materials,
+tore off a strip, which, like everything else, was tinged red, and
+proceeded to bind up the wound.
+
+“My eyes have got foggy-like—please may I sit down, master?” said the
+boy.
+
+“To be sure, poor chap. ’Tis enough to make you feel fainty. Sit on
+that bundle.”
+
+The man finished tying up the gash, and the boy said, “I think I’ll go
+home now, master.”
+
+“You are rather afraid of me. Do you know what I be?”
+
+The child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down with much misgiving
+and finally said, “Yes.”
+
+“Well, what?”
+
+“The reddleman!” he faltered.
+
+“Yes, that’s what I be. Though there’s more than one. You little
+children think there’s only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one devil,
+and one reddleman, when there’s lots of us all.”
+
+“Is there? You won’t carry me off in your bags, will ye, master? ’Tis
+said that the reddleman will sometimes.”
+
+“Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. You see all these bags
+at the back of my cart? They are not full of little boys—only full of
+red stuff.”
+
+“Was you born a reddleman?”
+
+“No, I took to it. I should be as white as you if I were to give up the
+trade—that is, I should be white in time—perhaps six months; not at
+first, because ’tis grow’d into my skin and won’t wash out. Now, you’ll
+never be afraid of a reddleman again, will ye?”
+
+“No, never. Willy Orchard said he seed a red ghost here t’other
+day—perhaps that was you?”
+
+“I was here t’other day.”
+
+“Were you making that dusty light I saw by now?”
+
+“Oh yes, I was beating out some bags. And have you had a good bonfire
+up there? I saw the light. Why did Miss Vye want a bonfire so bad that
+she should give you sixpence to keep it up?”
+
+“I don’t know. I was tired, but she made me bide and keep up the fire
+just the same, while she kept going up across Rainbarrow way.”
+
+“And how long did that last?”
+
+“Until a hopfrog jumped into the pond.”
+
+The reddleman suddenly ceased to talk idly. “A hopfrog?” he inquired.
+“Hopfrogs don’t jump into ponds this time of year.”
+
+“They do, for I heard one.”
+
+“Certain-sure?”
+
+“Yes. She told me afore that I should hear’n; and so I did. They say
+she’s clever and deep, and perhaps she charmed ’en to come.”
+
+“And what then?”
+
+“Then I came down here, and I was afeard, and I went back; but I didn’t
+like to speak to her, because of the gentleman, and I came on here
+again.”
+
+“A gentleman—ah! What did she say to him, my man?”
+
+“Told him she supposed he had not married the other woman because he
+liked his old sweetheart best; and things like that.”
+
+“What did the gentleman say to her, my sonny?”
+
+“He only said he did like her best, and how he was coming to see her
+again under Rainbarrow o’ nights.”
+
+“Ha!” cried the reddleman, slapping his hand against the side of his
+van so that the whole fabric shook under the blow. “That’s the secret
+o’t!”
+
+The little boy jumped clean from the stool.
+
+“My man, don’t you be afraid,” said the dealer in red, suddenly
+becoming gentle. “I forgot you were here. That’s only a curious way
+reddlemen have of going mad for a moment; but they don’t hurt anybody.
+And what did the lady say then?”
+
+“I can’t mind. Please, Master Reddleman, may I go home-along now?”
+
+“Ay, to be sure you may. I’ll go a bit of ways with you.”
+
+He conducted the boy out of the gravel pit and into the path leading to
+his mother’s cottage. When the little figure had vanished in the
+darkness the reddleman returned, resumed his seat by the fire, and
+proceeded to darn again.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
+
+
+Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. Since the
+introduction of railways Wessex farmers have managed to do without
+these Mephistophelian visitants, and the bright pigment so largely used
+by shepherds in preparing sheep for the fair is obtained by other
+routes. Even those who yet survive are losing the poetry of existence
+which characterized them when the pursuit of the trade meant periodical
+journeys to the pit whence the material was dug, a regular camping out
+from month to month, except in the depth of winter, a peregrination
+among farms which could be counted by the hundred, and in spite of this
+Arab existence the preservation of that respectability which is insured
+by the never-failing production of a well-lined purse.
+
+Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on, and stamps
+unmistakably, as with the mark of Cain, any person who has handled it
+half an hour.
+
+A child’s first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in his life. That
+blood-coloured figure was a sublimation of all the horrid dreams which
+had afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began. “The
+reddleman is coming for you!” had been the formulated threat of Wessex
+mothers for many generations. He was successfully supplanted for a
+while, at the beginning of the present century, by Buonaparte; but as
+process of time rendered the latter personage stale and ineffective the
+older phrase resumed its early prominence. And now the reddleman has in
+his turn followed Buonaparte to the land of worn-out bogeys, and his
+place is filled by modern inventions.
+
+The reddleman lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. He was about
+as thriving as travelling basket and mat makers; but he had nothing to
+do with them. He was more decently born and brought up than the
+cattledrovers who passed and repassed him in his wanderings; but they
+merely nodded to him. His stock was more valuable than that of pedlars;
+but they did not think so, and passed his cart with eyes straight
+ahead. He was such an unnatural colour to look at that the men of
+roundabouts and waxwork shows seemed gentlemen beside him; but he
+considered them low company, and remained aloof. Among all these
+squatters and folks of the road the reddleman continually found
+himself; yet he was not of them. His occupation tended to isolate him,
+and isolated he was mostly seen to be.
+
+It was sometimes suggested that reddlemen were criminals for whose
+misdeeds other men wrongfully suffered—that in escaping the law they
+had not escaped their own consciences, and had taken to the trade as a
+lifelong penance. Else why should they have chosen it? In the present
+case such a question would have been particularly apposite. The
+reddleman who had entered Egdon that afternoon was an instance of the
+pleasing being wasted to form the ground-work of the singular, when an
+ugly foundation would have done just as well for that purpose. The one
+point that was forbidding about this reddleman was his colour. Freed
+from that he would have been as agreeable a specimen of rustic manhood
+as one would often see. A keen observer might have been inclined to
+think—which was, indeed, partly the truth—that he had relinquished his
+proper station in life for want of interest in it. Moreover, after
+looking at him one would have hazarded the guess that good nature, and
+an acuteness as extreme as it could be without verging on craft, formed
+the framework of his character.
+
+While he darned the stocking his face became rigid with thought. Softer
+expressions followed this, and then again recurred the tender sadness
+which had sat upon him during his drive along the highway that
+afternoon. Presently his needle stopped. He laid down the stocking,
+arose from his seat, and took a leathern pouch from a hook in the
+corner of the van. This contained among other articles a brown-paper
+packet, which, to judge from the hinge-like character of its worn
+folds, seemed to have been carefully opened and closed a good many
+times. He sat down on a three-legged milking stool that formed the only
+seat in the van, and, examining his packet by the light of a candle,
+took thence an old letter and spread it open. The writing had
+originally been traced on white paper, but the letter had now assumed a
+pale red tinge from the accident of its situation; and the black
+strokes of writing thereon looked like the twigs of a winter hedge
+against a vermilion sunset. The letter bore a date some two years
+previous to that time, and was signed “Thomasin Yeobright.” It ran as
+follows:—
+
+DEAR DIGGORY VENN,—The question you put when you overtook me coming
+home from Pond-close gave me such a surprise that I am afraid I did not
+make you exactly understand what I meant. Of course, if my aunt had not
+met me I could have explained all then at once, but as it was there was
+no chance. I have been quite uneasy since, as you know I do not wish to
+pain you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in contradicting what I
+seemed to say then. I cannot, Diggory, marry you, or think of letting
+you call me your sweetheart. I could not, indeed, Diggory. I hope you
+will not much mind my saying this, and feel in a great pain. It makes
+me very sad when I think it may, for I like you very much, and I always
+put you next to my cousin Clym in my mind. There are so many reasons
+why we cannot be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter. I
+did not in the least expect that you were going to speak on such a
+thing when you followed me, because I had never thought of you in the
+sense of a lover at all. You must not becall me for laughing when you
+spoke; you mistook when you thought I laughed at you as a foolish man.
+I laughed because the idea was so odd, and not at you at all. The great
+reason with my own personal self for not letting you court me is, that
+I do not feel the things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk
+with you with the meaning of being your wife. It is not as you think,
+that I have another in my mind, for I do not encourage anybody, and
+never have in my life. Another reason is my aunt. She would not, I
+know, agree to it, even if I wished to have you. She likes you very
+well, but she will want me to look a little higher than a small
+dairy-farmer, and marry a professional man. I hope you will not set
+your heart against me for writing plainly, but I felt you might try to
+see me again, and it is better that we should not meet. I shall always
+think of you as a good man, and be anxious for your well-doing. I send
+this by Jane Orchard’s little maid,—And remain Diggory, your faithful
+friend,
+
+THOMASIN YEOBRIGHT.
+
+
+To Mr. VENN, Dairy-farmer.
+
+Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning long ago,
+the reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today. During the interval
+he had shifted his position even further from hers than it had
+originally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he was really in
+very good circumstances still. Indeed, seeing that his expenditure was
+only one-fourth of his income, he might have been called a prosperous
+man.
+
+Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and the
+business to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many ways
+congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions,
+had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon
+her who attracted him thither. To be in Thomasin’s heath, and near her,
+yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure left to him.
+
+Then came the incident of that day, and the reddleman, still loving her
+well, was excited by this accidental service to her at a critical
+juncture to vow an active devotion to her cause, instead of, as
+hitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had happened it was
+impossible that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve’s
+intentions. But her hope was apparently centred upon him; and
+dismissing his regrets Venn determined to aid her to be happy in her
+own chosen way. That this way was, of all others, the most distressing
+to himself, was awkward enough; but the reddleman’s love was generous.
+
+His first active step in watching over Thomasin’s interests was taken
+about seven o’clock the next evening and was dictated by the news which
+he had learnt from the sad boy. That Eustacia was somehow the cause of
+Wildeve’s carelessness in relation to the marriage had at once been
+Venn’s conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting between them. It did
+not occur to his mind that Eustacia’s love signal to Wildeve was the
+tender effect upon the deserted beauty of the intelligence which her
+grandfather had brought home. His instinct was to regard her as a
+conspirator against rather than as an antecedent obstacle to Thomasin’s
+happiness.
+
+During the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the condition
+of Thomasin, but he did not venture to intrude upon a threshold to
+which he was a stranger, particularly at such an unpleasant moment as
+this. He had occupied his time in moving with his ponies and load to a
+new point in the heath, eastward to his previous station; and here he
+selected a nook with a careful eye to shelter from wind and rain, which
+seemed to mean that his stay there was to be a comparatively extended
+one. After this he returned on foot some part of the way that he had
+come; and, it being now dark, he diverged to the left till he stood
+behind a holly bush on the edge of a pit not twenty yards from
+Rainbarrow.
+
+He watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. Nobody except
+himself came near the spot that night.
+
+But the loss of his labour produced little effect upon the reddleman.
+He had stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upon a
+certain mass of disappointment as the natural preface to all
+realizations, without which preface they would give cause for alarm.
+
+The same hour the next evening found him again at the same place; but
+Eustacia and Wildeve, the expected trysters, did not appear.
+
+He pursued precisely the same course yet four nights longer, and
+without success. But on the next, being the day-week of their previous
+meeting, he saw a female shape floating along the ridge and the outline
+of a young man ascending from the valley. They met in the little ditch
+encircling the barrow—the original excavation from which it had been
+thrown up by the ancient British people.
+
+The reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin, was aroused
+to strategy in a moment. He instantly left the bush and crept forward
+on his hands and knees. When he had got as close as he might safely
+venture without discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind, the
+conversation of the trysting pair could not be overheard.
+
+Near him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas strewn with
+large turves, which lay edgeways and upside down awaiting removal by
+Timothy Fairway, previous to the winter weather. He took two of these
+as he lay, and dragged them over him till one covered his head and
+shoulders, the other his back and legs. The reddleman would now have
+been quite invisible, even by daylight; the turves, standing upon him
+with the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they were growing. He
+crept along again, and the turves upon his back crept with him. Had he
+approached without any covering the chances are that he would not have
+been perceived in the dusk; approaching thus, it was as though he
+burrowed underground. In this manner he came quite close to where the
+two were standing.
+
+“Wish to consult me on the matter?” reached his ears in the rich,
+impetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. “Consult me? It is an indignity to
+me to talk so—I won’t bear it any longer!” She began weeping. “I have
+loved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to my regret; and
+yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you wish to consult
+with me whether it would not be better to marry Thomasin. Better—of
+course it would be. Marry her—she is nearer to your own position in
+life than I am!”
+
+“Yes, yes; that’s very well,” said Wildeve peremptorily. “But we must
+look at things as they are. Whatever blame may attach to me for having
+brought it about, Thomasin’s position is at present much worse than
+yours. I simply tell you that I am in a strait.”
+
+“But you shall not tell me! You must see that it is only harassing me.
+Damon, you have not acted well; you have sunk in my opinion. You have
+not valued my courtesy—the courtesy of a lady in loving you—who used to
+think of far more ambitious things. But it was Thomasin’s fault. She
+won you away from me, and she deserves to suffer for it. Where is she
+staying now? Not that I care, nor where I am myself. Ah, if I were dead
+and gone how glad she would be! Where is she, I ask?”
+
+“Thomasin is now staying at her aunt’s shut up in a bedroom, and
+keeping out of everybody’s sight,” he said indifferently.
+
+“I don’t think you care much about her even now,” said Eustacia with
+sudden joyousness, “for if you did you wouldn’t talk so coolly about
+her. Do you talk so coolly to her about me? Ah, I expect you do! Why
+did you originally go away from me? I don’t think I can ever forgive
+you, except on one condition, that whenever you desert me, you come
+back again, sorry that you served me so.”
+
+“I never wish to desert you.”
+
+“I do not thank you for that. I should hate it to be all smooth.
+Indeed, I think I like you to desert me a little once now and then.
+Love is the dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, it is
+a shame to say so; but it is true!” She indulged in a little laugh. “My
+low spirits begin at the very idea. Don’t you offer me tame love, or
+away you go!”
+
+“I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman,” said
+Wildeve, “so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthy
+person. It is I who am the sinner after all; I am not worth the little
+finger of either of you.”
+
+“But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from any sense of justice,”
+replied Eustacia quickly. “If you do not love her it is the most
+merciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That’s always
+the best way. There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose. When you
+have left me I am always angry with myself for things that I have said
+to you.”
+
+Wildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. The
+pause was filled up by the intonation of a pollard thorn a little way
+to windward, the breezes filtering through its unyielding twigs as
+through a strainer. It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched
+teeth.
+
+She continued, half sorrowfully, “Since meeting you last, it has
+occurred to me once or twice that perhaps it was not for love of me you
+did not marry her. Tell me, Damon—I’ll try to bear it. Had I nothing
+whatever to do with the matter?”
+
+“Do you press me to tell?”
+
+“Yes, I must know. I see I have been too ready to believe in my own
+power.”
+
+“Well, the immediate reason was that the license would not do for the
+place, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point
+you had nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to me in
+a tone which I don’t at all like.”
+
+“Yes, yes! I am nothing in it—I am nothing in it. You only trifle with
+me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so much of
+you!”
+
+“Nonsense; do not be so passionate.... Eustacia, how we roved among
+these bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shades
+of the hills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!”
+
+She remained in moody silence till she said, “Yes; and how I used to
+laugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made me
+suffer for that since.”
+
+“Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found someone
+fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia.”
+
+“Do you still think you found somebody fairer?”
+
+“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. The scales are balanced so nicely
+that a feather would turn them.”
+
+“But don’t you really care whether I meet you or whether I don’t?” she
+said slowly.
+
+“I care a little, but not enough to break my rest,” replied the young
+man languidly. “No, all that’s past. I find there are two flowers where
+I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four, or any
+number as good as the first.... Mine is a curious fate. Who would have
+thought that all this could happen to me?”
+
+She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger
+seemed an equally possible issue, “Do you love me now?”
+
+“Who can say?”
+
+“Tell me; I will know it!”
+
+“I do, and I do not,” said he mischievously. “That is, I have my times
+and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you are too
+do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I don’t
+know what, except—that you are not the whole world to me that you used
+to be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know and nice to meet,
+and I dare say as sweet as ever—almost.”
+
+Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in a voice
+of suspended mightiness, “I am for a walk, and this is my way.”
+
+“Well, I can do worse than follow you.”
+
+“You know you can’t do otherwise, for all your moods and changes!” she
+answered defiantly. “Say what you will; try as you may; keep away from
+me all that you can—you will never forget me. You will love me all your
+life long. You would jump to marry me!”
+
+“So I would!” said Wildeve. “Such strange thoughts as I’ve had from
+time to time, Eustacia; and they come to me this moment. You hate the
+heath as much as ever; that I know.”
+
+“I do,” she murmured deeply. “’Tis my cross, my shame, and will be my
+death!”
+
+“I abhor it too,” said he. “How mournfully the wind blows round us
+now!”
+
+She did not answer. Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive. Compound
+utterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it was possible to
+view by ear the features of the neighbourhood. Acoustic pictures were
+returned from the darkened scenery; they could hear where the tracts of
+heather began and ended; where the furze was growing stalky and tall;
+where it had been recently cut; in what direction the fir-clump lay,
+and how near was the pit in which the hollies grew; for these differing
+features had their voices no less than their shapes and colours.
+
+“God, how lonely it is!” resumed Wildeve. “What are picturesque ravines
+and mists to us who see nothing else? Why should we stay here? Will you
+go with me to America? I have kindred in Wisconsin.”
+
+“That wants consideration.”
+
+“It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were a wild bird or a
+landscape-painter. Well?”
+
+“Give me time,” she softly said, taking his hand. “America is so far
+away. Are you going to walk with me a little way?”
+
+As Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from the base of the
+barrow, and Wildeve followed her, so that the reddleman could hear no
+more.
+
+He lifted the turves and arose. Their black figures sank and
+disappeared from against the sky. They were as two horns which the
+sluggish heath had put forth from its crown, like a mollusc, and had
+now again drawn in.
+
+The reddleman’s walk across the vale, and over into the next where his
+cart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His
+spirit was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his mouth
+in that walk carried off upon them the accents of a commination.
+
+He entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. Without lighting
+his candle he sat down at once on the three-legged stool, and pondered
+on what he had seen and heard touching that still-loved one of his. He
+uttered a sound which was neither sigh nor sob, but was even more
+indicative than either of a troubled mind.
+
+“My Tamsie,” he whispered heavily. “What can be done? Yes, I will see
+that Eustacia Vye.”
+
+
+
+
+X.
+A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion
+
+
+The next morning, at the time when the height of the sun appeared very
+insignificant from any part of the heath as compared with the altitude
+of Rainbarrow, and when all the little hills in the lower levels were
+like an archipelago in a fog-formed Ægean, the reddleman came from the
+brambled nook which he had adopted as his quarters and ascended the
+slopes of Mistover Knap.
+
+Though these shaggy hills were apparently so solitary, several keen
+round eyes were always ready on such a wintry morning as this to
+converge upon a passer-by. Feathered species sojourned here in hiding
+which would have created wonder if found elsewhere. A bustard haunted
+the spot, and not many years before this five and twenty might have
+been seen in Egdon at one time. Marsh-harriers looked up from the
+valley by Wildeve’s. A cream-coloured courser had used to visit this
+hill, a bird so rare that not more than a dozen have ever been seen in
+England; but a barbarian rested neither night nor day till he had shot
+the African truant, and after that event cream-coloured coursers
+thought fit to enter Egdon no more.
+
+A traveller who should walk and observe any of these visitants as Venn
+observed them now could feel himself to be in direct communication with
+regions unknown to man. Here in front of him was a wild mallard—just
+arrived from the home of the north wind. The creature brought within
+him an amplitude of Northern knowledge. Glacial catastrophes, snowstorm
+episodes, glittering auroral effects, Polaris in the zenith, Franklin
+underfoot—the category of his commonplaces was wonderful. But the bird,
+like many other philosophers, seemed as he looked at the reddleman to
+think that a present moment of comfortable reality was worth a decade
+of memories.
+
+Venn passed on through these towards the house of the isolated beauty
+who lived up among them and despised them. The day was Sunday; but as
+going to church, except to be married or buried, was exceptional at
+Egdon, this made little difference. He had determined upon the bold
+stroke of asking for an interview with Miss Vye—to attack her position
+as Thomasin’s rival either by art or by storm, showing therein,
+somewhat too conspicuously, the want of gallantry characteristic of a
+certain astute sort of men, from clowns to kings. The great Frederick
+making war on the beautiful Archduchess, Napoleon refusing terms to the
+beautiful Queen of Prussia, were not more dead to difference of sex
+than the reddleman was, in his peculiar way, in planning the
+displacement of Eustacia.
+
+To call at the captain’s cottage was always more or less an undertaking
+for the inferior inhabitants. Though occasionally chatty, his moods
+were erratic, and nobody could be certain how he would behave at any
+particular moment. Eustacia was reserved, and lived very much to
+herself. Except the daughter of one of the cotters, who was their
+servant, and a lad who worked in the garden and stable, scarcely anyone
+but themselves ever entered the house. They were the only genteel
+people of the district except the Yeobrights, and though far from rich,
+they did not feel that necessity for preserving a friendly face towards
+every man, bird, and beast which influenced their poorer neighbours.
+
+When the reddleman entered the garden the old man was looking through
+his glass at the stain of blue sea in the distant landscape, the little
+anchors on his buttons twinkling in the sun. He recognized Venn as his
+companion on the highway, but made no remark on that circumstance,
+merely saying, “Ah, reddleman—you here? Have a glass of grog?”
+
+Venn declined, on the plea of it being too early, and stated that his
+business was with Miss Vye. The captain surveyed him from cap to
+waistcoat and from waistcoat to leggings for a few moments, and finally
+asked him to go indoors.
+
+Miss Vye was not to be seen by anybody just then; and the reddleman
+waited in the window-bench of the kitchen, his hands hanging across his
+divergent knees, and his cap hanging from his hands.
+
+“I suppose the young lady is not up yet?” he presently said to the
+servant.
+
+“Not quite yet. Folks never call upon ladies at this time of day.”
+
+“Then I’ll step outside,” said Venn. “If she is willing to see me, will
+she please send out word, and I’ll come in.”
+
+The reddleman left the house and loitered on the hill adjoining. A
+considerable time elapsed, and no request for his presence was brought.
+He was beginning to think that his scheme had failed, when he beheld
+the form of Eustacia herself coming leisurely towards him. A sense of
+novelty in giving audience to that singular figure had been sufficient
+to draw her forth.
+
+She seemed to feel, after a bare look at Diggory Venn, that the man had
+come on a strange errand, and that he was not so mean as she had
+thought him; for her close approach did not cause him to writhe
+uneasily, or shift his feet, or show any of those little signs which
+escape an ingenuous rustic at the advent of the uncommon in womankind.
+On his inquiring if he might have a conversation with her she replied,
+“Yes, walk beside me,” and continued to move on.
+
+Before they had gone far it occurred to the perspicacious reddleman
+that he would have acted more wisely by appearing less
+unimpressionable, and he resolved to correct the error as soon as he
+could find opportunity.
+
+“I have made so bold, miss, as to step across and tell you some strange
+news which has come to my ears about that man.”
+
+“Ah! what man?”
+
+He jerked his elbow to the southeast—the direction of the Quiet Woman.
+
+Eustacia turned quickly to him. “Do you mean Mr. Wildeve?”
+
+“Yes, there is trouble in a household on account of him, and I have
+come to let you know of it, because I believe you might have power to
+drive it away.”
+
+“I? What is the trouble?”
+
+“It is quite a secret. It is that he may refuse to marry Thomasin
+Yeobright after all.”
+
+Eustacia, though set inwardly pulsing by his words, was equal to her
+part in such a drama as this. She replied coldly, “I do not wish to
+listen to this, and you must not expect me to interfere.”
+
+“But, miss, you will hear one word?”
+
+“I cannot. I am not interested in the marriage, and even if I were I
+could not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding.”
+
+“As the only lady on the heath I think you might,” said Venn with
+subtle indirectness. “This is how the case stands. Mr. Wildeve would
+marry Thomasin at once, and make all matters smooth, if so be there
+were not another woman in the case. This other woman is some person he
+has picked up with, and meets on the heath occasionally, I believe. He
+will never marry her, and yet through her he may never marry the woman
+who loves him dearly. Now, if you, miss, who have so much sway over us
+menfolk, were to insist that he should treat your young neighbour
+Tamsin with honourable kindness and give up the other woman, he would
+perhaps do it, and save her a good deal of misery.”
+
+“Ah, my life!” said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips so
+that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a
+similar scarlet fire. “You think too much of my influence over menfolk
+indeed, reddleman. If I had such a power as you imagine I would go
+straight and use it for the good of anybody who has been kind to
+me—which Thomasin Yeobright has not particularly, to my knowledge.”
+
+“Can it be that you really don’t know of it—how much she had always
+thought of you?”
+
+“I have never heard a word of it. Although we live only two miles apart
+I have never been inside her aunt’s house in my life.”
+
+The superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn that thus far
+he had utterly failed. He inwardly sighed and felt it necessary to
+unmask his second argument.
+
+“Well, leaving that out of the question, ’tis in your power, I assure
+you, Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good to another woman.”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve. It is law with all men who
+see ’ee. They say, ‘This well-favoured lady coming—what’s her name? How
+handsome!’ Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright,” the reddleman persisted,
+saying to himself, “God forgive a rascal for lying!” And she was
+handsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking so. There was a
+certain obscurity in Eustacia’s beauty, and Venn’s eye was not trained.
+In her winter dress, as now, she was like the tiger-beetle, which, when
+observed in dull situations, seems to be of the quietest neutral
+colour, but under a full illumination blazes with dazzling splendour.
+
+Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered
+her dignity thereby. “Many women are lovelier than Thomasin,” she said,
+“so not much attaches to that.”
+
+The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: “He is a man who notices
+the looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like
+withywind, if you only had the mind.”
+
+“Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do
+living up here away from him.”
+
+The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. “Miss Vye!” he said.
+
+“Why do you say that—as if you doubted me?” She spoke faintly, and her
+breathing was quick. “The idea of your speaking in that tone to me!”
+she added, with a forced smile of hauteur. “What could have been in
+your mind to lead you to speak like that?”
+
+“Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don’t know this man?—I
+know why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are ashamed.”
+
+“You are mistaken. What do you mean?”
+
+The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. “I was at the
+meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word,” he said. “The
+woman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself.”
+
+It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of
+Candaules’ wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip
+would tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be
+kept down.
+
+“I am unwell,” she said hurriedly. “No—it is not that—I am not in a
+humour to hear you further. Leave me, please.”
+
+“I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you. What I would put
+before you is this. However it may come about—whether she is to blame,
+or you—her case is without doubt worse than yours. Your giving up Mr.
+Wildeve will be a real advantage to you, for how could you marry him?
+Now she cannot get off so easily—everybody will blame her if she loses
+him. Then I ask you—not because her right is best, but because her
+situation is worst—to give him up to her.”
+
+“No—I won’t, I won’t!” she said impetuously, quite forgetful of her
+previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling. “Nobody has ever
+been served so! It was going on well—I will not be beaten down—by an
+inferior woman like her. It is very well for you to come and plead for
+her, but is she not herself the cause of all her own trouble? Am I not
+to show favour to any person I may choose without asking permission of
+a parcel of cottagers? She has come between me and my inclination, and
+now that she finds herself rightly punished she gets you to plead for
+her!”
+
+“Indeed,” said Venn earnestly, “she knows nothing whatever about it. It
+is only I who ask you to give him up. It will be better for her and you
+both. People will say bad things if they find out that a lady secretly
+meets a man who has ill-used another woman.”
+
+“I have _not_ injured her—he was mine before he was hers! He came
+back—because—because he liked me best!” she said wildly. “But I lose
+all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!”
+
+“I can keep secrets,” said Venn gently. “You need not fear. I am the
+only man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing
+more to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to him that
+you hated living here—that Egdon Heath was a jail to you.”
+
+“I did say so. There is a sort of beauty in the scenery, I know; but it
+is a jail to me. The man you mention does not save me from that
+feeling, though he lives here. I should have cared nothing for him had
+there been a better person near.”
+
+The reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from her his third
+attempt seemed promising. “As we have now opened our minds a bit,
+miss,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I have got to propose. Since I have
+taken to the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know.”
+
+She inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes rested in the
+misty vale beneath them.
+
+“And in my travels I go near Budmouth. Now Budmouth is a wonderful
+place—wonderful—a great salt sheening sea bending into the land like a
+bow—thousands of gentlepeople walking up and down—bands of music
+playing—officers by sea and officers by land walking among the rest—out
+of every ten folks you meet nine of ’em in love.”
+
+“I know it,” she said disdainfully. “I know Budmouth better than you. I
+was born there. My father came to be a military musician there from
+abroad. Ah, my soul, Budmouth! I wish I was there now.”
+
+The reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could blaze on
+occasion. “If you were, miss,” he replied, “in a week’s time you would
+think no more of Wildeve than of one of those he’th-croppers that we
+see yond. Now, I could get you there.”
+
+“How?” said Eustacia, with intense curiosity in her heavy eyes.
+
+“My uncle has been for five and twenty years the trusty man of a rich
+widow-lady who has a beautiful house facing the sea. This lady has
+become old and lame, and she wants a young company-keeper to read and
+sing to her, but can’t get one to her mind to save her life, though
+she’ve advertised in the papers, and tried half a dozen. She would jump
+to get you, and Uncle would make it all easy.”
+
+“I should have to work, perhaps?”
+
+“No, not real work—you’d have a little to do, such as reading and that.
+You would not be wanted till New Year’s Day.”
+
+“I knew it meant work,” she said, drooping to languor again.
+
+“I confess there would be a trifle to do in the way of amusing her; but
+though idle people might call it work, working people would call it
+play. Think of the company and the life you’d lead, miss; the gaiety
+you’d see, and the gentleman you’d marry. My uncle is to inquire for a
+trustworthy young lady from the country, as she don’t like town girls.”
+
+“It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won’t go. O, if I could
+live in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do my own
+doings, I’d give the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman, that
+would I.”
+
+“Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance shall be yours,”
+urged her companion.
+
+“Chance—’tis no chance,” she said proudly. “What can a poor man like
+you offer me, indeed?—I am going indoors. I have nothing more to say.
+Don’t your horses want feeding, or your reddlebags want mending, or
+don’t you want to find buyers for your goods, that you stay idling here
+like this?”
+
+Venn spoke not another word. With his hands behind him he turned away,
+that she might not see the hopeless disappointment in his face. The
+mental clearness and power he had found in this lonely girl had indeed
+filled his manner with misgiving even from the first few minutes of
+close quarters with her. Her youth and situation had led him to expect
+a simplicity quite at the beck of his method. But a system of
+inducement which might have carried weaker country lasses along with it
+had merely repelled Eustacia. As a rule, the word Budmouth meant
+fascination on Egdon. That Royal port and watering place, if truly
+mirrored in the minds of the heathfolk, must have combined, in a
+charming and indescribable manner a Carthaginian bustle of building
+with Tarentine luxuriousness and Baian health and beauty. Eustacia felt
+little less extravagantly about the place; but she would not sink her
+independence to get there.
+
+When Diggory Venn had gone quite away, Eustacia walked to the bank and
+looked down the wild and picturesque vale towards the sun, which was
+also in the direction of Wildeve’s. The mist had now so far collapsed
+that the tips of the trees and bushes around his house could just be
+discerned, as if boring upwards through a vast white cobweb which
+cloaked them from the day. There was no doubt that her mind was
+inclined thitherward; indefinitely, fancifully—twining and untwining
+about him as the single object within her horizon on which dreams might
+crystallize. The man who had begun by being merely her amusement, and
+would never have been more than her hobby but for his skill in
+deserting her at the right moments, was now again her desire. Cessation
+in his love-making had revivified her love. Such feeling as Eustacia
+had idly given to Wildeve was dammed into a flood by Thomasin. She had
+used to tease Wildeve, but that was before another had favoured him.
+Often a drop of irony into an indifferent situation renders the whole
+piquant.
+
+“I will never give him up—never!” she said impetuously.
+
+The reddleman’s hint that rumour might show her to disadvantage had no
+permanent terror for Eustacia. She was as unconcerned at that
+contingency as a goddess at a lack of linen. This did not originate in
+inherent shamelessness, but in her living too far from the world to
+feel the impact of public opinion. Zenobia in the desert could hardly
+have cared what was said about her at Rome. As far as social ethics
+were concerned Eustacia approached the savage state, though in emotion
+she was all the while an epicure. She had advanced to the secret
+recesses of sensuousness, yet had hardly crossed the threshold of
+conventionality.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman
+
+
+The reddleman had left Eustacia’s presence with desponding views on
+Thomasin’s future happiness; but he was awakened to the fact that one
+other channel remained untried by seeing, as he followed the way to his
+van, the form of Mrs. Yeobright slowly walking towards the Quiet Woman.
+He went across to her; and could almost perceive in her anxious face
+that this journey of hers to Wildeve was undertaken with the same
+object as his own to Eustacia.
+
+She did not conceal the fact. “Then,” said the reddleman, “you may as
+well leave it alone, Mrs. Yeobright.”
+
+“I half think so myself,” she said. “But nothing else remains to be
+done besides pressing the question upon him.”
+
+“I should like to say a word first,” said Venn firmly. “Mr. Wildeve is
+not the only man who has asked Thomasin to marry him; and why should
+not another have a chance? Mrs. Yeobright, I should be glad to marry
+your niece and would have done it any time these last two years. There,
+now it is out, and I have never told anybody before but herself.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was not demonstrative, but her eyes involuntarily
+glanced towards his singular though shapely figure.
+
+“Looks are not everything,” said the reddleman, noticing the glance.
+“There’s many a calling that don’t bring in so much as mine, if it
+comes to money; and perhaps I am not so much worse off than Wildeve.
+There is nobody so poor as these professional fellows who have failed;
+and if you shouldn’t like my redness—well, I am not red by birth, you
+know; I only took to this business for a freak; and I might turn my
+hand to something else in good time.”
+
+“I am much obliged to you for your interest in my niece; but I fear
+there would be objections. More than that, she is devoted to this man.”
+
+“True; or I shouldn’t have done what I have this morning.”
+
+“Otherwise there would be no pain in the case, and you would not see me
+going to his house now. What was Thomasin’s answer when you told her of
+your feelings?”
+
+“She wrote that you would object to me; and other things.”
+
+“She was in a measure right. You must not take this unkindly—I merely
+state it as a truth. You have been good to her, and we do not forget
+it. But as she was unwilling on her own account to be your wife, that
+settles the point without my wishes being concerned.”
+
+“Yes. But there is a difference between then and now, ma’am. She is
+distressed now, and I have thought that if you were to talk to her
+about me, and think favourably of me yourself, there might be a chance
+of winning her round, and getting her quite independent of this
+Wildeve’s backward and forward play, and his not knowing whether he’ll
+have her or no.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright shook her head. “Thomasin thinks, and I think with her,
+that she ought to be Wildeve’s wife, if she means to appear before the
+world without a slur upon her name. If they marry soon, everybody will
+believe that an accident did really prevent the wedding. If not, it may
+cast a shade upon her character—at any rate make her ridiculous. In
+short, if it is anyhow possible they must marry now.”
+
+“I thought that till half an hour ago. But, after all, why should her
+going off with him to Anglebury for a few hours do her any harm?
+Anybody who knows how pure she is will feel any such thought to be
+quite unjust. I have been trying this morning to help on this marriage
+with Wildeve—yes, I, ma’am—in the belief that I ought to do it, because
+she was so wrapped up in him. But I much question if I was right, after
+all. However, nothing came of it. And now I offer myself.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright appeared disinclined to enter further into the question.
+“I fear I must go on,” she said. “I do not see that anything else can
+be done.”
+
+And she went on. But though this conversation did not divert Thomasin’s
+aunt from her purposed interview with Wildeve, it made a considerable
+difference in her mode of conducting that interview. She thanked God
+for the weapon which the reddleman had put into her hands.
+
+Wildeve was at home when she reached the inn. He showed her silently
+into the parlour, and closed the door. Mrs. Yeobright began—
+
+“I have thought it my duty to call today. A new proposal has been made
+to me, which has rather astonished me. It will affect Thomasin greatly;
+and I have decided that it should at least be mentioned to you.”
+
+“Yes? What is it?” he said civilly.
+
+“It is, of course, in reference to her future. You may not be aware
+that another man has shown himself anxious to marry Thomasin. Now,
+though I have not encouraged him yet, I cannot conscientiously refuse
+him a chance any longer. I don’t wish to be short with you; but I must
+be fair to him and to her.”
+
+“Who is the man?” said Wildeve with surprise.
+
+“One who has been in love with her longer than she has with you. He
+proposed to her two years ago. At that time she refused him.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“He has seen her lately, and has asked me for permission to pay his
+addresses to her. She may not refuse him twice.”
+
+“What is his name?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright declined to say. “He is a man Thomasin likes,” she
+added, “and one whose constancy she respects at least. It seems to me
+that what she refused then she would be glad to get now. She is much
+annoyed at her awkward position.”
+
+“She never once told me of this old lover.”
+
+“The gentlest women are not such fools as to show _every_ card.”
+
+“Well, if she wants him I suppose she must have him.”
+
+“It is easy enough to say that; but you don’t see the difficulty. He
+wants her much more than she wants him; and before I can encourage
+anything of the sort I must have a clear understanding from you that
+you will not interfere to injure an arrangement which I promote in the
+belief that it is for the best. Suppose, when they are engaged, and
+everything is smoothly arranged for their marriage, that you should
+step between them and renew your suit? You might not win her back, but
+you might cause much unhappiness.”
+
+“Of course I should do no such thing,” said Wildeve “But they are not
+engaged yet. How do you know that Thomasin would accept him?”
+
+“That’s a question I have carefully put to myself; and upon the whole
+the probabilities are in favour of her accepting him in time. I flatter
+myself that I have some influence over her. She is pliable, and I can
+be strong in my recommendations of him.”
+
+“And in your disparagement of me at the same time.”
+
+“Well, you may depend upon my not praising you,” she said drily. “And
+if this seems like manœuvring, you must remember that her position is
+peculiar, and that she has been hardly used. I shall also be helped in
+making the match by her own desire to escape from the humiliation of
+her present state; and a woman’s pride in these cases will lead her a
+very great way. A little managing may be required to bring her round;
+but I am equal to that, provided that you agree to the one thing
+indispensable; that is, to make a distinct declaration that she is to
+think no more of you as a possible husband. That will pique her into
+accepting him.”
+
+“I can hardly say that just now, Mrs. Yeobright. It is so sudden.”
+
+“And so my whole plan is interfered with! It is very inconvenient that
+you refuse to help my family even to the small extent of saying
+distinctly you will have nothing to do with us.”
+
+Wildeve reflected uncomfortably. “I confess I was not prepared for
+this,” he said. “Of course I’ll give her up if you wish, if it is
+necessary. But I thought I might be her husband.”
+
+“We have heard that before.”
+
+“Now, Mrs. Yeobright, don’t let us disagree. Give me a fair time. I
+don’t want to stand in the way of any better chance she may have; only
+I wish you had let me know earlier. I will write to you or call in a
+day or two. Will that suffice?”
+
+“Yes,” she replied, “provided you promise not to communicate with
+Thomasin without my knowledge.”
+
+“I promise that,” he said. And the interview then terminated, Mrs.
+Yeobright returning homeward as she had come.
+
+By far the greatest effect of her simple strategy on that day was, as
+often happens, in a quarter quite outside her view when arranging it.
+In the first place, her visit sent Wildeve the same evening after dark
+to Eustacia’s house at Mistover.
+
+At this hour the lonely dwelling was closely blinded and shuttered from
+the chill and darkness without. Wildeve’s clandestine plan with her was
+to take a little gravel in his hand and hold it to the crevice at the
+top of the window shutter, which was on the outside, so that it should
+fall with a gentle rustle, resembling that of a mouse, between shutter
+and glass. This precaution in attracting her attention was to avoid
+arousing the suspicions of her grandfather.
+
+The soft words, “I hear; wait for me,” in Eustacia’s voice from within
+told him that she was alone.
+
+He waited in his customary manner by walking round the enclosure and
+idling by the pool, for Wildeve was never asked into the house by his
+proud though condescending mistress. She showed no sign of coming out
+in a hurry. The time wore on, and he began to grow impatient. In the
+course of twenty minutes she appeared from round the corner, and
+advanced as if merely taking an airing.
+
+“You would not have kept me so long had you known what I come about,”
+he said with bitterness. “Still, you are worth waiting for.”
+
+“What has happened?” said Eustacia. “I did not know you were in
+trouble. I too am gloomy enough.”
+
+“I am not in trouble,” said he. “It is merely that affairs have come to
+a head, and I must take a clear course.”
+
+“What course is that?” she asked with attentive interest.
+
+“And can you forget so soon what I proposed to you the other night?
+Why, take you from this place, and carry you away with me abroad.”
+
+“I have not forgotten. But why have you come so unexpectedly to repeat
+the question, when you only promised to come next Saturday? I thought I
+was to have plenty of time to consider.”
+
+“Yes, but the situation is different now.”
+
+“Explain to me.”
+
+“I don’t want to explain, for I may pain you.”
+
+“But I must know the reason of this hurry.”
+
+“It is simply my ardour, dear Eustacia. Everything is smooth now.”
+
+“Then why are you so ruffled?”
+
+“I am not aware of it. All is as it should be. Mrs. Yeobright—but she
+is nothing to us.”
+
+“Ah, I knew she had something to do with it! Come, I don’t like
+reserve.”
+
+“No—she has nothing. She only says she wishes me to give up Thomasin
+because another man is anxious to marry her. The woman, now she no
+longer needs me, actually shows off!” Wildeve’s vexation has escaped
+him in spite of himself.
+
+Eustacia was silent a long while. “You are in the awkward position of
+an official who is no longer wanted,” she said in a changed tone.
+
+“It seems so. But I have not yet seen Thomasin.”
+
+“And that irritates you. Don’t deny it, Damon. You are actually nettled
+by this slight from an unexpected quarter.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“And you come to get me because you cannot get her. This is certainly a
+new position altogether. I am to be a stop-gap.”
+
+“Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day.”
+
+Eustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence. What curious
+feeling was this coming over her? Was it really possible that her
+interest in Wildeve had been so entirely the result of antagonism that
+the glory and the dream departed from the man with the first sound that
+he was no longer coveted by her rival? She was, then, secure of him at
+last. Thomasin no longer required him. What a humiliating victory! He
+loved her best, she thought; and yet—dared she to murmur such
+treacherous criticism ever so softly?—what was the man worth whom a
+woman inferior to herself did not value? The sentiment which lurks more
+or less in all animate nature—that of not desiring the undesired of
+others—was lively as a passion in the supersubtle, epicurean heart of
+Eustacia. Her social superiority over him, which hitherto had scarcely
+ever impressed her, became unpleasantly insistent, and for the first
+time she felt that she had stooped in loving him.
+
+“Well, darling, you agree?” said Wildeve.
+
+“If it could be London, or even Budmouth, instead of America,” she
+murmured languidly. “Well, I will think. It is too great a thing for me
+to decide offhand. I wish I hated the heath less—or loved you more.”
+
+“You can be painfully frank. You loved me a month ago warmly enough to
+go anywhere with me.”
+
+“And you loved Thomasin.”
+
+“Yes, perhaps that was where the reason lay,” he returned, with almost
+a sneer. “I don’t hate her now.”
+
+“Exactly. The only thing is that you can no longer get her.”
+
+“Come—no taunts, Eustacia, or we shall quarrel. If you don’t agree to
+go with me, and agree shortly, I shall go by myself.”
+
+“Or try Thomasin again. Damon, how strange it seems that you could have
+married her or me indifferently, and only have come to me because I
+am—cheapest! Yes, yes—it is true. There was a time when I should have
+exclaimed against a man of that sort, and been quite wild; but it is
+all past now.”
+
+“Will you go, dearest? Come secretly with me to Bristol, marry me, and
+turn our backs upon this dog-hole of England for ever? Say Yes.”
+
+“I want to get away from here at almost any cost,” she said with
+weariness, “but I don’t like to go with you. Give me more time to
+decide.”
+
+“I have already,” said Wildeve. “Well, I give you one more week.”
+
+“A little longer, so that I may tell you decisively. I have to consider
+so many things. Fancy Thomasin being anxious to get rid of you! I
+cannot forget it.”
+
+“Never mind that. Say Monday week. I will be here precisely at this
+time.”
+
+“Let it be at Rainbarrow,” said she. “This is too near home; my
+grandfather may be walking out.”
+
+“Thank you, dear. On Monday week at this time I will be at the Barrow.
+Till then good-bye.”
+
+“Good-bye. No, no, you must not touch me now. Shaking hands is enough
+till I have made up my mind.”
+
+Eustacia watched his shadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed
+her hand to her forehead and breathed heavily; and then her rich,
+romantic lips parted under that homely impulse—a yawn. She was
+immediately angry at having betrayed even to herself the possible
+evanescence of her passion for him. She could not admit at once that
+she might have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his mediocrity
+now was to admit her own great folly heretofore. And the discovery that
+she was the owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog in the
+manger had something in it which at first made her ashamed.
+
+The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright’s diplomacy was indeed remarkable, though
+not as yet of the kind she had anticipated. It had appreciably
+influenced Wildeve, but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her lover
+was no longer to her an exciting man whom many women strove for, and
+herself could only retain by striving with them. He was a superfluity.
+
+She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly
+grief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the
+latter days of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that the
+end of the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is
+one of the most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along the
+course between the beginning of a passion and its end.
+
+Her grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in pouring some
+gallons of newly arrived rum into the square bottles of his square
+cellaret. Whenever these home supplies were exhausted he would go to
+the Quiet Woman, and, standing with his back to the fire, grog in hand,
+tell remarkable stories of how he had lived seven years under the
+waterline of his ship, and other naval wonders, to the natives, who
+hoped too earnestly for a treat of ale from the teller to exhibit any
+doubts of his truth.
+
+He had been there this evening. “I suppose you have heard the Egdon
+news, Eustacia?” he said, without looking up from the bottles. “The men
+have been talking about it at the Woman as if it were of national
+importance.”
+
+“I have heard none,” she said.
+
+“Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming home next week to
+spend Christmas with his mother. He is a fine fellow by this time, it
+seems. I suppose you remember him?”
+
+“I never saw him in my life.”
+
+“Ah, true; he left before you came here. I well remember him as a
+promising boy.”
+
+“Where has he been living all these years?”
+
+“In that rookery of pomp and vanity, Paris, I believe.”
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SECOND—THE ARRIVAL
+
+
+
+
+I.
+Tidings of the Comer
+
+
+On the fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain
+ephemeral operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way, the
+majestic calm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those
+of a town, a village, or even a farm, would have appeared as the
+ferment of stagnation merely, a creeping of the flesh of somnolence.
+But here, away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among
+which mere walking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man
+could imagine himself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they
+attracted the attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not
+yet asleep, and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from
+hillocks at a safe distance.
+
+The performance was that of bringing together and building into a stack
+the furze faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the captain’s use
+during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at the end of the
+dwelling, and the men engaged in building it were Humphrey and Sam, the
+old man looking on.
+
+It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o’clock; but the winter
+solstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun caused the
+hour to seem later than it actually was, there being little here to
+remind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience of the
+sky as a dial. In the course of many days and weeks sunrise had
+advanced its quarters from northeast to southeast, sunset had receded
+from northwest to southwest; but Egdon had hardly heeded the change.
+
+Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like a
+kitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping chimney-corner. The air was
+still, and while she lingered a moment here alone sounds of voices in
+conversation came to her ears directly down the chimney. She entered
+the recess, and, listening, looked up the old irregular shaft, with its
+cavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered about on its way to the
+square bit of sky at the top, from which the daylight struck down with
+a pallid glare upon the tatters of soot draping the flue as seaweed
+drapes a rocky fissure.
+
+She remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney, and the
+voices were those of the workers.
+
+Her grandfather joined in the conversation. “That lad ought never to
+have left home. His father’s occupation would have suited him best, and
+the boy should have followed on. I don’t believe in these new moves in
+families. My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should my son have
+been if I had had one.”
+
+“The place he’s been living at is Paris,” said Humphrey, “and they tell
+me ’tis where the king’s head was cut off years ago. My poor mother
+used to tell me about that business. ‘Hummy,’ she used to say, ‘I was a
+young maid then, and as I was at home ironing Mother’s caps one
+afternoon the parson came in and said, “They’ve cut the king’s head
+off, Jane; and what ’twill be next God knows.’”
+
+“A good many of us knew as well as He before long,” said the captain,
+chuckling. “I lived seven years under water on account of it in my
+boyhood—in that damned surgery of the Triumph, seeing men brought down
+to the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to Jericho.... And so the
+young man has settled in Paris. Manager to a diamond merchant, or some
+such thing, is he not?”
+
+“Yes, sir, that’s it. ’Tis a blazing great business that he belongs to,
+so I’ve heard his mother say—like a king’s palace, as far as diments
+go.”
+
+“I can well mind when he left home,” said Sam.
+
+“’Tis a good thing for the feller,” said Humphrey. “A sight of times
+better to be selling diments than nobbling about here.”
+
+“It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place.”
+
+“A good few indeed, my man,” replied the captain. “Yes, you may make
+away with a deal of money and be neither drunkard nor glutton.”
+
+“They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real perusing man, with
+the strangest notions about things. There, that’s because he went to
+school early, such as the school was.”
+
+“Strange notions, has he?” said the old man. “Ah, there’s too much of
+that sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Every gatepost
+and barn’s door you come to is sure to have some bad word or other
+chalked upon it by the young rascals—a woman can hardly pass for shame
+sometimes. If they’d never been taught how to write they wouldn’t have
+been able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers couldn’t do it, and
+the country was all the better for it.”
+
+“Now, I should think, Cap’n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much in
+her head that comes from books as anybody about here?”
+
+“Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her head
+it would be better for her,” said the captain shortly; after which he
+walked away.
+
+“I say, Sam,” observed Humphrey when the old man was gone, “she and
+Clym Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair—hey? If they
+wouldn’t I’ll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for certain,
+and learned in print, and always thinking about high doctrine—there
+couldn’t be a better couple if they were made o’ purpose. Clym’s family
+is as good as hers. His father was a farmer, that’s true; but his
+mother was a sort of lady, as we know. Nothing would please me better
+than to see them two man and wife.”
+
+“They’d look very natty, arm-in-crook together, and their best clothes
+on, whether or no, if he’s at all the well-favoured fellow he used to
+be.”
+
+“They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terrible
+much after so many years. If I knew for certain when he was coming I’d
+stroll out three or four miles to meet him and help carry anything
+for’n; though I suppose he’s altered from the boy he was. They say he
+can talk French as fast as a maid can eat blackberries; and if so,
+depend upon it we who have stayed at home shall seem no more than
+scroff in his eyes.”
+
+“Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn’t he?”
+
+“Yes; but how he’s coming from Budmouth I don’t know.”
+
+“That’s a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such a
+nice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What a
+nunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren’t married
+at all, after singing to ’em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if I
+should like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by a
+man. It makes the family look small.”
+
+“Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health is
+suffering from it, I hear, for she will bide entirely indoors. We never
+see her out now, scampering over the furze with a face as red as a
+rose, as she used to do.”
+
+“I’ve heard she wouldn’t have Wildeve now if he asked her.”
+
+“You have? ’Tis news to me.”
+
+While the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed thus Eustacia’s
+face gradually bent to the hearth in a profound reverie, her toe
+unconsciously tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet.
+
+The subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting to her. A
+young and clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of all
+contrasting places in the world, Paris. It was like a man coming from
+heaven. More singular still, the heathmen had instinctively coupled her
+and this man together in their minds as a pair born for each other.
+
+That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visions enough
+to fill the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternations from mental
+vacuity do sometimes occur thus quietly. She could never have believed
+in the morning that her colourless inner world would before night
+become as animated as water under a microscope, and that without the
+arrival of a single visitor. The words of Sam and Humphrey on the
+harmony between the unknown and herself had on her mind the effect of
+the invading Bard’s prelude in the Castle of Indolence, at which
+myriads of imprisoned shapes arose where had previously appeared the
+stillness of a void.
+
+Involved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time. When she became
+conscious of externals it was dusk. The furze-rick was finished; the
+men had gone home. Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she would take
+a walk at this her usual time; and she determined that her walk should
+be in the direction of Blooms-End, the birthplace of young Yeobright
+and the present home of his mother. She had no reason for walking
+elsewhere, and why should she not go that way? The scene of the
+daydream is sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen. To look at the
+palings before the Yeobrights’ house had the dignity of a necessary
+performance. Strange that such a piece of idling should have seemed an
+important errand.
+
+She put on her bonnet, and, leaving the house, descended the hill on
+the side towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly along the valley
+for a distance of a mile and a half. This brought her to a spot in
+which the green bottom of the dale began to widen, the furze bushes to
+recede yet further from the path on each side, till they were
+diminished to an isolated one here and there by the increasing
+fertility of the soil. Beyond the irregular carpet of grass was a row
+of white palings, which marked the verge of the heath in this latitude.
+They showed upon the dusky scene that they bordered as distinctly as
+white lace on velvet. Behind the white palings was a little garden;
+behind the garden an old, irregular, thatched house, facing the heath,
+and commanding a full view of the valley. This was the obscure, removed
+spot to which was about to return a man whose latter life had been
+passed in the French capital—the centre and vortex of the fashionable
+world.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+The People at Blooms-End Make Ready
+
+
+All that afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia’s
+ruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin had
+been persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of loyalty
+towards her cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account with an
+alacrity unusual in her during these most sorrowful days of her life.
+At the time that Eustacia was listening to the rick-makers’
+conversation on Clym’s return, Thomasin was climbing into a loft over
+her aunt’s fuelhouse, where the store-apples were kept, to search out
+the best and largest of them for the coming holiday-time.
+
+The loft was lighted by a semicircular hole, through which the pigeons
+crept to their lodgings in the same high quarters of the premises; and
+from this hole the sun shone in a bright yellow patch upon the figure
+of the maiden as she knelt and plunged her naked arms into the soft
+brown fern, which, from its abundance, was used on Egdon in packing
+away stores of all kinds. The pigeons were flying about her head with
+the greatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just visible above
+the floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of light, as she stood
+halfway up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was not climber
+enough to venture.
+
+“Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well as
+ribstones.”
+
+Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where more
+mellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking them out
+she stopped a moment.
+
+“Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?” she said, gazing
+abstractedly at the pigeon-hole, which admitted the sunlight so
+directly upon her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost
+seemed to shine through her.
+
+“If he could have been dear to you in another way,” said Mrs. Yeobright
+from the ladder, “this might have been a happy meeting.”
+
+“Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?”
+
+“Yes,” said her aunt, with some warmth. “To thoroughly fill the air
+with the past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and keep
+clear of it.”
+
+Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. “I am a warning to
+others, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are,” she said in a
+low voice. “What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them? ’Tis
+absurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me think that I
+do, by the way they behave towards me? Why don’t people judge me by my
+acts? Now, look at me as I kneel here, picking up these apples—do I
+look like a lost woman?... I wish all good women were as good as I!”
+she added vehemently.
+
+“Strangers don’t see you as I do,” said Mrs. Yeobright; “they judge
+from false report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to blame.”
+
+“How quickly a rash thing can be done!” replied the girl. Her lips were
+quivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that she could
+hardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued industriously
+searching to hide her weakness.
+
+“As soon as you have finished getting the apples,” her aunt said,
+descending the ladder, “come down, and we’ll go for the holly. There is
+nobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear being stared
+at. We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in our
+preparations.”
+
+Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together they
+went through the white palings to the heath beyond. The open hills were
+airy and clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often appears
+on a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination independently
+toned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts of landscape streaming
+visibly across those further off; a stratum of ensaffroned light was
+imposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind these lay still remoter
+scenes wrapped in frigid grey.
+
+They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conical
+pit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general
+level of the ground. Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the
+bushes, as she had done under happier circumstances on many similar
+occasions, and with a small chopper that they had brought she began to
+lop off the heavily berried boughs.
+
+“Don’t scratch your face,” said her aunt, who stood at the edge of the
+pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green and
+scarlet masses of the tree. “Will you walk with me to meet him this
+evening?”
+
+“I should like to. Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him,” said
+Thomasin, tossing out a bough. “Not that that would matter much; I
+belong to one man; nothing can alter that. And that man I must marry,
+for my pride’s sake.”
+
+“I am afraid—” began Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Ah, you think, ‘That weak girl—how is she going to get a man to marry
+her when she chooses?’ But let me tell you one thing, Aunt: Mr. Wildeve
+is not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman. He has
+an unfortunate manner, and doesn’t try to make people like him if they
+don’t wish to do it of their own accord.”
+
+“Thomasin,” said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her niece,
+“do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr. Wildeve?”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed its
+colour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him,
+and that you act a part to me.”
+
+“He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him.”
+
+“Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment agree to be his
+wife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?”
+
+Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed. “Aunt,” she
+said presently, “I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer that
+question.”
+
+“Yes, you have.”
+
+“You may think what you choose. I have never implied to you by word or
+deed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will. And
+I shall marry him.”
+
+“Well, wait till he repeats his offer. I think he may do it, now that
+he knows—something I told him. I don’t for a moment dispute that it is
+the most proper thing for you to marry him. Much as I have objected to
+him in bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure. It is the
+only way out of a false position, and a very galling one.”
+
+“What did you tell him?”
+
+“That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours.”
+
+“Aunt,” said Thomasin, with round eyes, “what _do_ you mean?”
+
+“Don’t be alarmed; it was my duty. I can say no more about it now, but
+when it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I said
+it.”
+
+Thomasin was perforce content.
+
+“And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for the
+present?” she next asked.
+
+“I have given my word to. But what is the use of it? He must soon know
+what has happened. A mere look at your face will show him that
+something is wrong.”
+
+Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. “Now, hearken to
+me,” she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a force
+which was other than physical. “Tell him nothing. If he finds out that
+I am not worthy to be his cousin, let him. But, since he loved me once,
+we will not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon. The air is
+full of the story, I know; but gossips will not dare to speak of it to
+him for the first few days. His closeness to me is the very thing that
+will hinder the tale from reaching him early. If I am not made safe
+from sneers in a week or two I will tell him myself.”
+
+The earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented further objections.
+Her aunt simply said, “Very well. He should by rights have been told at
+the time that the wedding was going to be. He will never forgive you
+for your secrecy.”
+
+“Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished to spare him, and
+that I did not expect him home so soon. And you must not let me stand
+in the way of your Christmas party. Putting it off would only make
+matters worse.”
+
+“Of course I shall not. I do not wish to show myself beaten before all
+Egdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve. We have enough berries now,
+I think, and we had better take them home. By the time we have decked
+the house with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must think of
+starting to meet him.”
+
+Thomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair and dress the loose
+berries which had fallen thereon, and went down the hill with her aunt,
+each woman bearing half the gathered boughs. It was now nearly four
+o’clock, and the sunlight was leaving the vales. When the west grew red
+the two relatives came again from the house and plunged into the heath
+in a different direction from the first, towards a point in the distant
+highway along which the expected man was to return.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream
+
+
+Eustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes in the
+direction of Mrs. Yeobright’s house and premises. No light, sound, or
+movement was perceptible there. The evening was chilly; the spot was
+dark and lonely. She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and
+after lingering ten or fifteen minutes she turned again towards home.
+
+She had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front of her
+betokened the approach of persons in conversation along the same path.
+Soon their heads became visible against the sky. They were walking
+slowly; and though it was too dark for much discovery of character from
+aspect, the gait of them showed that they were not workers on the
+heath. Eustacia stepped a little out of the foot-track to let them
+pass. They were two women and a man; and the voices of the women were
+those of Mrs. Yeobright and Thomasin.
+
+They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared to discern her
+dusky form. There came to her ears in a masculine voice, “Good night!”
+
+She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round. She could not,
+for a moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had brought into her
+presence the soul of the house she had gone to inspect, the man without
+whom her inspection would not have been thought of.
+
+She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. Such was her
+intentness, however, that it seemed as if her ears were performing the
+functions of seeing as well as hearing. This extension of power can
+almost be believed in at such moments. The deaf Dr. Kitto was probably
+under the influence of a parallel fancy when he described his body as
+having become, by long endeavour, so sensitive to vibrations that he
+had gained the power of perceiving by it as by ears.
+
+She could follow every word that the ramblers uttered. They were
+talking no secrets. They were merely indulging in the ordinary
+vivacious chat of relatives who have long been parted in person though
+not in soul. But it was not to the words that Eustacia listened; she
+could not even have recalled, a few minutes later, what the words were.
+It was to the alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth of
+them—the voice that had wished her good night. Sometimes this throat
+uttered Yes, sometimes it uttered No; sometimes it made inquiries about
+a time-worn denizen of the place. Once it surprised her notions by
+remarking upon the friendliness and geniality written in the faces of
+the hills around.
+
+The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear. Thus
+much had been granted her; and all besides withheld. No event could
+have been more exciting. During the greater part of the afternoon she
+had been entrancing herself by imagining the fascination which must
+attend a man come direct from beautiful Paris—laden with its
+atmosphere, familiar with its charms. And this man had greeted her.
+
+With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of the
+women wasted away from her memory; but the accents of the other stayed
+on. Was there anything in the voice of Mrs. Yeobright’s son—for Clym it
+was—startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive. All
+emotional things were possible to the speaker of that “good night.”
+Eustacia’s imagination supplied the rest—except the solution to one
+riddle. What _could_ the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and
+geniality in these shaggy hills?
+
+On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly
+charged woman’s head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but the
+changes, though actual, are minute. Eustacia’s features went through a
+rhythmical succession of them. She glowed; remembering the mendacity of
+the imagination, she flagged; then she freshened; then she fired; then
+she cooled again. It was a cycle of aspects, produced by a cycle of
+visions.
+
+Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited. Her grandfather was
+enjoying himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing the
+red-hot surface of the turves, so that their lurid glare irradiated the
+chimney-corner with the hues of a furnace.
+
+“Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?” she said,
+coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth. “I wish
+we were. They seem to be very nice people.”
+
+“Be hanged if I know why,” said the captain. “I liked the old man well
+enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never have
+cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure.”
+
+“Why shouldn’t I?”
+
+“Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in the
+kitchen, drink mead and elder-wine, and sand the floor to keep it
+clean. A sensible way of life; but how would you like it?”
+
+“I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman? A curate’s daughter,
+was she not?”
+
+“Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose she
+has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once
+accidentally offended her, and I have never seen her since.”
+
+That night was an eventful one to Eustacia’s brain, and one which she
+hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from
+Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable
+one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was
+certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia’s situation before. It
+had as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many fluctuations
+as the northern lights, as much colour as a parterre in June, and was
+as crowded with figures as a coronation. To Queen Scheherazade the
+dream might have seemed not far removed from commonplace; and to a girl
+just returned from all the courts of Europe it might have seemed not
+more than interesting. But amid the circumstances of Eustacia’s life it
+was as wonderful as a dream could be.
+
+There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation scenes a
+less extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared behind the
+general brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music,
+and her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her
+through the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being
+closed. The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came into
+her ear from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman in
+Paradise. Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers,
+dived into one of the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere into
+an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows. “It must be here,” said the
+voice by her side, and blushingly looking up she saw him removing his
+casque to kiss her. At that moment there was a cracking noise, and his
+figure fell into fragments like a pack of cards.
+
+She cried aloud. “O that I had seen his face!”
+
+Eustacia awoke. The cracking had been that of the window shutter
+downstairs, which the maid-servant was opening to let in the day, now
+slowly increasing to Nature’s meagre allowance at this sickly time of
+the year. “O that I had seen his face!” she said again. “’Twas meant
+for Mr. Yeobright!”
+
+When she became cooler she perceived that many of the phases of the
+dream had naturally arisen out of the images and fancies of the day
+before. But this detracted little from its interest, which lay in the
+excellent fuel it provided for newly kindled fervour. She was at the
+modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called
+“having a fancy for.” It occurs once in the history of the most
+gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the
+weakest will.
+
+The perfervid woman was by this time half in love with a vision. The
+fantastic nature of her passion, which lowered her as an intellect,
+raised her as a soul. If she had had a little more self-control she
+would have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and so
+have killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might have
+gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights’ premises at Blooms-End at any
+maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did neither of
+these things. She acted as the most exemplary might have acted, being
+so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day upon the Egdon
+hills, and kept her eyes employed.
+
+The first occasion passed, and he did not come that way.
+
+She promenaded a second time, and was again the sole wanderer there.
+
+The third time there was a dense fog; she looked around, but without
+much hope. Even if he had been walking within twenty yards of her she
+could not have seen him.
+
+At the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain in torrents,
+and she turned back.
+
+The fifth sally was in the afternoon; it was fine, and she remained out
+long, walking to the very top of the valley in which Blooms-End lay.
+She saw the white paling about half a mile off; but he did not appear.
+It was almost with heart-sickness that she came home and with a sense
+of shame at her weakness. She resolved to look for the man from Paris
+no more.
+
+But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had Eustacia
+formed this resolve than the opportunity came which, while sought, had
+been entirely withholden.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure
+
+
+In the evening of this last day of expectation, which was the
+twenty-third of December, Eustacia was at home alone. She had passed
+the recent hour in lamenting over a rumour newly come to her ears—that
+Yeobright’s visit to his mother was to be of short duration, and would
+end some time the next week. “Naturally,” she said to herself. A man in
+the full swing of his activities in a gay city could not afford to
+linger long on Egdon Heath. That she would behold face to face the
+owner of the awakening voice within the limits of such a holiday was
+most unlikely, unless she were to haunt the environs of his mother’s
+house like a robin, to do which was difficult and unseemly.
+
+The customary expedient of provincial girls and men in such
+circumstances is churchgoing. In an ordinary village or country town
+one can safely calculate that, either on Christmas day or the Sunday
+contiguous, any native home for the holidays, who has not through age
+or ennui lost the appetite for seeing and being seen, will turn up in
+some pew or other, shining with hope, self-consciousness, and new
+clothes. Thus the congregation on Christmas morning is mostly a Tussaud
+collection of celebrities who have been born in the neighbourhood.
+Hither the mistress, left neglected at home all the year, can steal and
+observe the development of the returned lover who has forgotten her,
+and think as she watches him over her prayer book that he may throb
+with a renewed fidelity when novelties have lost their charm. And
+hither a comparatively recent settler like Eustacia may betake herself
+to scrutinize the person of a native son who left home before her
+advent upon the scene, and consider if the friendship of his parents be
+worth cultivating during his next absence in order to secure a
+knowledge of him on his next return.
+
+But these tender schemes were not feasible among the scattered
+inhabitants of Egdon Heath. In name they were parishioners, but
+virtually they belonged to no parish at all. People who came to these
+few isolated houses to keep Christmas with their friends remained in
+their friends’ chimney-corners drinking mead and other comforting
+liquors till they left again for good and all. Rain, snow, ice, mud
+everywhere around, they did not care to trudge two or three miles to
+sit wet-footed and splashed to the nape of their necks among those who,
+though in some measure neighbours, lived close to the church, and
+entered it clean and dry. Eustacia knew it was ten to one that Clym
+Yeobright would go to no church at all during his few days of leave,
+and that it would be a waste of labour for her to go driving the pony
+and gig over a bad road in hope to see him there.
+
+It was dusk, and she was sitting by the fire in the dining-room or
+hall, which they occupied at this time of the year in preference to the
+parlour, because of its large hearth, constructed for turf-fires, a
+fuel the captain was partial to in the winter season. The only visible
+articles in the room were those on the window-sill, which showed their
+shapes against the low sky, the middle article being the old hourglass,
+and the other two a pair of ancient British urns which had been dug
+from a barrow near, and were used as flowerpots for two razor-leaved
+cactuses. Somebody knocked at the door. The servant was out; so was her
+grandfather. The person, after waiting a minute, came in and tapped at
+the door of the room.
+
+“Who’s there?” said Eustacia.
+
+“Please, Cap’n Vye, will you let us——”
+
+Eustacia arose and went to the door. “I cannot allow you to come in so
+boldly. You should have waited.”
+
+“The cap’n said I might come in without any fuss,” was answered in a
+lad’s pleasant voice.
+
+“Oh, did he?” said Eustacia more gently. “What do you want, Charley?”
+
+“Please will your grandfather lend us his fuelhouse to try over our
+parts in, tonight at seven o’clock?”
+
+“What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?”
+
+“Yes, miss. The cap’n used to let the old mummers practise here.”
+
+“I know it. Yes, you may use the fuelhouse if you like,” said Eustacia
+languidly.
+
+The choice of Captain Vye’s fuelhouse as the scene of rehearsal was
+dictated by the fact that his dwelling was nearly in the centre of the
+heath. The fuelhouse was as roomy as a barn, and was a most desirable
+place for such a purpose. The lads who formed the company of players
+lived at different scattered points around, and by meeting in this spot
+the distances to be traversed by all the comers would be about equally
+proportioned.
+
+For mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. The mummers
+themselves were not afflicted with any such feeling for their art,
+though at the same time they were not enthusiastic. A traditional
+pastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking
+feature than in this, that while in the revival all is excitement and
+fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity and absence of
+stir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done so perfunctorily
+should be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other unwilling prophets, the
+agents seem moved by an inner compulsion to say and do their allotted
+parts whether they will or no. This unweeting manner of performance is
+the true ring by which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized survival
+may be known from a spurious reproduction.
+
+The piece was the well-known play of Saint George, and all who were
+behind the scenes assisted in the preparations, including the women of
+each household. Without the co-operation of sisters and sweethearts the
+dresses were likely to be a failure; but on the other hand, this class
+of assistance was not without its drawbacks. The girls could never be
+brought to respect tradition in designing and decorating the armour;
+they insisted on attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet in any
+situation pleasing to their taste. Gorget, gusset, basinet, cuirass,
+gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine eyes were
+practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of fluttering colour.
+
+It might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom, had a
+sweetheart, and that Jim, who fought on the side of the Moslem, had one
+likewise. During the making of the costumes it would come to the
+knowledge of Joe’s sweetheart that Jim’s was putting brilliant silk
+scallops at the bottom of her lover’s surcoat, in addition to the
+ribbons of the visor, the bars of which, being invariably formed of
+coloured strips about half an inch wide hanging before the face, were
+mostly of that material. Joe’s sweetheart straight-way placed brilliant
+silk on the scallops of the hem in question, and, going a little
+further, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim’s, not to be
+outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere.
+
+The result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier, of the Christian
+army, was distinguished by no peculiarity of accoutrement from the
+Turkish Knight; and what was worse, on a casual view Saint George
+himself might be mistaken for his deadly enemy, the Saracen. The
+guisers themselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of
+persons, could not afford to offend those by whose assistance they so
+largely profited, and the innovations were allowed to stand.
+
+There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity. The
+Leech or Doctor preserved his character intact—his darker habiliments,
+peculiar hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his arm, could never
+be mistaken. And the same might be said of the conventional figure of
+Father Christmas, with his gigantic club, an older man, who accompanied
+the band as general protector in long night journeys from parish to
+parish, and was bearer of the purse.
+
+Seven o’clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short
+time Eustacia could hear voices in the fuelhouse. To dissipate in some
+trifling measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life she
+went to the “linhay” or lean-to shed, which formed the root-store of
+their dwelling and abutted on the fuelhouse. Here was a small rough
+hole in the mud wall, originally made for pigeons, through which the
+interior of the next shed could be viewed. A light came from it now;
+and Eustacia stepped upon a stool to look in upon the scene.
+
+On a ledge in the fuelhouse stood three tall rushlights and by the
+light of them seven or eight lads were marching about, haranguing, and
+confusing each other, in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play.
+Humphrey and Sam, the furze- and turf-cutters, were there looking on,
+so also was Timothy Fairway, who leant against the wall and prompted
+the boys from memory, interspersing among the set words remarks and
+anecdotes of the superior days when he and others were the Egdon
+mummers-elect that these lads were now.
+
+“Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be,” he said. “Not that
+such mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the Saracen should
+strut a bit more, and John needn’t holler his inside out. Beyond that
+perhaps you’ll do. Have you got all your clothes ready?”
+
+“We shall by Monday.”
+
+“Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright’s.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Yeobright’s. What makes her want to see ye? I should think a
+middle-aged woman was tired of mumming.”
+
+“She’s got up a bit of a party, because ’tis the first Christmas that
+her son Clym has been home for a long time.”
+
+“To be sure, to be sure—her party! I am going myself. I almost forgot
+it, upon my life.”
+
+Eustacia’s face flagged. There was to be a party at the Yeobrights’;
+she, naturally, had nothing to do with it. She was a stranger to all
+such local gatherings, and had always held them as scarcely
+appertaining to her sphere. But had she been going, what an opportunity
+would have been afforded her of seeing the man whose influence was
+penetrating her like summer sun! To increase that influence was coveted
+excitement; to cast it off might be to regain serenity; to leave it as
+it stood was tantalizing.
+
+The lads and men prepared to leave the premises, and Eustacia returned
+to her fireside. She was immersed in thought, but not for long. In a
+few minutes the lad Charley, who had come to ask permission to use the
+place, returned with the key to the kitchen. Eustacia heard him, and
+opening the door into the passage said, “Charley, come here.”
+
+The lad was surprised. He entered the front room not without blushing;
+for he, like many, had felt the power of this girl’s face and form.
+
+She pointed to a seat by the fire, and entered the other side of the
+chimney-corner herself. It could be seen in her face that whatever
+motive she might have had in asking the youth indoors would soon
+appear.
+
+“Which part do you play, Charley—the Turkish Knight, do you not?”
+inquired the beauty, looking across the smoke of the fire to him on the
+other side.
+
+“Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight,” he replied diffidently.
+
+“Is yours a long part?”
+
+“Nine speeches, about.”
+
+“Can you repeat them to me? If so I should like to hear them.”
+
+The lad smiled into the glowing turf and began—
+
+“Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
+Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,”
+
+
+continuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the concluding
+catastrophe of his fall by the hand of Saint George.
+
+Eustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. When the lad
+ended she began, precisely in the same words, and ranted on without
+hitch or divergence till she too reached the end. It was the same
+thing, yet how different. Like in form, it had the added softness and
+finish of a Raffaelle after Perugino, which, while faithfully
+reproducing the original subject, entirely distances the original art.
+
+Charley’s eyes rounded with surprise. “Well, you be a clever lady!” he
+said, in admiration. “I’ve been three weeks learning mine.”
+
+“I have heard it before,” she quietly observed. “Now, would you do
+anything to please me, Charley?”
+
+“I’d do a good deal, miss.”
+
+“Would you let me play your part for one night?”
+
+“Oh, miss! But your woman’s gown—you couldn’t.”
+
+“I can get boy’s clothes—at least all that would be wanted besides the
+mumming dress. What should I have to give you to lend me your things,
+to let me take your place for an hour or two on Monday night, and on no
+account to say a word about who or what I am? You would, of course,
+have to excuse yourself from playing that night, and to say that
+somebody—a cousin of Miss Vye’s—would act for you. The other mummers
+have never spoken to me in their lives so that it would be safe enough;
+and if it were not, I should not mind. Now, what must I give you to
+agree to this? Half a crown?”
+
+The youth shook his head
+
+“Five shillings?”
+
+He shook his head again. “Money won’t do it,” he said, brushing the
+iron head of the firedog with the hollow of his hand.
+
+“What will, then, Charley?” said Eustacia in a disappointed tone.
+
+“You know what you forbade me at the Maypoling, miss,” murmured the
+lad, without looking at her, and still stroking the firedog’s head.
+
+“Yes,” said Eustacia, with a little more hauteur. “You wanted to join
+hands with me in the ring, if I recollect?”
+
+“Half an hour of that, and I’ll agree, miss.”
+
+Eustacia regarded the youth steadfastly. He was three years younger
+than herself, but apparently not backward for his age. “Half an hour of
+what?” she said, though she guessed what.
+
+“Holding your hand in mine.”
+
+She was silent. “Make it a quarter of an hour,” she said
+
+“Yes, Miss Eustacia—I will, if I may kiss it too. A quarter of an hour.
+And I’ll swear to do the best I can to let you take my place without
+anybody knowing. Don’t you think somebody might know your tongue,
+miss?”
+
+“It is possible. But I will put a pebble in my mouth to make is less
+likely. Very well; you shall be allowed to have my hand as soon as you
+bring the dress and your sword and staff. I don’t want you any longer
+now.”
+
+Charley departed, and Eustacia felt more and more interest in life.
+Here was something to do: here was some one to see, and a charmingly
+adventurous way to see him. “Ah,” she said to herself, “want of an
+object to live for—that’s all is the matter with me!”
+
+Eustacia’s manner was as a rule of a slumberous sort, her passions
+being of the massive rather than the vivacious kind. But when aroused
+she would make a dash which, just for the time, was not unlike the move
+of a naturally lively person.
+
+On the question of recognition she was somewhat indifferent. By the
+acting lads themselves she was not likely to be known. With the guests
+who might be assembled she was hardly so secure. Yet detection, after
+all, would be no such dreadful thing. The fact only could be detected,
+her true motive never. It would be instantly set down as the passing
+freak of a girl whose ways were already considered singular. That she
+was doing for an earnest reason what would most naturally be done in
+jest was at any rate a safe secret.
+
+The next evening Eustacia stood punctually at the fuelhouse door,
+waiting for the dusk which was to bring Charley with the trappings. Her
+grandfather was at home tonight, and she would be unable to ask her
+confederate indoors.
+
+He appeared on the dark ridge of heathland, like a fly on a Negro,
+bearing the articles with him, and came up breathless with his walk.
+
+“Here are the things,” he whispered, placing them upon the threshold.
+“And now, Miss Eustacia—”
+
+“The payment. It is quite ready. I am as good as my word.”
+
+She leant against the door-post, and gave him her hand. Charley took it
+in both his own with a tenderness beyond description, unless it was
+like that of a child holding a captured sparrow.
+
+“Why, there’s a glove on it!” he said in a deprecating way.
+
+“I have been walking,” she observed.
+
+“But, miss!”
+
+“Well—it is hardly fair.” She pulled off the glove, and gave him her
+bare hand.
+
+They stood together minute after minute, without further speech, each
+looking at the blackening scene, and each thinking his and her own
+thoughts.
+
+“I think I won’t use it all up tonight,” said Charley devotedly, when
+six or eight minutes had been passed by him caressing her hand. “May I
+have the other few minutes another time?”
+
+“As you like,” said she without the least emotion. “But it must be over
+in a week. Now, there is only one thing I want you to do—to wait while
+I put on the dress, and then to see if I do my part properly. But let
+me look first indoors.”
+
+She vanished for a minute or two, and went in. Her grandfather was
+safely asleep in his chair. “Now, then,” she said, on returning, “walk
+down the garden a little way, and when I am ready I’ll call you.”
+
+Charley walked and waited, and presently heard a soft whistle. He
+returned to the fuelhouse door.
+
+“Did you whistle, Miss Vye?”
+
+“Yes; come in,” reached him in Eustacia’s voice from a back quarter. “I
+must not strike a light till the door is shut, or it may be seen
+shining. Push your hat into the hole through to the wash-house, if you
+can feel your way across.”
+
+Charley did as commanded, and she struck the light revealing herself to
+be changed in sex, brilliant in colours, and armed from top to toe.
+Perhaps she quailed a little under Charley’s vigorous gaze, but whether
+any shyness at her male attire appeared upon her countenance could not
+be seen by reason of the strips of ribbon which used to cover the face
+in mumming costumes, representing the barred visor of the mediæval
+helmet.
+
+“It fits pretty well,” she said, looking down at the white overalls,
+“except that the tunic, or whatever you call it, is long in the sleeve.
+The bottom of the overalls I can turn up inside. Now pay attention.”
+
+Eustacia then proceeded in her delivery, striking the sword against the
+staff or lance at the minatory phrases, in the orthodox mumming manner,
+and strutting up and down. Charley seasoned his admiration with
+criticism of the gentlest kind, for the touch of Eustacia’s hand yet
+remained with him.
+
+“And now for your excuse to the others,” she said. “Where do you meet
+before you go to Mrs. Yeobright’s?”
+
+“We thought of meeting here, miss, if you have nothing to say against
+it. At eight o’clock, so as to get there by nine.”
+
+“Yes. Well, you of course must not appear. I will march in about five
+minutes late, ready-dressed, and tell them that you can’t come. I have
+decided that the best plan will be for you to be sent somewhere by me,
+to make a real thing of the excuse. Our two heath-croppers are in the
+habit of straying into the meads, and tomorrow evening you can go and
+see if they are gone there. I’ll manage the rest. Now you may leave
+me.”
+
+“Yes, miss. But I think I’ll have one minute more of what I am owed, if
+you don’t mind.”
+
+Eustacia gave him her hand as before.
+
+“One minute,” she said, and counted on till she reached seven or eight
+minutes. Hand and person she then withdrew to a distance of several
+feet, and recovered some of her old dignity. The contract completed,
+she raised between them a barrier impenetrable as a wall.
+
+“There, ’tis all gone; and I didn’t mean quite all,” he said, with a
+sigh.
+
+“You had good measure,” said she, turning away.
+
+“Yes, miss. Well, ’tis over, and now I’ll get home-along.”
+
+
+
+
+V.
+Through the Moonlight
+
+
+The next evening the mummers were assembled in the same spot, awaiting
+the entrance of the Turkish Knight.
+
+“Twenty minutes after eight by the Quiet Woman, and Charley not come.”
+
+“Ten minutes past by Blooms-End.”
+
+“It wants ten minutes to, by Grandfer Cantle’s watch.”
+
+“And ’tis five minutes past by the captain’s clock.”
+
+On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any moment
+was a number of varying doctrines professed by the different hamlets,
+some of them having originally grown up from a common root, and then
+become divided by secession, some having been alien from the beginning.
+West Egdon believed in Blooms-End time, East Egdon in the time of the
+Quiet Woman Inn. Grandfer Cantle’s watch had numbered many followers in
+years gone by, but since he had grown older faiths were shaken. Thus,
+the mummers having gathered hither from scattered points each came with
+his own tenets on early and late; and they waited a little longer as a
+compromise.
+
+Eustacia had watched the assemblage through the hole; and seeing that
+now was the proper moment to enter, she went from the “linhay” and
+boldly pulled the bobbin of the fuelhouse door. Her grandfather was
+safe at the Quiet Woman.
+
+“Here’s Charley at last! How late you be, Charley.”
+
+“’Tis not Charley,” said the Turkish Knight from within his visor.
+“’Tis a cousin of Miss Vye’s, come to take Charley’s place from
+curiosity. He was obliged to go and look for the heath-croppers that
+have got into the meads, and I agreed to take his place, as he knew he
+couldn’t come back here again tonight. I know the part as well as he.”
+
+Her graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general won
+the mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if the
+newcomer were perfect in his part.
+
+“It don’t matter—if you be not too young,” said Saint George.
+Eustacia’s voice had sounded somewhat more juvenile and fluty than
+Charley’s.
+
+“I know every word of it, I tell you,” said Eustacia decisively. Dash
+being all that was required to carry her triumphantly through, she
+adopted as much as was necessary. “Go ahead, lads, with the try-over.
+I’ll challenge any of you to find a mistake in me.”
+
+The play was hastily rehearsed, whereupon the other mummers were
+delighted with the new knight. They extinguished the candles at
+half-past eight, and set out upon the heath in the direction of Mrs.
+Yeobright’s house at Bloom’s-End.
+
+There was a slight hoarfrost that night, and the moon, though not more
+than half full, threw a spirited and enticing brightness upon the
+fantastic figures of the mumming band, whose plumes and ribbons rustled
+in their walk like autumn leaves. Their path was not over Rainbarrow
+now, but down a valley which left that ancient elevation a little to
+the east. The bottom of the vale was green to a width of ten yards or
+thereabouts, and the shining facets of frost upon the blades of grass
+seemed to move on with the shadows of those they surrounded. The masses
+of furze and heath to the right and left were dark as ever; a mere
+half-moon was powerless to silver such sable features as theirs.
+
+Half-an-hour of walking and talking brought them to the spot in the
+valley where the grass riband widened and led down to the front of the
+house. At sight of the place Eustacia who had felt a few passing doubts
+during her walk with the youths, again was glad that the adventure had
+been undertaken. She had come out to see a man who might possibly have
+the power to deliver her soul from a most deadly oppression. What was
+Wildeve? Interesting, but inadequate. Perhaps she would see a
+sufficient hero tonight.
+
+As they drew nearer to the front of the house the mummers became aware
+that music and dancing were briskly flourishing within. Every now and
+then a long low note from the serpent, which was the chief wind
+instrument played at these times, advanced further into the heath than
+the thin treble part, and reached their ears alone; and next a more
+than usual loud tread from a dancer would come the same way. With
+nearer approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together, and
+were found to be the salient points of the tune called “Nancy’s Fancy.”
+
+He was there, of course. Who was she that he danced with? Perhaps some
+unknown woman, far beneath herself in culture, was by the most subtle
+of lures sealing his fate this very instant. To dance with a man is to
+concentrate a twelvemonth’s regulation fire upon him in the fragment of
+an hour. To pass to courtship without acquaintance, to pass to marriage
+without courtship, is a skipping of terms reserved for those alone who
+tread this royal road. She would see how his heart lay by keen
+observation of them all.
+
+The enterprising lady followed the mumming company through the gate in
+the white paling, and stood before the open porch. The house was
+encrusted with heavy thatchings, which dropped between the upper
+windows; the front, upon which the moonbeams directly played, had
+originally been white; but a huge pyracanth now darkened the greater
+portion.
+
+It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately
+within the surface of the door, no apartment intervening. The brushing
+of skirts and elbows, sometimes the bumping of shoulders, could be
+heard against the very panels. Eustacia, though living within two miles
+of the place, had never seen the interior of this quaint old
+habitation. Between Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never
+existed much acquaintance, the former having come as a stranger and
+purchased the long-empty house at Mistover Knap not long before the
+death of Mrs. Yeobright’s husband; and with that event and the
+departure of her son such friendship as had grown up became quite
+broken off.
+
+“Is there no passage inside the door, then?” asked Eustacia as they
+stood within the porch.
+
+“No,” said the lad who played the Saracen. “The door opens right upon
+the front sitting-room, where the spree’s going on.”
+
+“So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance.”
+
+“That’s it. Here we must bide till they have done, for they always bolt
+the back door after dark.”
+
+“They won’t be much longer,” said Father Christmas.
+
+This assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event. Again the
+instruments ended the tune; again they recommenced with as much fire
+and pathos as if it were the first strain. The air was now that one
+without any particular beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps, among
+all the dances which throng an inspired fiddler’s fancy, best conveys
+the idea of the interminable—the celebrated “Devil’s Dream.” The fury
+of personal movement that was kindled by the fury of the notes could be
+approximately imagined by these outsiders under the moon, from the
+occasional kicks of toes and heels against the door, whenever the whirl
+round had been of more than customary velocity.
+
+The first five minutes of listening was interesting enough to the
+mummers. The five minutes extended to ten minutes, and these to a
+quarter of an hour; but no signs of ceasing were audible in the lively
+“Dream.” The bumping against the door, the laughter, the stamping, were
+all as vigorous as ever, and the pleasure in being outside lessened
+considerably.
+
+“Why does Mrs. Yeobright give parties of this sort?” Eustacia asked, a
+little surprised to hear merriment so pronounced.
+
+“It is not one of her bettermost parlour-parties. She’s asked the plain
+neighbours and workpeople without drawing any lines, just to give ’em a
+good supper and such like. Her son and she wait upon the folks.”
+
+“I see,” said Eustacia.
+
+“’Tis the last strain, I think,” said Saint George, with his ear to the
+panel. “A young man and woman have just swung into this corner, and
+he’s saying to her, ‘Ah, the pity; ’tis over for us this time, my
+own.’”
+
+“Thank God,” said the Turkish Knight, stamping, and taking from the
+wall the conventional lance that each of the mummers carried. Her boots
+being thinner than those of the young men, the hoar had damped her feet
+and made them cold.
+
+“Upon my song ’tis another ten minutes for us,” said the Valiant
+Soldier, looking through the keyhole as the tune modulated into another
+without stopping. “Grandfer Cantle is standing in this corner, waiting
+his turn.”
+
+“’Twon’t be long; ’tis a six-handed reel,” said the Doctor.
+
+“Why not go in, dancing or no? They sent for us,” said the Saracen.
+
+“Certainly not,” said Eustacia authoritatively, as she paced smartly up
+and down from door to gate to warm herself. “We should burst into the
+middle of them and stop the dance, and that would be unmannerly.”
+
+“He thinks himself somebody because he has had a bit more schooling
+than we,” said the Doctor.
+
+“You may go to the deuce!” said Eustacia.
+
+There was a whispered conversation between three or four of them, and
+one turned to her.
+
+“Will you tell us one thing?” he said, not without gentleness. “Be you
+Miss Vye? We think you must be.”
+
+“You may think what you like,” said Eustacia slowly. “But honourable
+lads will not tell tales upon a lady.”
+
+“We’ll say nothing, miss. That’s upon our honour.”
+
+“Thank you,” she replied.
+
+At this moment the fiddles finished off with a screech, and the serpent
+emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the
+comparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken
+their seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his
+head inside the door.
+
+“Ah, the mummers, the mummers!” cried several guests at once. “Clear a
+space for the mummers.”
+
+Humpbacked Father Christmas then made a complete entry, swinging his
+huge club, and in a general way clearing the stage for the actors
+proper, while he informed the company in smart verse that he was come,
+welcome or welcome not; concluding his speech with
+
+“Make room, make room, my gallant boys,
+And give us space to rhyme;
+We’ve come to show Saint George’s play,
+Upon this Christmas time.”
+
+
+The guests were now arranging themselves at one end of the room, the
+fiddler was mending a string, the serpent-player was emptying his
+mouthpiece, and the play began. First of those outside the Valiant
+Soldier entered, in the interest of Saint George—
+
+“Here come I, the Valiant Soldier;
+Slasher is my name”;
+
+
+and so on. This speech concluded with a challenge to the infidel, at
+the end of which it was Eustacia’s duty to enter as the Turkish Knight.
+She, with the rest who were not yet on, had hitherto remained in the
+moonlight which streamed under the porch. With no apparent effort or
+backwardness she came in, beginning—
+
+“Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
+Who learnt in Turkish land to fight;
+I’ll fight this man with courage bold:
+If his blood’s hot I’ll make it cold!”
+
+
+During her declamation Eustacia held her head erect, and spoke as
+roughly as she could, feeling pretty secure from observation. But the
+concentration upon her part necessary to prevent discovery, the newness
+of the scene, the shine of the candles, and the confusing effect upon
+her vision of the ribboned visor which hid her features, left her
+absolutely unable to perceive who were present as spectators. On the
+further side of a table bearing candles she could faintly discern
+faces, and that was all.
+
+Meanwhile Jim Starks as the Valiant Soldier had come forward, and, with
+a glare upon the Turk, replied—
+
+“If, then, thou art that Turkish Knight,
+Draw out thy sword, and let us fight!”
+
+
+And fight they did; the issue of the combat being that the Valiant
+Soldier was slain by a preternaturally inadequate thrust from Eustacia,
+Jim, in his ardour for genuine histrionic art, coming down like a log
+upon the stone floor with force enough to dislocate his shoulder. Then,
+after more words from the Turkish Knight, rather too faintly delivered,
+and statements that he’d fight Saint George and all his crew, Saint
+George himself magnificently entered with the well-known flourish—
+
+“Here come I, Saint George, the valiant man,
+With naked sword and spear in hand,
+Who fought the dragon and brought him to the slaughter,
+And by this won fair Sabra, the King of Egypt’s daughter;
+What mortal man would dare to stand
+Before me with my sword in hand?”
+
+
+This was the lad who had first recognized Eustacia; and when she now,
+as the Turk, replied with suitable defiance, and at once began the
+combat, the young fellow took especial care to use his sword as gently
+as possible. Being wounded, the Knight fell upon one knee, according to
+the direction. The Doctor now entered, restored the Knight by giving
+him a draught from the bottle which he carried, and the fight was again
+resumed, the Turk sinking by degrees until quite overcome—dying as hard
+in this venerable drama as he is said to do at the present day.
+
+This gradual sinking to the earth was, in fact, one reason why Eustacia
+had thought that the part of the Turkish Knight, though not the
+shortest, would suit her best. A direct fall from upright to
+horizontal, which was the end of the other fighting characters, was not
+an elegant or decorous part for a girl. But it was easy to die like a
+Turk, by a dogged decline.
+
+Eustacia was now among the number of the slain, though not on the
+floor, for she had managed to sink into a sloping position against the
+clock-case, so that her head was well elevated. The play proceeded
+between Saint George, the Saracen, the Doctor, and Father Christmas;
+and Eustacia, having no more to do, for the first time found leisure to
+observe the scene round, and to search for the form that had drawn her
+hither.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+The Two Stand Face to Face
+
+
+The room had been arranged with a view to the dancing, the large oak
+table having been moved back till it stood as a breastwork to the
+fireplace. At each end, behind, and in the chimney-corner were grouped
+the guests, many of them being warm-faced and panting, among whom
+Eustacia cursorily recognized some well-to-do persons from beyond the
+heath. Thomasin, as she had expected, was not visible, and Eustacia
+recollected that a light had shone from an upper window when they were
+outside—the window, probably, of Thomasin’s room. A nose, chin, hands,
+knees, and toes projected from the seat within the chimney opening,
+which members she found to unite in the person of Grandfer Cantle, Mrs.
+Yeobright’s occasional assistant in the garden, and therefore one of
+the invited. The smoke went up from an Etna of peat in front of him,
+played round the notches of the chimney-crook, struck against the
+salt-box, and got lost among the flitches.
+
+Another part of the room soon riveted her gaze. At the other side of
+the chimney stood the settle, which is the necessary supplement to a
+fire so open that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up the
+smoke. It is, to the hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces,
+what the east belt of trees is to the exposed country estate, or the
+north wall to the garden. Outside the settle candles gutter, locks of
+hair wave, young women shiver, and old men sneeze. Inside is Paradise.
+Not a symptom of a draught disturbs the air; the sitters’ backs are as
+warm as their faces, and songs and old tales are drawn from the
+occupants by the comfortable heat, like fruit from melon plants in a
+frame.
+
+It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that Eustacia was
+concerned. A face showed itself with marked distinctness against the
+dark-tanned wood of the upper part. The owner, who was leaning against
+the settle’s outer end, was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as he was
+called here; she knew it could be nobody else. The spectacle
+constituted an area of two feet in Rembrandt’s intensest manner. A
+strange power in the lounger’s appearance lay in the fact that, though
+his whole figure was visible, the observer’s eye was only aware of his
+face.
+
+To one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man, though a
+youth might hardly have seen any necessity for the term of immaturity.
+But it was really one of those faces which convey less the idea of so
+many years as its age than of so much experience as its store. The
+number of their years may have adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel,
+and the rest of the antediluvians, but the age of a modern man is to be
+measured by the intensity of his history.
+
+The face was well shaped, even excellently. But the mind within was
+beginning to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon to trace its
+idiosyncrasies as they developed themselves. The beauty here visible
+would in no long time be ruthlessly over-run by its parasite, thought,
+which might just as well have fed upon a plainer exterior where there
+was nothing it could harm. Had Heaven preserved Yeobright from a
+wearing habit of meditation, people would have said, “A handsome man.”
+Had his brain unfolded under sharper contours they would have said, “A
+thoughtful man.” But an inner strenuousness was preying upon an outer
+symmetry, and they rated his look as singular.
+
+Hence people who began by beholding him ended by perusing him. His
+countenance was overlaid with legible meanings. Without being
+thought-worn he yet had certain marks derived from a perception of his
+surroundings, such as are not unfrequently found on men at the end of
+the four or five years of endeavour which follow the close of placid
+pupilage. He already showed that thought is a disease of flesh, and
+indirectly bore evidence that ideal physical beauty is incompatible
+with emotional development and a full recognition of the coil of
+things. Mental luminousness must be fed with the oil of life, even
+though there is already a physical need for it; and the pitiful sight
+of two demands on one supply was just showing itself here.
+
+When standing before certain men the philosopher regrets that thinkers
+are but perishable tissue, the artist that perishable tissue has to
+think. Thus to deplore, each from his point of view, the mutually
+destructive interdependence of spirit and flesh would have been
+instinctive with these in critically observing Yeobright.
+
+As for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against
+depression from without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested
+isolation, but it revealed something more. As is usual with bright
+natures, the deity that lies ignominiously chained within an ephemeral
+human carcase shone out of him like a ray.
+
+The effect upon Eustacia was palpable. The extraordinary pitch of
+excitement that she had reached beforehand would, indeed, have caused
+her to be influenced by the most commonplace man. She was troubled at
+Yeobright’s presence.
+
+The remainder of the play ended—the Saracen’s head was cut off, and
+Saint George stood as victor. Nobody commented, any more than they
+would have commented on the fact of mushrooms coming in autumn or
+snowdrops in spring. They took the piece as phlegmatically as did the
+actors themselves. It was a phase of cheerfulness which was, as a
+matter of course, to be passed through every Christmas; and there was
+no more to be said.
+
+They sang the plaintive chant which follows the play, during which all
+the dead men rise to their feet in a silent and awful manner, like the
+ghosts of Napoleon’s soldiers in the Midnight Review. Afterwards the
+door opened, and Fairway appeared on the threshold, accompanied by
+Christian and another. They had been waiting outside for the conclusion
+of the play, as the players had waited for the conclusion of the dance.
+
+“Come in, come in,” said Mrs. Yeobright; and Clym went forward to
+welcome them. “How is it you are so late? Grandfer Cantle has been here
+ever so long, and we thought you’d have come with him, as you live so
+near one another.”
+
+“Well, I should have come earlier,” Mr. Fairway said and paused to look
+along the beam of the ceiling for a nail to hang his hat on; but,
+finding his accustomed one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all the
+nails in the walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at last
+relieved himself of the hat by ticklishly balancing it between the
+candle-box and the head of the clock-case. “I should have come earlier,
+ma’am,” he resumed, with a more composed air, “but I know what parties
+be, and how there’s none too much room in folks’ houses at such times,
+so I thought I wouldn’t come till you’d got settled a bit.”
+
+“And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright,” said Christian earnestly, “but
+Father there was so eager that he had no manners at all, and left home
+almost afore ’twas dark. I told him ’twas barely decent in a’ old man
+to come so oversoon; but words be wind.”
+
+“Klk! I wasn’t going to bide waiting about, till half the game was
+over! I’m as light as a kite when anything’s going on!” crowed Grandfer
+Cantle from the chimneyseat.
+
+Fairway had meanwhile concluded a critical gaze at Yeobright. “Now, you
+may not believe it,” he said to the rest of the room, “but I should
+never have knowed this gentleman if I had met him anywhere off his own
+he’th—he’s altered so much.”
+
+“You too have altered, and for the better, I think Timothy,” said
+Yeobright, surveying the firm figure of Fairway.
+
+“Master Yeobright, look me over too. I have altered for the better,
+haven’t I, hey?” said Grandfer Cantle, rising and placing himself
+something above half a foot from Clym’s eye, to induce the most
+searching criticism.
+
+“To be sure we will,” said Fairway, taking the candle and moving it
+over the surface of the Grandfer’s countenance, the subject of his
+scrutiny irradiating himself with light and pleasant smiles, and giving
+himself jerks of juvenility.
+
+“You haven’t changed much,” said Yeobright.
+
+“If there’s any difference, Grandfer is younger,” appended Fairway
+decisively.
+
+“And yet not my own doing, and I feel no pride in it,” said the pleased
+ancient. “But I can’t be cured of my vagaries; them I plead guilty to.
+Yes, Master Cantle always was that, as we know. But I am nothing by the
+side of you, Mister Clym.”
+
+“Nor any o’ us,” said Humphrey, in a low rich tone of admiration, not
+intended to reach anybody’s ears.
+
+“Really, there would have been nobody here who could have stood as
+decent second to him, or even third, if I hadn’t been a soldier in the
+Bang-up Locals (as we was called for our smartness),” said Grandfer
+Cantle. “And even as ’tis we all look a little scammish beside him. But
+in the year four ’twas said there wasn’t a finer figure in the whole
+South Wessex than I, as I looked when dashing past the shop-winders
+with the rest of our company on the day we ran out o’ Budmouth because
+it was thoughted that Boney had landed round the point. There was I,
+straight as a young poplar, wi’ my firelock, and my bagnet, and my
+spatterdashes, and my stock sawing my jaws off, and my accoutrements
+sheening like the seven stars! Yes, neighbours, I was a pretty sight in
+my soldiering days. You ought to have seen me in four!”
+
+“’Tis his mother’s side where Master Clym’s figure comes from, bless
+ye,” said Timothy. “I know’d her brothers well. Longer coffins were
+never made in the whole country of South Wessex, and ’tis said that
+poor George’s knees were crumpled up a little e’en as ’twas.”
+
+“Coffins, where?” inquired Christian, drawing nearer. “Have the ghost
+of one appeared to anybody, Master Fairway?”
+
+“No, no. Don’t let your mind so mislead your ears, Christian; and be a
+man,” said Timothy reproachfully.
+
+“I will.” said Christian. “But now I think o’t my shadder last night
+seemed just the shape of a coffin. What is it a sign of when your
+shade’s like a coffin, neighbours? It can’t be nothing to be afeared
+of, I suppose?”
+
+“Afeared, no!” said the Grandfer. “Faith, I was never afeard of nothing
+except Boney, or I shouldn’t ha’ been the soldier I was. Yes, ’tis a
+thousand pities you didn’t see me in four!”
+
+By this time the mummers were preparing to leave; but Mrs. Yeobright
+stopped them by asking them to sit down and have a little supper. To
+this invitation Father Christmas, in the name of them all, readily
+agreed.
+
+Eustacia was happy in the opportunity of staying a little longer. The
+cold and frosty night without was doubly frigid to her. But the
+lingering was not without its difficulties. Mrs. Yeobright, for want of
+room in the larger apartment, placed a bench for the mummers halfway
+through the pantry door, which opened from the sitting-room. Here they
+seated themselves in a row, the door being left open—thus they were
+still virtually in the same apartment. Mrs. Yeobright now murmured a
+few words to her son, who crossed the room to the pantry door, striking
+his head against the mistletoe as he passed, and brought the mummers
+beef and bread, cake pastry, mead, and elder-wine, the waiting being
+done by him and his mother, that the little maid-servant might sit as
+guest. The mummers doffed their helmets, and began to eat and drink.
+
+“But you will surely have some?” said Clym to the Turkish Knight, as he
+stood before that warrior, tray in hand. She had refused, and still sat
+covered, only the sparkle of her eyes being visible between the ribbons
+which covered her face.
+
+“None, thank you,” replied Eustacia.
+
+“He’s quite a youngster,” said the Saracen apologetically, “and you
+must excuse him. He’s not one of the old set, but have jined us because
+t’other couldn’t come.”
+
+“But he will take something?” persisted Yeobright. “Try a glass of mead
+or elder-wine.”
+
+“Yes, you had better try that,” said the Saracen. “It will keep the
+cold out going home-along.”
+
+Though Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face she could
+drink easily enough beneath her disguise. The elder-wine was
+accordingly accepted, and the glass vanished inside the ribbons.
+
+At moments during this performance Eustacia was half in doubt about the
+security of her position; yet it had a fearful joy. A series of
+attentions paid to her, and yet not to her but to some imaginary
+person, by the first man she had ever been inclined to adore,
+complicated her emotions indescribably. She had loved him partly
+because he was exceptional in this scene, partly because she had
+determined to love him, chiefly because she was in desperate need of
+loving somebody after wearying of Wildeve. Believing that she must love
+him in spite of herself, she had been influenced after the fashion of
+the second Lord Lyttleton and other persons, who have dreamed that they
+were to die on a certain day, and by stress of a morbid imagination
+have actually brought about that event. Once let a maiden admit the
+possibility of her being stricken with love for someone at a certain
+hour and place, and the thing is as good as done.
+
+Did anything at this moment suggest to Yeobright the sex of the
+creature whom that fantastic guise inclosed, how extended was her scope
+both in feeling and in making others feel, and how far her compass
+transcended that of her companions in the band? When the disguised
+Queen of Love appeared before Æneas a preternatural perfume accompanied
+her presence and betrayed her quality. If such a mysterious emanation
+ever was projected by the emotions of an earthly woman upon their
+object, it must have signified Eustacia’s presence to Yeobright now. He
+looked at her wistfully, then seemed to fall into a reverie, as if he
+were forgetting what he observed. The momentary situation ended, he
+passed on, and Eustacia sipped her wine without knowing what she drank.
+The man for whom she had pre-determined to nourish a passion went into
+the small room, and across it to the further extremity.
+
+The mummers, as has been stated, were seated on a bench, one end of
+which extended into the small apartment, or pantry, for want of space
+in the outer room. Eustacia, partly from shyness, had chosen the
+midmost seat, which thus commanded a view of the interior of the pantry
+as well as the room containing the guests. When Clym passed down the
+pantry her eyes followed him in the gloom which prevailed there. At the
+remote end was a door which, just as he was about to open it for
+himself, was opened by somebody within; and light streamed forth.
+
+The person was Thomasin, with a candle, looking anxious, pale, and
+interesting. Yeobright appeared glad to see her, and pressed her hand.
+“That’s right, Tamsie,” he said heartily, as though recalled to himself
+by the sight of her, “you have decided to come down. I am glad of it.”
+
+“Hush—no, no,” she said quickly. “I only came to speak to you.”
+
+“But why not join us?”
+
+“I cannot. At least I would rather not. I am not well enough, and we
+shall have plenty of time together now you are going to be home a good
+long holiday.”
+
+“It isn’t nearly so pleasant without you. Are you really ill?”
+
+“Just a little, my old cousin—here,” she said, playfully sweeping her
+hand across her heart.
+
+“Ah, Mother should have asked somebody else to be present tonight,
+perhaps?”
+
+“O no, indeed. I merely stepped down, Clym, to ask you—” Here he
+followed her through the doorway into the private room beyond, and, the
+door closing, Eustacia and the mummer who sat next to her, the only
+other witness of the performance, saw and heard no more.
+
+The heat flew to Eustacia’s head and cheeks. She instantly guessed that
+Clym, having been home only these two or three days, had not as yet
+been made acquainted with Thomasin’s painful situation with regard to
+Wildeve; and seeing her living there just as she had been living before
+he left home, he naturally suspected nothing. Eustacia felt a wild
+jealousy of Thomasin on the instant. Though Thomasin might possibly
+have tender sentiments towards another man as yet, how long could they
+be expected to last when she was shut up here with this interesting and
+travelled cousin of hers? There was no knowing what affection might not
+soon break out between the two, so constantly in each other’s society,
+and not a distracting object near. Clym’s boyish love for her might
+have languished, but it might easily be revived again.
+
+Eustacia was nettled by her own contrivances. What a sheer waste of
+herself to be dressed thus while another was shining to advantage! Had
+she known the full effect of the encounter she would have moved heaven
+and earth to get here in a natural manner. The power of her face all
+lost, the charm of her emotions all disguised, the fascinations of her
+coquetry denied existence, nothing but a voice left to her; she had a
+sense of the doom of Echo. “Nobody here respects me,” she said. She had
+overlooked the fact that, in coming as a boy among other boys, she
+would be treated as a boy. The slight, though of her own causing, and
+self-explanatory, she was unable to dismiss as unwittingly shown, so
+sensitive had the situation made her.
+
+Women have done much for themselves in histrionic dress. To look far
+below those who, like a certain fair personator of Polly Peachum early
+in the last century, and another of Lydia Languish early in this,[1]
+have won not only love but ducal coronets into the bargain, whole
+shoals of them have reached to the initial satisfaction of getting love
+almost whence they would. But the Turkish Knight was denied even the
+chance of achieving this by the fluttering ribbons which she dared not
+brush aside.
+
+ [1] Written in 1877.
+
+
+Yeobright returned to the room without his cousin. When within two or
+three feet of Eustacia he stopped, as if again arrested by a thought.
+He was gazing at her. She looked another way, disconcerted, and
+wondered how long this purgatory was to last. After lingering a few
+seconds he passed on again.
+
+To court their own discomfiture by love is a common instinct with
+certain perfervid women. Conflicting sensations of love, fear, and
+shame reduced Eustacia to a state of the utmost uneasiness. To escape
+was her great and immediate desire. The other mummers appeared to be in
+no hurry to leave; and murmuring to the lad who sat next to her that
+she preferred waiting for them outside the house, she moved to the door
+as imperceptibly as possible, opened it, and slipped out.
+
+The calm, lone scene reassured her. She went forward to the palings and
+leant over them, looking at the moon. She had stood thus but a little
+time when the door again opened. Expecting to see the remainder of the
+band Eustacia turned; but no—Clym Yeobright came out as softly as she
+had done, and closed the door behind him.
+
+He advanced and stood beside her. “I have an odd opinion,” he said,
+“and should like to ask you a question. Are you a woman—or am I wrong?”
+
+“I am a woman.”
+
+His eyes lingered on her with great interest. “Do girls often play as
+mummers now? They never used to.”
+
+“They don’t now.”
+
+“Why did you?”
+
+“To get excitement and shake off depression,” she said in low tones.
+
+“What depressed you?”
+
+“Life.”
+
+“That’s a cause of depression a good many have to put up with.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+A long silence. “And do you find excitement?” asked Clym at last.
+
+“At this moment, perhaps.”
+
+“Then you are vexed at being discovered?”
+
+“Yes; though I thought I might be.”
+
+“I would gladly have asked you to our party had I known you wished to
+come. Have I ever been acquainted with you in my youth?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Won’t you come in again, and stay as long as you like?”
+
+“No. I wish not to be further recognized.”
+
+“Well, you are safe with me.” After remaining in thought a minute he
+added gently, “I will not intrude upon you longer. It is a strange way
+of meeting, and I will not ask why I find a cultivated woman playing
+such a part as this.”
+
+She did not volunteer the reason which he seemed to hope for, and he
+wished her good night, going thence round to the back of the house,
+where he walked up and down by himself for some time before
+re-entering.
+
+Eustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for her companions
+after this. She flung back the ribbons from her face, opened the gate,
+and at once struck into the heath. She did not hasten along. Her
+grandfather was in bed at this hour, for she so frequently walked upon
+the hills on moonlight nights that he took no notice of her comings and
+goings, and, enjoying himself in his own way, left her to do likewise.
+A more important subject than that of getting indoors now engrossed
+her. Yeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would infallibly
+discover her name. What then? She first felt a sort of exultation at
+the way in which the adventure had terminated, even though at moments
+between her exultations she was abashed and blushful. Then this
+consideration recurred to chill her: What was the use of her exploit?
+She was at present a total stranger to the Yeobright family. The
+unreasonable nimbus of romance with which she had encircled that man
+might be her misery. How could she allow herself to become so
+infatuated with a stranger? And to fill the cup of her sorrow there
+would be Thomasin, living day after day in inflammable proximity to
+him; for she had just learnt that, contrary to her first belief, he was
+going to stay at home some considerable time.
+
+She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she
+turned and faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood
+above the hills, and the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was
+charged with silence and frost. The scene reminded Eustacia of a
+circumstance which till that moment she had totally forgotten. She had
+promised to meet Wildeve by the Barrow this very night at eight, to
+give a final answer to his pleading for an elopement.
+
+She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come to
+the spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.
+
+“Well, so much the better—it did not hurt him,” she said serenely.
+Wildeve had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked
+glass, and she could say such things as that with the greatest
+facility.
+
+She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin’s winning manner towards
+her cousin arose again upon Eustacia’s mind.
+
+“O that she had been married to Damon before this!” she said. “And she
+would if it hadn’t been for me! If I had only known—if I had only
+known!”
+
+Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and,
+sighing that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder,
+entered the shadow of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the
+outhouse, rolled them up, and went indoors to her chamber.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
+
+
+The old captain’s prevailing indifference to his granddaughter’s
+movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so
+happened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why
+she had walked out so late.
+
+“Only in search of events, Grandfather,” she said, looking out of the
+window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much
+force behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.
+
+“Search of events—one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at
+one-and-twenty.”
+
+“It is lonely here.”
+
+“So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be
+taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been
+home when I returned from the Woman.”
+
+“I won’t conceal what I did. I wanted an adventure, and I went with the
+mummers. I played the part of the Turkish Knight.”
+
+“No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn’t expect it of you, Eustacia.”
+
+“It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last. Now I
+have told you—and remember it is a secret.”
+
+“Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did—ha! ha! Dammy, how ’twould
+have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl.
+You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you
+don’t bother me; but no figuring in breeches again.”
+
+“You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa.”
+
+Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia’s moral training never exceeding
+in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became
+profitable to good works, would be a result not dear at the price. But
+her thoughts soon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a
+passionate and indescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not
+even a name, she went forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around
+her, restless as Ahasuerus the Jew. She was about half a mile from her
+residence when she beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a
+little way in advance—dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight and she
+guessed it to signify Diggory Venn.
+
+When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle during
+the last month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people replied,
+“On Egdon Heath.” Day after day the answer was the same. Now, since
+Egdon was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather than
+with sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most of the latter were
+to be found lay some to the north, some to the west of Egdon, his
+reason for camping about there like Israel in Zin was not apparent. The
+position was central and occasionally desirable. But the sale of reddle
+was not Diggory’s primary object in remaining on the heath,
+particularly at so late a period of the year, when most travellers of
+his class had gone into winter quarters.
+
+Eustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at their last
+meeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright as one
+ready and anxious to take his place as Thomasin’s betrothed. His figure
+was perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eye bright, his
+intelligence keen, and his position one which he could readily better
+if he chose. But in spite of possibilities it was not likely that
+Thomasin would accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she had a cousin
+like Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time not
+absolutely indifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor
+Mrs. Yeobright, in her anxiety for her niece’s future, had mentioned
+this lover to stimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the side
+of the Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt’s
+desire.
+
+“Good morning, miss,” said the reddleman, taking off his cap of
+hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of
+their last meeting.
+
+“Good morning, reddleman,” she said, hardly troubling to lift her
+heavily shaded eyes to his. “I did not know you were so near. Is your
+van here too?”
+
+Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of
+purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to
+form a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter
+in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their
+leaves.
+
+The roof and chimney of Venn’s caravan showed behind the tracery and
+tangles of the brake.
+
+“You remain near this part?” she asked with more interest.
+
+“Yes, I have business here.”
+
+“Not altogether the selling of reddle?”
+
+“It has nothing to do with that.”
+
+“It has to do with Miss Yeobright?”
+
+Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said
+frankly, “Yes, miss; it is on account of her.”
+
+“On account of your approaching marriage with her?”
+
+Venn flushed through his stain. “Don’t make sport of me, Miss Vye,” he
+said.
+
+“It isn’t true?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere _pis aller_ in
+Mrs. Yeobright’s mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of
+his promotion to that lowly standing. “It was a mere notion of mine,”
+she said quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech,
+when, looking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure
+serpentining upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top
+where she stood. Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back
+was at present towards them. She glanced quickly round; to escape that
+man there was only one way. Turning to Venn, she said, “Would you allow
+me to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp for sitting
+on.”
+
+“Certainly, miss; I’ll make a place for you.”
+
+She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling
+into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the
+door.
+
+“That is the best I can do for you,” he said, stepping down and
+retiring to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he
+walked up and down.
+
+Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from
+view on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of
+other feet than the reddleman’s, a not very friendly “Good day” uttered
+by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the
+foot-fall of one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her
+neck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and
+shoulders; and she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why.
+It was the sickening feeling which, if the changed heart has any
+generosity at all in its composition, accompanies the sudden sight of a
+once-loved one who is beloved no more.
+
+When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near.
+“That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss,” he said slowly, and expressed
+by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting
+unseen.
+
+“Yes, I saw him coming up the hill,” replied Eustacia. “Why should you
+tell me that?” It was a bold question, considering the reddleman’s
+knowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner had power to
+repress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.
+
+“I am glad to hear that you can ask it,” said the reddleman bluntly.
+“And, now I think of it, it agrees with what I saw last night.”
+
+“Ah—what was that?” Eustacia wished to leave him, but wished to know.
+
+“Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting for a lady who
+didn’t come.”
+
+“You waited too, it seems?”
+
+“Yes, I always do. I was glad to see him disappointed. He will be there
+again tonight.”
+
+“To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady, so
+far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin’s marriage with Mr.
+Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it.”
+
+Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it
+clearly; that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from
+expectation, but it is usually withheld in complicated cases of two
+removes and upwards. “Indeed, miss,” he replied.
+
+“How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again
+tonight?” she asked.
+
+“I heard him say to himself that he would. He’s in a regular temper.”
+
+Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting
+her deep dark eyes anxiously to his, “I wish I knew what to do. I don’t
+want to be uncivil to him; but I don’t wish to see him again; and I
+have some few little things to return to him.”
+
+“If you choose to send ’em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that you
+wish to say no more to him, I’ll take it for you quite privately. That
+would be the most straightforward way of letting him know your mind.”
+
+“Very well,” said Eustacia. “Come towards my house, and I will bring it
+out to you.”
+
+She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the
+shaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her trail.
+She saw from a distance that the captain was on the bank sweeping the
+horizon with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he stood she
+entered the house alone.
+
+In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in
+placing them in his hand, “Why are you so ready to take these for me?”
+
+“Can you ask that?”
+
+“I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as
+anxious as ever to help on her marriage?”
+
+Venn was a little moved. “I would sooner have married her myself,” he
+said in a low voice. “But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy
+without him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man
+ought.”
+
+Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What a
+strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of
+selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion,
+and sometimes its only one! The reddleman’s disinterestedness was so
+well deserving of respect that it overshot respect by being barely
+comprehended; and she almost thought it absurd.
+
+“Then we are both of one mind at last,” she said.
+
+“Yes,” replied Venn gloomily. “But if you would tell me, miss, why you
+take such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden and
+strange.”
+
+Eustacia appeared at a loss. “I cannot tell you that, reddleman,” she
+said coldly.
+
+Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia,
+went away.
+
+Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended
+the long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up
+from the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia’s
+emissary. He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young
+inn-keeper and ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of
+Ithuriel’s spear.
+
+“The meeting is always at eight o’clock, at this place,” said Venn,
+“and here we are—we three.”
+
+“We three?” said Wildeve, looking quickly round.
+
+“Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she.” He held up the letter and
+parcel.
+
+Wildeve took them wonderingly. “I don’t quite see what this means,” he
+said. “How do you come here? There must be some mistake.”
+
+“It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter.
+Lanterns for one.” The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of
+tallow-candle which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.
+
+“Who are you?” said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-light an obscure
+rubicundity of person in his companion. “You are the reddleman I saw on
+the hill this morning—why, you are the man who——”
+
+“Please read the letter.”
+
+“If you had come from the other one I shouldn’t have been surprised,”
+murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face grew
+serious.
+
+“To Mr. WILDEVE.
+
+
+“After some thought I have decided once and for all that we must hold
+no further communication. The more I consider the matter the more I am
+convinced that there must be an end to our acquaintance. Had you been
+uniformly faithful to me throughout these two years you might now have
+some ground for accusing me of heartlessness; but if you calmly
+consider what I bore during the period of your desertion, and how I
+passively put up with your courtship of another without once
+interfering, you will, I think, own that I have a right to consult my
+own feelings when you come back to me again. That these are not what
+they were towards you may, perhaps, be a fault in me, but it is one
+which you can scarcely reproach me for when you remember how you left
+me for Thomasin.
+    The little articles you gave me in the early part of our friendship
+    are returned by the bearer of this letter. They should rightly have
+    been sent back when I first heard of your engagement to her.
+
+
+“EUSTACIA.”
+
+
+By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which he
+had read the first half of the letter intensified to mortification. “I
+am made a great fool of, one way and another,” he said pettishly. “Do
+you know what is in this letter?”
+
+The reddleman hummed a tune.
+
+“Can’t you answer me?” asked Wildeve warmly.
+
+“Ru-um-tum-tum,” sang the reddleman.
+
+Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn’s feet, till he allowed
+his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory’s form, as illuminated by the
+candle, to his head and face. “Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I deserve it,
+considering how I have played with them both,” he said at last, as much
+to himself as to Venn. “But of all the odd things that ever I knew, the
+oddest is that you should so run counter to your own interests as to
+bring this to me.”
+
+“My interests?”
+
+“Certainly. ’Twas your interest not to do anything which would send me
+courting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you—or something like it.
+Mrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. ’Tisn’t true, then?”
+
+“Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn’t believe it. When did she
+say so?”
+
+Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.
+
+“I don’t believe it now,” cried Venn.
+
+“Ru-um-tum-tum,” sang Wildeve.
+
+“O Lord—how we can imitate!” said Venn contemptuously. “I’ll have this
+out. I’ll go straight to her.”
+
+Diggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve’s eye passing over his
+form in withering derision, as if he were no more than a heath-cropper.
+When the reddleman’s figure could no longer be seen, Wildeve himself
+descended and plunged into the rayless hollow of the vale.
+
+To lose the two women—he who had been the well-beloved of both—was too
+ironical an issue to be endured. He could only decently save himself by
+Thomasin; and once he became her husband, Eustacia’s repentance, he
+thought, would set in for a long and bitter term. It was no wonder that
+Wildeve, ignorant of the new man at the back of the scene, should have
+supposed Eustacia to be playing a part. To believe that the letter was
+not the result of some momentary pique, to infer that she really gave
+him up to Thomasin, would have required previous knowledge of her
+transfiguration by that man’s influence. Who was to know that she had
+grown generous in the greediness of a new passion, that in coveting one
+cousin she was dealing liberally with another, that in her eagerness to
+appropriate she gave way?
+
+Full of this resolve to marry in haste, and wring the heart of the
+proud girl, Wildeve went his way.
+
+Meanwhile Diggory Venn had returned to his van, where he stood looking
+thoughtfully into the stove. A new vista was opened up to him. But,
+however promising Mrs. Yeobright’s views of him might be as a candidate
+for her niece’s hand, one condition was indispensable to the favour of
+Thomasin herself, and that was a renunciation of his present wild mode
+of life. In this he saw little difficulty.
+
+He could not afford to wait till the next day before seeing Thomasin
+and detailing his plan. He speedily plunged himself into toilet
+operations, pulled a suit of cloth clothes from a box, and in about
+twenty minutes stood before the van-lantern as a reddleman in nothing
+but his face, the vermilion shades of which were not to be removed in a
+day. Closing the door and fastening it with a padlock, Venn set off
+towards Blooms-End.
+
+He had reached the white palings and laid his hand upon the gate when
+the door of the house opened, and quickly closed again. A female form
+had glided in. At the same time a man, who had seemingly been standing
+with the woman in the porch, came forward from the house till he was
+face to face with Venn. It was Wildeve again.
+
+“Man alive, you’ve been quick at it,” said Diggory sarcastically.
+
+“And you slow, as you will find,” said Wildeve. “And,” lowering his
+voice, “you may as well go back again now. I’ve claimed her, and got
+her. Good night, reddleman!” Thereupon Wildeve walked away.
+
+Venn’s heart sank within him, though it had not risen unduly high. He
+stood leaning over the palings in an indecisive mood for nearly a
+quarter of an hour. Then he went up the garden path, knocked, and asked
+for Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+Instead of requesting him to enter she came to the porch. A discourse
+was carried on between them in low measured tones for the space of ten
+minutes or more. At the end of the time Mrs. Yeobright went in, and
+Venn sadly retraced his steps into the heath. When he had again
+regained his van he lit the lantern, and with an apathetic face at once
+began to pull off his best clothes, till in the course of a few minutes
+he reappeared as the confirmed and irretrievable reddleman that he had
+seemed before.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart
+
+
+On that evening the interior of Blooms-End, though cosy and
+comfortable, had been rather silent. Clym Yeobright was not at home.
+Since the Christmas party he had gone on a few days’ visit to a friend
+about ten miles off.
+
+The shadowy form seen by Venn to part from Wildeve in the porch, and
+quickly withdraw into the house, was Thomasin’s. On entering she threw
+down a cloak which had been carelessly wrapped round her, and came
+forward to the light, where Mrs. Yeobright sat at her work-table, drawn
+up within the settle, so that part of it projected into the
+chimney-corner.
+
+“I don’t like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin,” said her aunt
+quietly, without looking up from her work.
+
+“I have only been just outside the door.”
+
+“Well?” inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change in the tone of
+Thomasin’s voice, and observing her. Thomasin’s cheek was flushed to a
+pitch far beyond that which it had reached before her troubles, and her
+eyes glittered.
+
+“It was _he_ who knocked,” she said.
+
+“I thought as much.”
+
+“He wishes the marriage to be at once.”
+
+“Indeed! What—is he anxious?” Mrs. Yeobright directed a searching look
+upon her niece. “Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?”
+
+“He did not wish to. You are not friends with him, he says. He would
+like the wedding to be the day after tomorrow, quite privately; at the
+church of his parish—not at ours.”
+
+“Oh! And what did you say?”
+
+“I agreed to it,” Thomasin answered firmly. “I am a practical woman
+now. I don’t believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any
+circumstances since—since Clym’s letter.”
+
+A letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright’s work-basket, and at Thomasin’s
+words her aunt reopened it, and silently read for the tenth time that
+day:—
+
+“What is the meaning of this silly story that people are circulating
+about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve? I should call such a scandal
+humiliating if there was the least chance of its being true. How could
+such a gross falsehood have arisen? It is said that one should go
+abroad to hear news of home, and I appear to have done it. Of course I
+contradict the tale everywhere; but it is very vexing, and I wonder how
+it could have originated. It is too ridiculous that such a girl as
+Thomasin could so mortify us as to get jilted on the wedding day. What
+has she done?”
+
+“Yes,” Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter. “If you
+think you can marry him, do so. And since Mr. Wildeve wishes it to be
+unceremonious, let it be that too. I can do nothing. It is all in your
+own hands now. My power over your welfare came to an end when you left
+this house to go with him to Anglebury.” She continued, half in
+bitterness, “I may almost ask, why do you consult me in the matter at
+all? If you had gone and married him without saying a word to me, I
+could hardly have been angry—simply because, poor girl, you can’t do a
+better thing.”
+
+“Don’t say that and dishearten me.”
+
+“You are right—I will not.”
+
+“I do not plead for him, Aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a
+blind woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don’t
+now. But I know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for the
+best.”
+
+“And so do I, and we will both continue to,” said Mrs. Yeobright,
+rising and kissing her. “Then the wedding, if it comes off, will be on
+the morning of the very day Clym comes home?”
+
+“Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. After that you
+can look him in the face, and so can I. Our concealments will matter
+nothing.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent, and presently said,
+“Do you wish me to give you away? I am willing to undertake that, you
+know, if you wish, as I was last time. After once forbidding the banns
+I think I can do no less.”
+
+“I don’t think I will ask you to come,” said Thomasin reluctantly, but
+with decision. “It would be unpleasant, I am almost sure. Better let
+there be only strangers present, and none of my relations at all. I
+would rather have it so. I do not wish to do anything which may touch
+your credit, and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were
+there, after what has passed. I am only your niece, and there is no
+necessity why you should concern yourself more about me.”
+
+“Well, he has beaten us,” her aunt said. “It really seems as if he had
+been playing with you in this way in revenge for my humbling him as I
+did by standing up against him at first.”
+
+“O no, Aunt,” murmured Thomasin.
+
+They said no more on the subject then. Diggory Venn’s knock came soon
+after; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from her interview with him in
+the porch, carelessly observed, “Another lover has come to ask for
+you.”
+
+“No?”
+
+“Yes, that queer young man Venn.”
+
+“Asks to pay his addresses to me?”
+
+“Yes; and I told him he was too late.”
+
+Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. “Poor Diggory!” she
+said, and then aroused herself to other things.
+
+The next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation, both
+the women being anxious to immerse themselves in these to escape the
+emotional aspect of the situation. Some wearing apparel and other
+articles were collected anew for Thomasin, and remarks on domestic
+details were frequently made, so as to obscure any inner misgivings
+about her future as Wildeve’s wife.
+
+The appointed morning came. The arrangement with Wildeve was that he
+should meet her at the church to guard against any unpleasant curiosity
+which might have affected them had they been seen walking off together
+in the usual country way.
+
+Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride was
+dressing. The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of Thomasin’s
+hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided according to a
+calendar system—the more important the day the more numerous the
+strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she braided it in
+threes; on ordinary Sundays in fours; at Maypolings, gipsyings, and the
+like, she braided it in fives. Years ago she had said that when she
+married she would braid it in sevens. She had braided it in sevens
+today.
+
+“I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all,” she
+said. “It is my wedding day, even though there may be something sad
+about the time. I mean,” she added, anxious to correct any wrong
+impression, “not sad in itself, but in its having had great
+disappointment and trouble before it.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh.
+“I almost wish Clym had been at home,” she said. “Of course you chose
+the time because of his absence.”
+
+“Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him
+all; but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry out
+the plan to its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was clear.”
+
+“You are a practical little woman,” said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling. “I
+wish you and he—no, I don’t wish anything. There, it is nine o’clock,”
+she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging downstairs.
+
+“I told Damon I would leave at nine,” said Thomasin, hastening out of
+the room.
+
+Her aunt followed. When Thomasin was going up the little walk from the
+door to the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright looked reluctantly at her, and
+said, “It is a shame to let you go alone.”
+
+“It is necessary,” said Thomasin.
+
+“At any rate,” added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, “I shall call
+upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. If Clym has
+returned by that time he will perhaps come too. I wish to show Mr.
+Wildeve that I bear him no ill-will. Let the past be forgotten. Well,
+God bless you! There, I don’t believe in old superstitions, but I’ll do
+it.” She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl, who
+turned, smiled, and went on again.
+
+A few steps further, and she looked back. “Did you call me, Aunt?” she
+tremulously inquired. “Good-bye!”
+
+Moved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon Mrs. Yeobright’s
+worn, wet face, she ran back, when her aunt came forward, and they met
+again. “O—Tamsie,” said the elder, weeping, “I don’t like to let you
+go.”
+
+“I—I am—” Thomasin began, giving way likewise. But, quelling her grief,
+she said “Good-bye!” again and went on.
+
+Then Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way between the
+scratching furze-bushes, and diminishing far up the valley—a pale-blue
+spot in a vast field of neutral brown, solitary and undefended except
+by the power of her own hope.
+
+But the worst feature in the case was one which did not appear in the
+landscape; it was the man.
+
+The hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had been so
+timed as to enable her to escape the awkwardness of meeting her cousin
+Clym, who was returning the same morning. To own to the partial truth
+of what he had heard would be distressing as long as the humiliating
+position resulting from the event was unimproved. It was only after a
+second and successful journey to the altar that she could lift up her
+head and prove the failure of the first attempt a pure accident.
+
+She had not been gone from Blooms-End more than half an hour when
+Yeobright came by the meads from the other direction and entered the
+house.
+
+“I had an early breakfast,” he said to his mother after greeting her.
+“Now I could eat a little more.”
+
+They sat down to the repeated meal, and he went on in a low, anxious
+voice, apparently imagining that Thomasin had not yet come downstairs,
+“What’s this I have heard about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?”
+
+“It is true in many points,” said Mrs. Yeobright quietly; “but it is
+all right now, I hope.” She looked at the clock.
+
+“True?”
+
+“Thomasin is gone to him today.”
+
+Clym pushed away his breakfast. “Then there is a scandal of some sort,
+and that’s what’s the matter with Thomasin. Was it this that made her
+ill?”
+
+“Yes. Not a scandal—a misfortune. I will tell you all about it, Clym.
+You must not be angry, but you must listen, and you’ll find that what
+we have done has been done for the best.”
+
+She then told him the circumstances. All that he had known of the
+affair before he returned from Paris was that there had existed an
+attachment between Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first
+discountenanced, but had since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin,
+looked upon in a little more favourable light. When she, therefore,
+proceeded to explain all he was greatly surprised and troubled.
+
+“And she determined that the wedding should be over before you came
+back,” said Mrs. Yeobright, “that there might be no chance of her
+meeting you, and having a very painful time of it. That’s why she has
+gone to him; they have arranged to be married this morning.”
+
+“But I can’t understand it,” said Yeobright, rising. “’Tis so unlike
+her. I can see why you did not write to me after her unfortunate return
+home. But why didn’t you let me know when the wedding was going to
+be—the first time?”
+
+“Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be
+obstinate; and when I found that you were nothing in her mind I vowed
+that she should be nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my niece
+after all; I told her she might marry, but that I should take no
+interest in it, and should not bother you about it either.”
+
+“It wouldn’t have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong.”
+
+“I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might
+throw up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because
+of it, so I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time
+in a proper manner, I should have told you at once.”
+
+“Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!”
+
+“Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time. It
+may, considering he’s the same man.”
+
+“Yes, and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose
+Wildeve is really a bad fellow?”
+
+“Then he won’t come, and she’ll come home again.”
+
+“You should have looked more into it.”
+
+“It is useless to say that,” his mother answered with an impatient look
+of sorrow. “You don’t know how bad it has been here with us all these
+weeks, Clym. You don’t know what a mortification anything of that sort
+is to a woman. You don’t know the sleepless nights we’ve had in this
+house, and the almost bitter words that have passed between us since
+that Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven such weeks again.
+Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have been ashamed to look
+anybody in the face; and now you blame me for letting her do the only
+thing that can be done to set that trouble straight.”
+
+“No,” he said slowly. “Upon the whole I don’t blame you. But just
+consider how sudden it seems to me. Here was I, knowing nothing; and
+then I am told all at once that Tamsie is gone to be married. Well, I
+suppose there was nothing better to do. Do you know, Mother,” he
+continued after a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his own
+past history, “I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart? Yes, I did.
+How odd boys are! And when I came home and saw her this time she seemed
+so much more affectionate than usual, that I was quite reminded of
+those days, particularly on the night of the party, when she was
+unwell. We had the party just the same—was not that rather cruel to
+her?”
+
+“It made no difference. I had arranged to give one, and it was not
+worth while to make more gloom than necessary. To begin by shutting
+ourselves up and telling you of Tamsin’s misfortunes would have been a
+poor sort of welcome.”
+
+Clym remained thinking. “I almost wish you had not had that party,” he
+said; “and for other reasons. But I will tell you in a day or two. We
+must think of Tamsin now.”
+
+They lapsed into silence. “I’ll tell you what,” said Yeobright again,
+in a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. “I don’t think it
+kind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and neither of us there
+to keep up her spirits or care a bit about her. She hasn’t disgraced
+herself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad enough that the
+wedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our keeping
+away from it in addition. Upon my soul, ’tis almost a shame. I’ll go.”
+
+“It is over by this time,” said his mother with a sigh; “unless they
+were late, or he—”
+
+“Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don’t quite like
+your keeping me in ignorance, Mother, after all. Really, I half hope he
+has failed to meet her!”
+
+“And ruined her character?”
+
+“Nonsense—that wouldn’t ruin Thomasin.”
+
+He took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked
+rather unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long
+left alone. A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his
+company came Diggory Venn.
+
+“I find there isn’t time for me to get there,” said Clym.
+
+“Is she married?” Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman a
+face in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was
+apparent.
+
+Venn bowed. “She is, ma’am.”
+
+“How strange it sounds,” murmured Clym.
+
+“And he didn’t disappoint her this time?” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“He did not. And there is now no slight on her name. I was hastening
+ath’art to tell you at once, as I saw you were not there.”
+
+“How came you to be there? How did you know it?” she asked.
+
+“I have been in that neighbourhood for some time, and I saw them go
+in,” said the reddleman. “Wildeve came up to the door, punctual as the
+clock. I didn’t expect it of him.” He did not add, as he might have
+added, that how he came to be in that neighbourhood was not by
+accident; that, since Wildeve’s resumption of his right to Thomasin,
+Venn, with the thoroughness which was part of his character, had
+determined to see the end of the episode.
+
+“Who was there?” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Nobody hardly. I stood right out of the way, and she did not see me.”
+The reddleman spoke huskily, and looked into the garden.
+
+“Who gave her away?”
+
+“Miss Vye.”
+
+“How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered an honour, I
+suppose?”
+
+“Who’s Miss Vye?” said Clym.
+
+“Captain Vye’s granddaughter, of Mistover Knap.”
+
+“A proud girl from Budmouth,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “One not much to my
+liking. People say she’s a witch, but of course that’s absurd.”
+
+The reddleman kept to himself his acquaintance with that fair
+personage, and also that Eustacia was there because he went to fetch
+her, in accordance with a promise he had given as soon as he learnt
+that the marriage was to take place. He merely said, in continuation of
+the story——
+
+“I was sitting on the churchyard wall when they came up, one from one
+way, the other from the other; and Miss Vye was walking thereabouts,
+looking at the headstones. As soon as they had gone in I went to the
+door, feeling I should like to see it, as I knew her so well. I pulled
+off my boots because they were so noisy, and went up into the gallery.
+I saw then that the parson and clerk were already there.”
+
+“How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it, if she was only on a
+walk that way?”
+
+“Because there was nobody else. She had gone into the church just
+before me, not into the gallery. The parson looked round before
+beginning, and as she was the only one near he beckoned to her, and she
+went up to the rails. After that, when it came to signing the book, she
+pushed up her veil and signed; and Tamsin seemed to thank her for her
+kindness.” The reddleman told the tale thoughtfully for there lingered
+upon his vision the changing colour of Wildeve, when Eustacia lifted
+the thick veil which had concealed her from recognition and looked
+calmly into his face. “And then,” said Diggory sadly, “I came away, for
+her history as Tamsin Yeobright was over.”
+
+“I offered to go,” said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. “But she said it
+was not necessary.”
+
+“Well, it is no matter,” said the reddleman. “The thing is done at last
+as it was meant to be at first, and God send her happiness. Now I’ll
+wish you good morning.”
+
+He placed his cap on his head and went out.
+
+From that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright’s door, the reddleman was
+seen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months. He
+vanished entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had been
+standing was as vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a sign
+remained to show that he had been there, excepting a few straws, and a
+little redness on the turf, which was washed away by the next storm of
+rain.
+
+The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far as
+it went, was deficient in one significant particular, which had escaped
+him through his being at some distance back in the church. When
+Thomasin was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung
+towards Eustacia a glance that said plainly, “I have punished you now.”
+She had replied in a low tone—and he little thought how truly—“You
+mistake; it gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today.”
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THIRD—THE FASCINATION
+
+
+
+
+I.
+“My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is”
+
+
+In Clym Yeobright’s face could be dimly seen the typical countenance of
+the future. Should there be a classic period to art hereafter, its
+Pheidias may produce such faces. The view of life as a thing to be put
+up with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense in
+early civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the
+constitution of the advanced races that its facial expression will
+become accepted as a new artistic departure. People already feel that a
+man who lives without disturbing a curve of feature, or setting a mark
+of mental concern anywhere upon himself, is too far removed from modern
+perceptiveness to be a modern type. Physically beautiful men—the glory
+of the race when it was young—are almost an anachronism now; and we may
+wonder whether, at some time or other, physically beautiful women may
+not be an anachronism likewise.
+
+The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries has
+permanently displaced the Hellenic idea of life, or whatever it may be
+called. What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what their
+Æschylus imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashioned
+revelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as we
+uncover the defects of natural laws, and see the quandary that man is
+in by their operation.
+
+The lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based upon this new
+recognition will probably be akin to those of Yeobright. The observer’s
+eye was arrested, not by his face as a picture, but by his face as a
+page; not by what it was, but by what it recorded. His features were
+attractive in the light of symbols, as sounds intrinsically common
+become attractive in language, and as shapes intrinsically simple
+become interesting in writing.
+
+He had been a lad of whom something was expected. Beyond this all had
+been chaos. That he would be successful in an original way, or that he
+would go to the dogs in an original way, seemed equally probable. The
+only absolute certainty about him was that he would not stand still in
+the circumstances amid which he was born.
+
+Hence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighbouring yeomen, the
+listener said, “Ah, Clym Yeobright—what is he doing now?” When the
+instinctive question about a person is, What is he doing? it is felt
+that he will be found to be, like most of us, doing nothing in
+particular. There is an indefinite sense that he must be invading some
+region of singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that he is doing
+well. The secret faith is that he is making a mess of it. Half a dozen
+comfortable market-men, who were habitual callers at the Quiet Woman as
+they passed by in their carts, were partial to the topic. In fact,
+though they were not Egdon men, they could hardly avoid it while they
+sucked their long clay tubes and regarded the heath through the window.
+Clym had been so inwoven with the heath in his boyhood that hardly
+anybody could look upon it without thinking of him. So the subject
+recurred: if he were making a fortune and a name, so much the better
+for him; if he were making a tragical figure in the world, so much the
+better for a narrative.
+
+The fact was that Yeobright’s fame had spread to an awkward extent
+before he left home. “It is bad when your fame outruns your means,”
+said the Spanish Jesuit Gracian. At the age of six he had asked a
+Scripture riddle: “Who was the first man known to wear breeches?” and
+applause had resounded from the very verge of the heath. At seven he
+painted the Battle of Waterloo with tiger-lily pollen and black-currant
+juice, in the absence of water-colours. By the time he reached twelve
+he had in this manner been heard of as artist and scholar for at least
+two miles round. An individual whose fame spreads three or four
+thousand yards in the time taken by the fame of others similarly
+situated to travel six or eight hundred, must of necessity have
+something in him. Possibly Clym’s fame, like Homer’s, owed something to
+the accidents of his situation; nevertheless famous he was.
+
+He grew up and was helped out in life. That waggery of fate which
+started Clive as a writing clerk, Gay as a linen-draper, Keats as a
+surgeon, and a thousand others in a thousand other odd ways, banished
+the wild and ascetic heath lad to a trade whose sole concern was with
+the especial symbols of self-indulgence and vainglory.
+
+The details of this choice of a business for him it is not necessary to
+give. At the death of his father a neighbouring gentleman had kindly
+undertaken to give the boy a start, and this assumed the form of
+sending him to Budmouth. Yeobright did not wish to go there, but it was
+the only feasible opening. Thence he went to London; and thence,
+shortly after, to Paris, where he had remained till now.
+
+Something being expected of him, he had not been at home many days
+before a great curiosity as to why he stayed on so long began to arise
+in the heath. The natural term of a holiday had passed, yet he still
+remained. On the Sunday morning following the week of Thomasin’s
+marriage a discussion on this subject was in progress at a hair-cutting
+before Fairway’s house. Here the local barbering was always done at
+this hour on this day, to be followed by the great Sunday wash of the
+inhabitants at noon, which in its turn was followed by the great Sunday
+dressing an hour later. On Egdon Heath Sunday proper did not begin till
+dinner-time, and even then it was a somewhat battered specimen of the
+day.
+
+These Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway; the
+victim sitting on a chopping-block in front of the house, without a
+coat, and the neighbours gossiping around, idly observing the locks of
+hair as they rose upon the wind after the snip, and flew away out of
+sight to the four quarters of the heavens. Summer and winter the scene
+was the same, unless the wind were more than usually blusterous, when
+the stool was shifted a few feet round the corner. To complain of cold
+in sitting out of doors, hatless and coatless, while Fairway told true
+stories between the cuts of the scissors, would have been to pronounce
+yourself no man at once. To flinch, exclaim, or move a muscle of the
+face at the small stabs under the ear received from those instruments,
+or at scarifications of the neck by the comb, would have been thought a
+gross breach of good manners, considering that Fairway did it all for
+nothing. A bleeding about the poll on Sunday afternoons was amply
+accounted for by the explanation. “I have had my hair cut, you know.”
+
+The conversation on Yeobright had been started by a distant view of the
+young man rambling leisurely across the heath before them.
+
+“A man who is doing well elsewhere wouldn’t bide here two or three
+weeks for nothing,” said Fairway. “He’s got some project in ’s
+head—depend upon that.”
+
+“Well, ’a can’t keep a diment shop here,” said Sam.
+
+“I don’t see why he should have had them two heavy boxes home if he had
+not been going to bide; and what there is for him to do here the Lord
+in heaven knows.”
+
+Before many more surmises could be indulged in Yeobright had come near;
+and seeing the hair-cutting group he turned aside to join them.
+Marching up, and looking critically at their faces for a moment, he
+said, without introduction, “Now, folks, let me guess what you have
+been talking about.”
+
+“Ay, sure, if you will,” said Sam.
+
+“About me.”
+
+“Now, it is a thing I shouldn’t have dreamed of doing, otherwise,” said
+Fairway in a tone of integrity; “but since you have named it, Master
+Yeobright, I’ll own that we was talking about ’ee. We were wondering
+what could keep you home here mollyhorning about when you have made
+such a world-wide name for yourself in the nick-nack trade—now, that’s
+the truth o’t.”
+
+“I’ll tell you,” said Yeobright with unexpected earnestness. “I am not
+sorry to have the opportunity. I’ve come home because, all things
+considered, I can be a trifle less useless here than anywhere else. But
+I have only lately found this out. When I first got away from home I
+thought this place was not worth troubling about. I thought our life
+here was contemptible. To oil your boots instead of blacking them, to
+dust your coat with a switch instead of a brush—was there ever anything
+more ridiculous? I said.”
+
+“So ’tis; so ’tis!”
+
+“No, no—you are wrong; it isn’t.”
+
+“Beg your pardon, we thought that was your maning?”
+
+“Well, as my views changed my course became very depressing. I found
+that I was trying to be like people who had hardly anything in common
+with myself. I was endeavouring to put off one sort of life for another
+sort of life, which was not better than the life I had known before. It
+was simply different.”
+
+“True; a sight different,” said Fairway.
+
+“Yes, Paris must be a taking place,” said Humphrey. “Grand
+shop-winders, trumpets, and drums; and here be we out of doors in all
+winds and weathers—”
+
+“But you mistake me,” pleaded Clym. “All this was very depressing. But
+not so depressing as something I next perceived—that my business was
+the idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a man could be
+put to. That decided me—I would give it up and try to follow some
+rational occupation among the people I knew best, and to whom I could
+be of most use. I have come home; and this is how I mean to carry out
+my plan. I shall keep a school as near to Egdon as possible, so as to
+be able to walk over here and have a night-school in my mother’s house.
+But I must study a little at first, to get properly qualified. Now,
+neighbours, I must go.”
+
+And Clym resumed his walk across the heath.
+
+“He’ll never carry it out in the world,” said Fairway. “In a few weeks
+he’ll learn to see things otherwise.”
+
+“’Tis good-hearted of the young man,” said another. “But, for my part,
+I think he had better mind his business.”
+
+
+
+
+II.
+The New Course Causes Disappointment
+
+
+Yeobright loved his kind. He had a conviction that the want of most men
+was knowledge of a sort which brings wisdom rather than affluence. He
+wished to raise the class at the expense of individuals rather than
+individuals at the expense of the class. What was more, he was ready at
+once to be the first unit sacrificed.
+
+In passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life the intermediate
+stages are usually two at least, frequently many more; and one of those
+stages is almost sure to be worldly advanced. We can hardly imagine
+bucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims without imagining
+social aims as the transitional phase. Yeobright’s local peculiarity
+was that in striving at high thinking he still cleaved to plain
+living—nay, wild and meagre living in many respects, and brotherliness
+with clowns.
+
+He was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than repentance
+for his text. Mentally he was in a provincial future, that is, he was
+in many points abreast with the central town thinkers of his date. Much
+of this development he may have owed to his studious life in Paris,
+where he had become acquainted with ethical systems popular at the
+time.
+
+In consequence of this relatively advanced position, Yeobright might
+have been called unfortunate. The rural world was not ripe for him. A
+man should be only partially before his time—to be completely to the
+vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip’s warlike son been
+intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilization without
+bloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed,
+but nobody would have heard of an Alexander.
+
+In the interests of renown the forwardness should lie chiefly in the
+capacity to handle things. Successful propagandists have succeeded
+because the doctrine they bring into form is that which their listeners
+have for some time felt without being able to shape. A man who
+advocates æsthetic effort and deprecates social effort is only likely
+to be understood by a class to which social effort has become a stale
+matter. To argue upon the possibility of culture before luxury to the
+bucolic world may be to argue truly, but it is an attempt to disturb a
+sequence to which humanity has been long accustomed. Yeobright
+preaching to the Egdon eremites that they might rise to a serene
+comprehensiveness without going through the process of enriching
+themselves was not unlike arguing to ancient Chaldeans that in
+ascending from earth to the pure empyrean it was not necessary to pass
+first into the intervening heaven of ether.
+
+Was Yeobright’s mind well-proportioned? No. A well proportioned mind is
+one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that
+it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a
+heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it
+will never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest,
+or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.
+It produces the poetry of Rogers, the paintings of West, the statecraft
+of North, the spiritual guidance of Tomline; enabling its possessors to
+find their way to wealth, to wind up well, to step with dignity off the
+stage, to die comfortably in their beds, and to get the decent monument
+which, in many cases, they deserve. It never would have allowed
+Yeobright to do such a ridiculous thing as throw up his business to
+benefit his fellow-creatures.
+
+He walked along towards home without attending to paths. If anyone knew
+the heath well it was Clym. He was permeated with its scenes, with its
+substance, and with its odours. He might be said to be its product. His
+eyes had first opened thereon; with its appearance all the first images
+of his memory were mingled, his estimate of life had been coloured by
+it: his toys had been the flint knives and arrow-heads which he found
+there, wondering why stones should “grow” to such odd shapes; his
+flowers, the purple bells and yellow furze: his animal kingdom, the
+snakes and croppers; his society, its human haunters. Take all the
+varying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the heath, and translate
+them into loves, and you have the heart of Clym. He gazed upon the wide
+prospect as he walked, and was glad.
+
+To many persons this Egdon was a place which had slipped out of its
+century generations ago, to intrude as an uncouth object into this. It
+was an obsolete thing, and few cared to study it. How could this be
+otherwise in the days of square fields, plashed hedges, and meadows
+watered on a plan so rectangular that on a fine day they looked like
+silver gridirons? The farmer, in his ride, who could smile at
+artificial grasses, look with solicitude at the coming corn, and sigh
+with sadness at the fly-eaten turnips, bestowed upon the distant upland
+of heath nothing better than a frown. But as for Yeobright, when he
+looked from the heights on his way he could not help indulging in a
+barbarous satisfaction at observing that, in some of the attempts at
+reclamation from the waste, tillage, after holding on for a year or
+two, had receded again in despair, the ferns and furze-tufts stubbornly
+reasserting themselves.
+
+He descended into the valley, and soon reached his home at Blooms-End.
+His mother was snipping dead leaves from the window-plants. She looked
+up at him as if she did not understand the meaning of his long stay
+with her; her face had worn that look for several days. He could
+perceive that the curiosity which had been shown by the hair-cutting
+group amounted in his mother to concern. But she had asked no question
+with her lips, even when the arrival of his trunk suggested that he was
+not going to leave her soon. Her silence besought an explanation of him
+more loudly than words.
+
+“I am not going back to Paris again, Mother,” he said. “At least, in my
+old capacity. I have given up the business.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned in pained surprise. “I thought something was
+amiss, because of the boxes. I wonder you did not tell me sooner.”
+
+“I ought to have done it. But I have been in doubt whether you would be
+pleased with my plan. I was not quite clear on a few points myself. I
+am going to take an entirely new course.”
+
+“I am astonished, Clym. How can you want to do better than you’ve been
+doing?”
+
+“Very easily. But I shall not do better in the way you mean; I suppose
+it will be called doing worse. But I hate that business of mine, and I
+want to do some worthy thing before I die. As a schoolmaster I think to
+do it—a school-master to the poor and ignorant, to teach them what
+nobody else will.”
+
+“After all the trouble that has been taken to give you a start, and
+when there is nothing to do but to keep straight on towards affluence,
+you say you will be a poor man’s schoolmaster. Your fancies will be
+your ruin, Clym.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke calmly, but the force of feeling behind the words
+was but too apparent to one who knew her as well as her son did. He did
+not answer. There was in his face that hopelessness of being understood
+which comes when the objector is constitutionally beyond the reach of a
+logic that, even under favouring conditions, is almost too coarse a
+vehicle for the subtlety of the argument.
+
+No more was said on the subject till the end of dinner. His mother then
+began, as if there had been no interval since the morning. “It disturbs
+me, Clym, to find that you have come home with such thoughts as those.
+I hadn’t the least idea that you meant to go backward in the world by
+your own free choice. Of course, I have always supposed you were going
+to push straight on, as other men do—all who deserve the name—when they
+have been put in a good way of doing well.”
+
+“I cannot help it,” said Clym, in a troubled tone. “Mother, I hate the
+flashy business. Talk about men who deserve the name, can any man
+deserving the name waste his time in that effeminate way, when he sees
+half the world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle to and
+teach them how to breast the misery they are born to? I get up every
+morning and see the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain, as
+St. Paul says, and yet there am I, trafficking in glittering splendours
+with wealthy women and titled libertines, and pandering to the meanest
+vanities—I, who have health and strength enough for anything. I have
+been troubled in my mind about it all the year, and the end is that I
+cannot do it any more.”
+
+“Why can’t you do it as well as others?”
+
+“I don’t know, except that there are many things other people care for
+which I don’t; and that’s partly why I think I ought to do this. For
+one thing, my body does not require much of me. I cannot enjoy
+delicacies; good things are wasted upon me. Well, I ought to turn that
+defect to advantage, and by being able to do without what other people
+require I can spend what such things cost upon anybody else.”
+
+Now, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very instincts from the
+woman before him, could not fail to awaken a reciprocity in her through
+her feelings, if not by arguments, disguise it as she might for his
+good. She spoke with less assurance. “And yet you might have been a
+wealthy man if you had only persevered. Manager to that large diamond
+establishment—what better can a man wish for? What a post of trust and
+respect! I suppose you will be like your father; like him, you are
+getting weary of doing well.”
+
+“No,” said her son, “I am not weary of that, though I am weary of what
+you mean by it. Mother, what is doing well?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be content with ready
+definitions, and, like the “What is wisdom?” of Plato’s Socrates, and
+the “What is truth?” of Pontius Pilate, Yeobright’s burning question
+received no answer.
+
+The silence was broken by the clash of the garden gate, a tap at the
+door, and its opening. Christian Cantle appeared in the room in his
+Sunday clothes.
+
+It was the custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story before
+absolutely entering the house, so as to be well in for the body of the
+narrative by the time visitor and visited stood face to face. Christian
+had been saying to them while the door was leaving its latch, “To think
+that I, who go from home but once in a while, and hardly then, should
+have been there this morning!”
+
+“’Tis news you have brought us, then, Christian?” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Ay, sure, about a witch, and ye must overlook my time o’ day; for,
+says I, ‘I must go and tell ’em, though they won’t have half done
+dinner.’ I assure ye it made me shake like a driven leaf. Do ye think
+any harm will come o’t?”
+
+“Well—what?”
+
+“This morning at church we was all standing up, and the pa’son said,
+‘Let us pray.’ ‘Well,’ thinks I, ‘one may as well kneel as stand’; so
+down I went; and, more than that, all the rest were as willing to
+oblige the man as I. We hadn’t been hard at it for more than a minute
+when a most terrible screech sounded through church, as if somebody had
+just gied up their heart’s blood. All the folk jumped up and then we
+found that Susan Nunsuch had pricked Miss Vye with a long
+stocking-needle, as she had threatened to do as soon as ever she could
+get the young lady to church, where she don’t come very often. She’ve
+waited for this chance for weeks, so as to draw her blood and put an
+end to the bewitching of Susan’s children that has been carried on so
+long. Sue followed her into church, sat next to her, and as soon as she
+could find a chance in went the stocking-needle into my lady’s arm.”
+
+“Good heaven, how horrid!” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Sue pricked her that deep that the maid fainted away; and as I was
+afeard there might be some tumult among us, I got behind the bass viol
+and didn’t see no more. But they carried her out into the air, ’tis
+said; but when they looked round for Sue she was gone. What a scream
+that girl gied, poor thing! There were the pa’son in his surplice
+holding up his hand and saying, ‘Sit down, my good people, sit down!’
+But the deuce a bit would they sit down. O, and what d’ye think I found
+out, Mrs. Yeobright? The pa’son wears a suit of clothes under his
+surplice!—I could see his black sleeves when he held up his arm.”
+
+“’Tis a cruel thing,” said Yeobright.
+
+“Yes,” said his mother.
+
+“The nation ought to look into it,” said Christian. “Here’s Humphrey
+coming, I think.”
+
+In came Humphrey. “Well, have ye heard the news? But I see you have.
+’Tis a very strange thing that whenever one of Egdon folk goes to
+church some rum job or other is sure to be doing. The last time one of
+us was there was when neighbour Fairway went in the fall; and that was
+the day you forbad the banns, Mrs. Yeobright.”
+
+“Has this cruelly treated girl been able to walk home?” said Clym.
+
+“They say she got better, and went home very well. And now I’ve told it
+I must be moving homeward myself.”
+
+“And I,” said Humphrey. “Truly now we shall see if there’s anything in
+what folks say about her.”
+
+When they were gone into the heath again Yeobright said quietly to his
+mother, “Do you think I have turned teacher too soon?”
+
+“It is right that there should be schoolmasters, and missionaries, and
+all such men,” she replied. “But it is right, too, that I should try to
+lift you out of this life into something richer, and that you should
+not come back again, and be as if I had not tried at all.”
+
+Later in the day Sam, the turf-cutter, entered. “I’ve come a-borrowing,
+Mrs. Yeobright. I suppose you have heard what’s been happening to the
+beauty on the hill?”
+
+“Yes, Sam: half a dozen have been telling us.”
+
+“Beauty?” said Clym.
+
+“Yes, tolerably well-favoured,” Sam replied. “Lord! all the country
+owns that ’tis one of the strangest things in the world that such a
+woman should have come to live up there.”
+
+“Dark or fair?”
+
+“Now, though I’ve seen her twenty times, that’s a thing I cannot call
+to mind.”
+
+“Darker than Tamsin,” murmured Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“A woman who seems to care for nothing at all, as you may say.”
+
+“She is melancholy, then?” inquired Clym.
+
+“She mopes about by herself, and don’t mix in with the people.”
+
+“Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?”
+
+“Not to my knowledge.”
+
+“Doesn’t join in with the lads in their games, to get some sort of
+excitement in this lonely place?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Mumming, for instance?”
+
+“No. Her notions be different. I should rather say her thoughts were
+far away from here, with lords and ladies she’ll never know, and
+mansions she’ll never see again.”
+
+Observing that Clym appeared singularly interested Mrs. Yeobright said
+rather uneasily to Sam, “You see more in her than most of us do. Miss
+Vye is to my mind too idle to be charming. I have never heard that she
+is of any use to herself or to other people. Good girls don’t get
+treated as witches even on Egdon.”
+
+“Nonsense—that proves nothing either way,” said Yeobright.
+
+“Well, of course I don’t understand such niceties,” said Sam,
+withdrawing from a possibly unpleasant argument; “and what she is we
+must wait for time to tell us. The business that I have really called
+about is this, to borrow the longest and strongest rope you have. The
+captain’s bucket has dropped into the well, and they are in want of
+water; and as all the chaps are at home today we think we can get it
+out for him. We have three cart-ropes already, but they won’t reach to
+the bottom.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright told him that he might have whatever ropes he could find
+in the outhouse, and Sam went out to search. When he passed by the door
+Clym joined him, and accompanied him to the gate.
+
+“Is this young witch-lady going to stay long at Mistover?” he asked.
+
+“I should say so.”
+
+“What a cruel shame to ill-use her, She must have suffered greatly—more
+in mind than in body.”
+
+“’Twas a graceless trick—such a handsome girl, too. You ought to see
+her, Mr. Yeobright, being a young man come from far, and with a little
+more to show for your years than most of us.”
+
+“Do you think she would like to teach children?” said Clym.
+
+Sam shook his head. “Quite a different sort of body from that, I
+reckon.”
+
+“O, it was merely something which occurred to me. It would of course be
+necessary to see her and talk it over—not an easy thing, by the way,
+for my family and hers are not very friendly.”
+
+“I’ll tell you how you mid see her, Mr. Yeobright,” said Sam. “We are
+going to grapple for the bucket at six o’clock tonight at her house,
+and you could lend a hand. There’s five or six coming, but the well is
+deep, and another might be useful, if you don’t mind appearing in that
+shape. She’s sure to be walking round.”
+
+“I’ll think of it,” said Yeobright; and they parted.
+
+He thought of it a good deal; but nothing more was said about Eustacia
+inside the house at that time. Whether this romantic martyr to
+superstition and the melancholy mummer he had conversed with under the
+full moon were one and the same person remained as yet a problem.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+The First Act in a Timeworn Drama
+
+
+The afternoon was fine, and Yeobright walked on the heath for an hour
+with his mother. When they reached the lofty ridge which divided the
+valley of Blooms-End from the adjoining valley they stood still and
+looked round. The Quiet Woman Inn was visible on the low margin of the
+heath in one direction, and afar on the other hand rose Mistover Knap.
+
+“You mean to call on Thomasin?” he inquired.
+
+“Yes. But you need not come this time,” said his mother.
+
+“In that case I’ll branch off here, Mother. I am going to Mistover.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned to him inquiringly.
+
+“I am going to help them get the bucket out of the captain’s well,” he
+continued. “As it is so very deep I may be useful. And I should like to
+see this Miss Vye—not so much for her good looks as for another
+reason.”
+
+“Must you go?” his mother asked.
+
+“I thought to.”
+
+And they parted. “There is no help for it,” murmured Clym’s mother
+gloomily as he withdrew. “They are sure to see each other. I wish Sam
+would carry his news to other houses than mine.”
+
+Clym’s retreating figure got smaller and smaller as it rose and fell
+over the hillocks on his way. “He is tender-hearted,” said Mrs.
+Yeobright to herself while she watched him; “otherwise it would matter
+little. How he’s going on!”
+
+He was, indeed, walking with a will over the furze, as straight as a
+line, as if his life depended upon it. His mother drew a long breath,
+and, abandoning the visit to Thomasin, turned back. The evening films
+began to make nebulous pictures of the valleys, but the high lands
+still were raked by the declining rays of the winter sun, which glanced
+on Clym as he walked forward, eyed by every rabbit and field-fare
+around, a long shadow advancing in front of him.
+
+On drawing near to the furze-covered bank and ditch which fortified the
+captain’s dwelling he could hear voices within, signifying that
+operations had been already begun. At the side-entrance gate he stopped
+and looked over.
+
+Half a dozen able-bodied men were standing in a line from the
+well-mouth, holding a rope which passed over the well-roller into the
+depths below. Fairway, with a piece of smaller rope round his body,
+made fast to one of the standards, to guard against accidents, was
+leaning over the opening, his right hand clasping the vertical rope
+that descended into the well.
+
+“Now, silence, folks,” said Fairway.
+
+The talking ceased, and Fairway gave a circular motion to the rope, as
+if he were stirring batter. At the end of a minute a dull splashing
+reverberated from the bottom of the well; the helical twist he had
+imparted to the rope had reached the grapnel below.
+
+“Haul!” said Fairway; and the men who held the rope began to gather it
+over the wheel.
+
+“I think we’ve got sommat,” said one of the haulers-in.
+
+“Then pull steady,” said Fairway.
+
+They gathered up more and more, till a regular dripping into the well
+could be heard below. It grew smarter with the increasing height of the
+bucket, and presently a hundred and fifty feet of rope had been pulled
+in.
+
+Fairway then lit a lantern, tied it to another cord, and began lowering
+it into the well beside the first: Clym came forward and looked down.
+Strange humid leaves, which knew nothing of the seasons of the year,
+and quaint-natured mosses were revealed on the wellside as the lantern
+descended; till its rays fell upon a confused mass of rope and bucket
+dangling in the dank, dark air.
+
+“We’ve only got en by the edge of the hoop—steady, for God’s sake!”
+said Fairway.
+
+They pulled with the greatest gentleness, till the wet bucket appeared
+about two yards below them, like a dead friend come to earth again.
+Three or four hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz
+went the wheel, the two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating of
+a falling body was heard, receding down the sides of the well, and a
+thunderous uproar arose at the bottom. The bucket was gone again.
+
+“Damn the bucket!” said Fairway.
+
+“Lower again,” said Sam.
+
+“I’m as stiff as a ram’s horn stooping so long,” said Fairway, standing
+up and stretching himself till his joints creaked.
+
+“Rest a few minutes, Timothy,” said Yeobright. “I’ll take your place.”
+
+The grapnel was again lowered. Its smart impact upon the distant water
+reached their ears like a kiss, whereupon Yeobright knelt down, and
+leaning over the well began dragging the grapnel round and round as
+Fairway had done.
+
+“Tie a rope round him—it is dangerous!” cried a soft and anxious voice
+somewhere above them.
+
+Everybody turned. The speaker was a woman, gazing down upon the group
+from an upper window, whose panes blazed in the ruddy glare from the
+west. Her lips were parted and she appeared for the moment to forget
+where she was.
+
+The rope was accordingly tied round his waist, and the work proceeded.
+At the next haul the weight was not heavy, and it was discovered that
+they had only secured a coil of the rope detached from the bucket. The
+tangled mass was thrown into the background. Humphrey took Yeobright’s
+place, and the grapnel was lowered again.
+
+Yeobright retired to the heap of recovered rope in a meditative mood.
+Of the identity between the lady’s voice and that of the melancholy
+mummer he had not a moment’s doubt. “How thoughtful of her!” he said to
+himself.
+
+Eustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect of her
+exclamation upon the group below, was no longer to be seen at the
+window, though Yeobright scanned it wistfully. While he stood there the
+men at the well succeeded in getting up the bucket without a mishap.
+One of them went to inquire for the captain, to learn what orders he
+wished to give for mending the well-tackle. The captain proved to be
+away from home, and Eustacia appeared at the door and came out. She had
+lapsed into an easy and dignified calm, far removed from the intensity
+of life in her words of solicitude for Clym’s safety.
+
+“Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?” she inquired.
+
+“No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. And as we can
+do no more now we’ll leave off, and come again tomorrow morning.”
+
+“No water,” she murmured, turning away.
+
+“I can send you up some from Blooms-End,” said Clym, coming forward and
+raising his hat as the men retired.
+
+Yeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant, as if each
+had in mind those few moments during which a certain moonlight scene
+was common to both. With the glance the calm fixity of her features
+sublimed itself to an expression of refinement and warmth; it was like
+garish noon rising to the dignity of sunset in a couple of seconds.
+
+“Thank you; it will hardly be necessary,” she replied.
+
+“But if you have no water?”
+
+“Well, it is what I call no water,” she said, blushing, and lifting her
+long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them were a work requiring
+consideration. “But my grandfather calls it water enough. I’ll show you
+what I mean.”
+
+She moved away a few yards, and Clym followed. When she reached the
+corner of the enclosure, where the steps were formed for mounting the
+boundary bank, she sprang up with a lightness which seemed strange
+after her listless movement towards the well. It incidentally showed
+that her apparent languor did not arise from lack of force.
+
+Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the top
+of the bank. “Ashes?” he said.
+
+“Yes,” said Eustacia. “We had a little bonfire here last Fifth of
+November, and those are the marks of it.”
+
+On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.
+
+“That’s the only kind of water we have,” she continued, tossing a stone
+into the pool, which lay on the outside of the bank like the white of
+an eye without its pupil. The stone fell with a flounce, but no Wildeve
+appeared on the other side, as on a previous occasion there. “My
+grandfather says he lived for more than twenty years at sea on water
+twice as bad as that,” she went on, “and considers it quite good enough
+for us here on an emergency.”
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities in the water of
+these pools at this time of the year. It has only just rained into
+them.”
+
+She shook her head. “I am managing to exist in a wilderness, but I
+cannot drink from a pond,” she said.
+
+Clym looked towards the well, which was now deserted, the men having
+gone home. “It is a long way to send for spring-water,” he said, after
+a silence. “But since you don’t like this in the pond, I’ll try to get
+you some myself.” He went back to the well. “Yes, I think I could do it
+by tying on this pail.”
+
+“But, since I would not trouble the men to get it, I cannot in
+conscience let you.”
+
+“I don’t mind the trouble at all.”
+
+He made fast the pail to the long coil of rope, put it over the wheel,
+and allowed it to descend by letting the rope slip through his hands.
+Before it had gone far, however, he checked it.
+
+“I must make fast the end first, or we may lose the whole,” he said to
+Eustacia, who had drawn near. “Could you hold this a moment, while I do
+it—or shall I call your servant?”
+
+“I can hold it,” said Eustacia; and he placed the rope in her hands,
+going then to search for the end.
+
+“I suppose I may let it slip down?” she inquired.
+
+“I would advise you not to let it go far,” said Clym. “It will get much
+heavier, you will find.”
+
+However, Eustacia had begun to pay out. While he was tying she cried,
+“I cannot stop it!”
+
+Clym ran to her side, and found he could only check the rope by
+twisting the loose part round the upright post, when it stopped with a
+jerk. “Has it hurt you?”
+
+“Yes,” she replied.
+
+“Very much?”
+
+“No; I think not.” She opened her hands. One of them was bleeding; the
+rope had dragged off the skin. Eustacia wrapped it in her handkerchief.
+
+“You should have let go,” said Yeobright. “Why didn’t you?”
+
+“You said I was to hold on.... This is the second time I have been
+wounded today.”
+
+“Ah, yes; I have heard of it. I blush for my native Egdon. Was it a
+serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?”
+
+There was such an abundance of sympathy in Clym’s tone that Eustacia
+slowly drew up her sleeve and disclosed her round white arm. A bright
+red spot appeared on its smooth surface, like a ruby on Parian marble.
+
+“There it is,” she said, putting her finger against the spot.
+
+“It was dastardly of the woman,” said Clym. “Will not Captain Vye get
+her punished?”
+
+“He is gone from home on that very business. I did not know that I had
+such a magic reputation.”
+
+“And you fainted?” said Clym, looking at the scarlet little puncture as
+if he would like to kiss it and make it well.
+
+“Yes, it frightened me. I had not been to church for a long time. And
+now I shall not go again for ever so long—perhaps never. I cannot face
+their eyes after this. Don’t you think it dreadfully humiliating? I
+wished I was dead for hours after, but I don’t mind now.”
+
+“I have come to clean away these cobwebs,” said Yeobright. “Would you
+like to help me—by high-class teaching? We might benefit them much.”
+
+“I don’t quite feel anxious to. I have not much love for my
+fellow-creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them.”
+
+“Still I think that if you were to hear my scheme you might take an
+interest in it. There is no use in hating people—if you hate anything,
+you should hate what produced them.”
+
+“Do you mean Nature? I hate her already. But I shall be glad to hear
+your scheme at any time.”
+
+The situation had now worked itself out, and the next natural thing was
+for them to part. Clym knew this well enough, and Eustacia made a move
+of conclusion; yet he looked at her as if he had one word more to say.
+Perhaps if he had not lived in Paris it would never have been uttered.
+
+“We have met before,” he said, regarding her with rather more interest
+than was necessary.
+
+“I do not own it,” said Eustacia, with a repressed, still look.
+
+“But I may think what I like.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You are lonely here.”
+
+“I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season. The heath is a
+cruel taskmaster to me.”
+
+“Can you say so?” he asked. “To my mind it is most exhilarating, and
+strengthening, and soothing. I would rather live on these hills than
+anywhere else in the world.”
+
+“It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn to draw.”
+
+“And there is a very curious druidical stone just out there.” He threw
+a pebble in the direction signified. “Do you often go to see it?”
+
+“I was not even aware there existed any such curious druidical stone. I
+am aware that there are boulevards in Paris.”
+
+Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground. “That means much,” he
+said.
+
+“It does indeed,” said Eustacia.
+
+“I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle. Five years of
+a great city would be a perfect cure for that.”
+
+“Heaven send me such a cure! Now, Mr. Yeobright, I will go indoors and
+plaster my wounded hand.”
+
+They separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade. She
+seemed full of many things. Her past was a blank, her life had begun.
+The effect upon Clym of this meeting he did not fully discover till
+some time after. During his walk home his most intelligible sensation
+was that his scheme had somehow become glorified. A beautiful woman had
+been intertwined with it.
+
+On reaching the house he went up to the room which was to be made his
+study, and occupied himself during the evening in unpacking his books
+from the boxes and arranging them on shelves. From another box he drew
+a lamp and a can of oil. He trimmed the lamp, arranged his table, and
+said, “Now, I am ready to begin.”
+
+He rose early the next morning, read two hours before breakfast by the
+light of his lamp—read all the morning, all the afternoon. Just when
+the sun was going down his eyes felt weary, and he leant back in his
+chair.
+
+His room overlooked the front of the premises and the valley of the
+heath beyond. The lowest beams of the winter sun threw the shadow of
+the house over the palings, across the grass margin of the heath, and
+far up the vale, where the chimney outlines and those of the
+surrounding tree-tops stretched forth in long dark prongs. Having been
+seated at work all day, he decided to take a turn upon the hills before
+it got dark; and, going out forthwith, he struck across the heath
+towards Mistover.
+
+It was an hour and a half later when he again appeared at the garden
+gate. The shutters of the house were closed, and Christian Cantle, who
+had been wheeling manure about the garden all day, had gone home. On
+entering he found that his mother, after waiting a long time for him,
+had finished her meal.
+
+“Where have you been, Clym?” she immediately said. “Why didn’t you tell
+me that you were going away at this time?”
+
+“I have been on the heath.”
+
+“You’ll meet Eustacia Vye if you go up there.”
+
+Clym paused a minute. “Yes, I met her this evening,” he said, as though
+it were spoken under the sheer necessity of preserving honesty.
+
+“I wondered if you had.”
+
+“It was no appointment.”
+
+“No; such meetings never are.”
+
+“But you are not angry, Mother?”
+
+“I can hardly say that I am not. Angry? No. But when I consider the
+usual nature of the drag which causes men of promise to disappoint the
+world I feel uneasy.”
+
+“You deserve credit for the feeling, Mother. But I can assure you that
+you need not be disturbed by it on my account.”
+
+“When I think of you and your new crotchets,” said Mrs. Yeobright, with
+some emphasis, “I naturally don’t feel so comfortable as I did a
+twelvemonth ago. It is incredible to me that a man accustomed to the
+attractive women of Paris and elsewhere should be so easily worked upon
+by a girl in a heath. You could just as well have walked another way.”
+
+“I had been studying all day.”
+
+“Well, yes,” she added more hopefully, “I have been thinking that you
+might get on as a schoolmaster, and rise that way, since you really are
+determined to hate the course you were pursuing.”
+
+Yeobright was unwilling to disturb this idea, though his scheme was far
+enough removed from one wherein the education of youth should be made a
+mere channel of social ascent. He had no desires of that sort. He had
+reached the stage in a young man’s life when the grimness of the
+general human situation first becomes clear; and the realization of
+this causes ambition to halt awhile. In France it is not uncustomary to
+commit suicide at this stage; in England we do much better, or much
+worse, as the case may be.
+
+The love between the young man and his mother was strangely invisible
+now. Of love it may be said, the less earthly the less demonstrative.
+In its absolutely indestructible form it reaches a profundity in which
+all exhibition of itself is painful. It was so with these. Had
+conversations between them been overheard, people would have said, “How
+cold they are to each other!”
+
+His theory and his wishes about devoting his future to teaching had
+made an impression on Mrs. Yeobright. Indeed, how could it be otherwise
+when he was a part of her—when their discourses were as if carried on
+between the right and the left hands of the same body? He had despaired
+of reaching her by argument; and it was almost as a discovery to him
+that he could reach her by a magnetism which was as superior to words
+as words are to yells.
+
+Strangely enough he began to feel now that it would not be so hard to
+persuade her who was his best friend that comparative poverty was
+essentially the higher course for him, as to reconcile to his feelings
+the act of persuading her. From every provident point of view his
+mother was so undoubtedly right, that he was not without a sickness of
+heart in finding he could shake her.
+
+She had a singular insight into life, considering that she had never
+mixed with it. There are instances of persons who, without clear ideas
+of the things they criticize have yet had clear ideas of the relations
+of those things. Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe
+visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind,
+gave excellent lectures on colour, and taught others the theory of
+ideas which they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted
+ones are mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and
+estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.
+
+What was the great world to Mrs. Yeobright? A multitude whose
+tendencies could be perceived, though not its essences. Communities
+were seen by her as from a distance; she saw them as we see the throngs
+which cover the canvases of Sallaert, Van Alsloot, and others of that
+school—vast masses of beings, jostling, zigzagging, and processioning
+in definite directions, but whose features are indistinguishable by the
+very comprehensiveness of the view.
+
+One could see that, as far as it had gone, her life was very complete
+on its reflective side. The philosophy of her nature, and its
+limitation by circumstances, was almost written in her movements. They
+had a majestic foundation, though they were far from being majestic;
+and they had a ground-work of assurance, but they were not assured. As
+her once elastic walk had become deadened by time, so had her natural
+pride of life been hindered in its blooming by her necessities.
+
+The next slight touch in the shaping of Clym’s destiny occurred a few
+days after. A barrow was opened on the heath, and Yeobright attended
+the operation, remaining away from his study during several hours. In
+the afternoon Christian returned from a journey in the same direction,
+and Mrs. Yeobright questioned him.
+
+“They have dug a hole, and they have found things like flowerpots
+upside down, Mis’ess Yeobright; and inside these be real charnel bones.
+They have carried ’em off to men’s houses; but I shouldn’t like to
+sleep where they will bide. Dead folks have been known to come and
+claim their own. Mr. Yeobright had got one pot of the bones, and was
+going to bring ’em home—real skellington bones—but ’twas ordered
+otherwise. You’ll be relieved to hear that he gave away his pot and
+all, on second thoughts; and a blessed thing for ye, Mis’ess Yeobright,
+considering the wind o’ nights.”
+
+“Gave it away?”
+
+“Yes. To Miss Vye. She has a cannibal taste for such churchyard
+furniture seemingly.”
+
+“Miss Vye was there too?”
+
+“Ay, ’a b’lieve she was.”
+
+When Clym came home, which was shortly after, his mother said, in a
+curious tone, “The urn you had meant for me you gave away.”
+
+Yeobright made no reply; the current of her feeling was too pronounced
+to admit it.
+
+The early weeks of the year passed on. Yeobright certainly studied at
+home, but he also walked much abroad, and the direction of his walk was
+always towards some point of a line between Mistover and Rainbarrow.
+
+The month of March arrived, and the heath showed its first signs of
+awakening from winter trance. The awakening was almost feline in its
+stealthiness. The pool outside the bank by Eustacia’s dwelling, which
+seemed as dead and desolate as ever to an observer who moved and made
+noises in his observation, would gradually disclose a state of great
+animation when silently watched awhile. A timid animal world had come
+to life for the season. Little tadpoles and efts began to bubble up
+through the water, and to race along beneath it; toads made noises like
+very young ducks, and advanced to the margin in twos and threes;
+overhead, bumblebees flew hither and thither in the thickening light,
+their drone coming and going like the sound of a gong.
+
+On an evening such as this Yeobright descended into the Blooms-End
+valley from beside that very pool, where he had been standing with
+another person quite silently and quite long enough to hear all this
+puny stir of resurrection in nature; yet he had not heard it. His walk
+was rapid as he came down, and he went with a springy trend. Before
+entering upon his mother’s premises he stopped and breathed. The light
+which shone forth on him from the window revealed that his face was
+flushed and his eye bright. What it did not show was something which
+lingered upon his lips like a seal set there. The abiding presence of
+this impress was so real that he hardly dared to enter the house, for
+it seemed as if his mother might say, “What red spot is that glowing
+upon your mouth so vividly?”
+
+But he entered soon after. The tea was ready, and he sat down opposite
+his mother. She did not speak many words; and as for him, something had
+been just done and some words had been just said on the hill which
+prevented him from beginning a desultory chat. His mother’s taciturnity
+was not without ominousness, but he appeared not to care. He knew why
+she said so little, but he could not remove the cause of her bearing
+towards him. These half-silent sittings were far from uncommon with
+them now. At last Yeobright made a beginning of what was intended to
+strike at the whole root of the matter.
+
+“Five days have we sat like this at meals with scarcely a word. What’s
+the use of it, Mother?”
+
+“None,” said she, in a heart-swollen tone. “But there is only too good
+a reason.”
+
+“Not when you know all. I have been wanting to speak about this, and I
+am glad the subject is begun. The reason, of course, is Eustacia Vye.
+Well, I confess I have seen her lately, and have seen her a good many
+times.”
+
+“Yes, yes; and I know what that amounts to. It troubles me, Clym. You
+are wasting your life here; and it is solely on account of her. If it
+had not been for that woman you would never have entertained this
+teaching scheme at all.”
+
+Clym looked hard at his mother. “You know that is not it,” he said.
+
+“Well, I know you had decided to attempt it before you saw her; but
+that would have ended in intentions. It was very well to talk of, but
+ridiculous to put in practice. I fully expected that in the course of a
+month or two you would have seen the folly of such self-sacrifice, and
+would have been by this time back again to Paris in some business or
+other. I can understand objections to the diamond trade—I really was
+thinking that it might be inadequate to the life of a man like you even
+though it might have made you a millionaire. But now I see how mistaken
+you are about this girl I doubt if you could be correct about other
+things.”
+
+“How am I mistaken in her?”
+
+“She is lazy and dissatisfied. But that is not all of it. Supposing her
+to be as good a woman as any you can find, which she certainly is not,
+why do you wish to connect yourself with anybody at present?”
+
+“Well, there are practical reasons,” Clym began, and then almost broke
+off under an overpowering sense of the weight of argument which could
+be brought against his statement. “If I take a school an educated woman
+would be invaluable as a help to me.”
+
+“What! you really mean to marry her?”
+
+“It would be premature to state that plainly. But consider what obvious
+advantages there would be in doing it. She——”
+
+“Don’t suppose she has any money. She hasn’t a farthing.”
+
+“She is excellently educated, and would make a good matron in a
+boarding-school. I candidly own that I have modified my views a little,
+in deference to you; and it should satisfy you. I no longer adhere to
+my intention of giving with my own mouth rudimentary education to the
+lowest class. I can do better. I can establish a good private school
+for farmers’ sons, and without stopping the school I can manage to pass
+examinations. By this means, and by the assistance of a wife like
+her——”
+
+“Oh, Clym!”
+
+“I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools
+in the county.”
+
+Yeobright had enunciated the word “her” with a fervour which, in
+conversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a maternal
+heart within the four seas could in such circumstances, have helped
+being irritated at that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new woman.
+
+“You are blinded, Clym,” she said warmly. “It was a bad day for you
+when you first set eyes on her. And your scheme is merely a castle in
+the air built on purpose to justify this folly which has seized you,
+and to salve your conscience on the irrational situation you are in.”
+
+“Mother, that’s not true,” he firmly answered.
+
+“Can you maintain that I sit and tell untruths, when all I wish to do
+is to save you from sorrow? For shame, Clym! But it is all through that
+woman—a hussy!”
+
+Clym reddened like fire and rose. He placed his hand upon his mother’s
+shoulder and said, in a tone which hung strangely between entreaty and
+command, “I won’t hear it. I may be led to answer you in a way which we
+shall both regret.”
+
+His mother parted her lips to begin some other vehement truth, but on
+looking at him she saw that in his face which led her to leave the
+words unsaid. Yeobright walked once or twice across the room, and then
+suddenly went out of the house. It was eleven o’clock when he came in,
+though he had not been further than the precincts of the garden. His
+mother was gone to bed. A light was left burning on the table, and
+supper was spread. Without stopping for any food he secured the doors
+and went upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness
+
+
+The next day was gloomy enough at Blooms-End. Yeobright remained in his
+study, sitting over the open books; but the work of those hours was
+miserably scant. Determined that there should be nothing in his conduct
+towards his mother resembling sullenness, he had occasionally spoken to
+her on passing matters, and would take no notice of the brevity of her
+replies. With the same resolve to keep up a show of conversation he
+said, about seven o’clock in the evening, “There’s an eclipse of the
+moon tonight. I am going out to see it.” And, putting on his overcoat,
+he left her.
+
+The low moon was not as yet visible from the front of the house, and
+Yeobright climbed out of the valley until he stood in the full flood of
+her light. But even now he walked on, and his steps were in the
+direction of Rainbarrow.
+
+In half an hour he stood at the top. The sky was clear from verge to
+verge, and the moon flung her rays over the whole heath, but without
+sensibly lighting it, except where paths and water-courses had laid
+bare the white flints and glistening quartz sand, which made streaks
+upon the general shade. After standing awhile he stooped and felt the
+heather. It was dry, and he flung himself down upon the barrow, his
+face towards the moon, which depicted a small image of herself in each
+of his eyes.
+
+He had often come up here without stating his purpose to his mother;
+but this was the first time that he had been ostensibly frank as to his
+purpose while really concealing it. It was a moral situation which,
+three months earlier, he could hardly have credited of himself. In
+returning to labour in this sequestered spot he had anticipated an
+escape from the chafing of social necessities; yet behold they were
+here also. More than ever he longed to be in some world where personal
+ambition was not the only recognized form of progress—such, perhaps, as
+might have been the case at some time or other in the silvery globe
+then shining upon him. His eye travelled over the length and breadth of
+that distant country—over the Bay of Rainbows, the sombre Sea of
+Crises, the Ocean of Storms, the Lake of Dreams, the vast Walled
+Plains, and the wondrous Ring Mountains—till he almost felt himself to
+be voyaging bodily through its wild scenes, standing on its hollow
+hills, traversing its deserts, descending its vales and old sea
+bottoms, or mounting to the edges of its craters.
+
+While he watched the far-removed landscape a tawny stain grew into
+being on the lower verge—the eclipse had begun. This marked a
+preconcerted moment—for the remote celestial phenomenon had been
+pressed into sublunary service as a lover’s signal. Yeobright’s mind
+flew back to earth at the sight; he arose, shook himself and listened.
+Minute after minute passed by, perhaps ten minutes passed, and the
+shadow on the moon perceptibly widened. He heard a rustling on his left
+hand, a cloaked figure with an upturned face appeared at the base of
+the Barrow, and Clym descended. In a moment the figure was in his arms,
+and his lips upon hers.
+
+“My Eustacia!”
+
+“Clym, dearest!”
+
+Such a situation had less than three months brought forth.
+
+They remained long without a single utterance, for no language could
+reach the level of their condition—words were as the rusty implements
+of a by-gone barbarous epoch, and only to be occasionally tolerated.
+
+“I began to wonder why you did not come,” said Yeobright, when she had
+withdrawn a little from his embrace.
+
+“You said ten minutes after the first mark of shade on the edge of the
+moon, and that’s what it is now.”
+
+“Well, let us only think that here we are.”
+
+Then, holding each other’s hand, they were again silent, and the shadow
+on the moon’s disc grew a little larger.
+
+“Has it seemed long since you last saw me?” she asked.
+
+“It has seemed sad.”
+
+“And not long? That’s because you occupy yourself, and so blind
+yourself to my absence. To me, who can do nothing, it has been like
+living under stagnant water.”
+
+“I would rather bear tediousness, dear, than have time made short by
+such means as have shortened mine.”
+
+“In what way is that? You have been thinking you wished you did not
+love me.”
+
+“How can a man wish that, and yet love on? No, Eustacia.”
+
+“Men can, women cannot.”
+
+“Well, whatever I may have thought, one thing is certain—I do love
+you—past all compass and description. I love you to oppressiveness—I,
+who have never before felt more than a pleasant passing fancy for any
+woman I have ever seen. Let me look right into your moonlit face and
+dwell on every line and curve in it! Only a few hairbreadths make the
+difference between this face and faces I have seen many times before I
+knew you; yet what a difference—the difference between everything and
+nothing at all. One touch on that mouth again! there, and there, and
+there. Your eyes seem heavy, Eustacia.”
+
+“No, it is my general way of looking. I think it arises from my feeling
+sometimes an agonizing pity for myself that I ever was born.”
+
+“You don’t feel it now?”
+
+“No. Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. Nothing can
+ensure the continuance of love. It will evaporate like a spirit, and so
+I feel full of fears.”
+
+“You need not.”
+
+“Ah, you don’t know. You have seen more than I, and have been into
+cities and among people that I have only heard of, and have lived more
+years than I; but yet I am older at this than you. I loved another man
+once, and now I love you.”
+
+“In God’s mercy don’t talk so, Eustacia!”
+
+“But I do not think I shall be the one who wearies first. It will, I
+fear, end in this way: your mother will find out that you meet me, and
+she will influence you against me!”
+
+“That can never be. She knows of these meetings already.”
+
+“And she speaks against me?”
+
+“I will not say.”
+
+“There, go away! Obey her. I shall ruin you. It is foolish of you to
+meet me like this. Kiss me, and go away forever. Forever—do you
+hear?—forever!”
+
+“Not I.”
+
+“It is your only chance. Many a man’s love has been a curse to him.”
+
+“You are desperate, full of fancies, and wilful; and you misunderstand.
+I have an additional reason for seeing you tonight besides love of you.
+For though, unlike you, I feel our affection may be eternal. I feel
+with you in this, that our present mode of existence cannot last.”
+
+“Oh! ’tis your mother. Yes, that’s it! I knew it.”
+
+“Never mind what it is. Believe this, I cannot let myself lose you. I
+must have you always with me. This very evening I do not like to let
+you go. There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest—you must be my
+wife.”
+
+She started—then endeavoured to say calmly, “Cynics say that cures the
+anxiety by curing the love.”
+
+“But you must answer me. Shall I claim you some day—I don’t mean at
+once?”
+
+“I must think,” Eustacia murmured. “At present speak of Paris to me. Is
+there any place like it on earth?”
+
+“It is very beautiful. But will you be mine?”
+
+“I will be nobody else’s in the world—does that satisfy you?”
+
+“Yes, for the present.”
+
+“Now tell me of the Tuileries, and the Louvre,” she continued
+evasively.
+
+“I hate talking of Paris! Well, I remember one sunny room in the Louvre
+which would make a fitting place for you to live in—the Galerie
+d’Apollon. Its windows are mainly east; and in the early morning, when
+the sun is bright, the whole apartment is in a perfect blaze of
+splendour. The rays bristle and dart from the encrustations of gilding
+to the magnificent inlaid coffers, from the coffers to the gold and
+silver plate, from the plate to the jewels and precious stones, from
+these to the enamels, till there is a perfect network of light which
+quite dazzles the eye. But now, about our marriage——”
+
+“And Versailles—the King’s Gallery is some such gorgeous room, is it
+not?”
+
+“Yes. But what’s the use of talking of gorgeous rooms? By the way, the
+Little Trianon would suit us beautifully to live in, and you might walk
+in the gardens in the moonlight and think you were in some English
+shrubbery; it is laid out in English fashion.”
+
+“I should hate to think that!”
+
+“Then you could keep to the lawn in front of the Grand Palace. All
+about there you would doubtless feel in a world of historical romance.”
+
+He went on, since it was all new to her, and described Fontainebleau,
+St. Cloud, the Bois, and many other familiar haunts of the Parisians;
+till she said—
+
+“When used you to go to these places?”
+
+“On Sundays.”
+
+“Ah, yes. I dislike English Sundays. How I should chime in with their
+manners over there! Dear Clym, you’ll go back again?”
+
+Clym shook his head, and looked at the eclipse.
+
+“If you’ll go back again I’ll—be something,” she said tenderly, putting
+her head near his breast. “If you’ll agree I’ll give my promise,
+without making you wait a minute longer.”
+
+“How extraordinary that you and my mother should be of one mind about
+this!” said Yeobright. “I have vowed not to go back, Eustacia. It is
+not the place I dislike; it is the occupation.”
+
+“But you can go in some other capacity.”
+
+“No. Besides, it would interfere with my scheme. Don’t press that,
+Eustacia. Will you marry me?”
+
+“I cannot tell.”
+
+“Now—never mind Paris; it is no better than other spots. Promise,
+sweet!”
+
+“You will never adhere to your education plan, I am quite sure; and
+then it will be all right for me; and so I promise to be yours for ever
+and ever.”
+
+Clym brought her face towards his by a gentle pressure of the hand, and
+kissed her.
+
+“Ah! but you don’t know what you have got in me,” she said. “Sometimes
+I think there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make a good
+homespun wife. Well, let it go—see how our time is slipping, slipping,
+slipping!” She pointed towards the half-eclipsed moon.
+
+“You are too mournful.”
+
+“No. Only I dread to think of anything beyond the present. What is, we
+know. We are together now, and it is unknown how long we shall be so;
+the unknown always fills my mind with terrible possibilities, even when
+I may reasonably expect it to be cheerful.... Clym, the eclipsed
+moonlight shines upon your face with a strange foreign colour, and
+shows its shape as if it were cut out in gold. That means that you
+should be doing better things than this.”
+
+“You are ambitious, Eustacia—no, not exactly ambitious, luxurious. I
+ought to be of the same vein, to make you happy, I suppose. And yet,
+far from that, I could live and die in a hermitage here, with proper
+work to do.”
+
+There was that in his tone which implied distrust of his position as a
+solicitous lover, a doubt if he were acting fairly towards one whose
+tastes touched his own only at rare and infrequent points. She saw his
+meaning, and whispered, in a low, full accent of eager assurance,
+“Don’t mistake me, Clym—though I should like Paris, I love you for
+yourself alone. To be your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to
+me; but I would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be
+yours at all. It is gain to me either way, and very great gain. There’s
+my too candid confession.”
+
+“Spoken like a woman. And now I must soon leave you. I’ll walk with you
+towards your house.”
+
+“But must you go home yet?” she asked. “Yes, the sand has nearly
+slipped away, I see, and the eclipse is creeping on more and more.
+Don’t go yet! Stop till the hour has run itself out; then I will not
+press you any more. You will go home and sleep well; I keep sighing in
+my sleep! Do you ever dream of me?”
+
+“I cannot recollect a clear dream of you.”
+
+“I see your face in every scene of my dreams, and hear your voice in
+every sound. I wish I did not. It is too much what I feel. They say
+such love never lasts. But it must! And yet once, I remember, I saw an
+officer of the Hussars ride down the street at Budmouth, and though he
+was a total stranger and never spoke to me, I loved him till I thought
+I should really die of love—but I didn’t die, and at last I left off
+caring for him. How terrible it would be if a time should come when I
+could not love you, my Clym!”
+
+“Please don’t say such reckless things. When we see such a time at hand
+we will say, ‘I have outlived my faith and purpose,’ and die. There,
+the hour has expired—now let us walk on.”
+
+Hand in hand they went along the path towards Mistover. When they were
+near the house he said, “It is too late for me to see your grandfather
+tonight. Do you think he will object to it?”
+
+“I will speak to him. I am so accustomed to be my own mistress that it
+did not occur to me that we should have to ask him.”
+
+Then they lingeringly separated, and Clym descended towards Blooms-End.
+
+And as he walked further and further from the charmed atmosphere of his
+Olympian girl his face grew sad with a new sort of sadness. A
+perception of the dilemma in which his love had placed him came back in
+full force. In spite of Eustacia’s apparent willingness to wait through
+the period of an unpromising engagement, till he should be established
+in his new pursuit, he could not but perceive at moments that she loved
+him rather as a visitant from a gay world to which she rightly belonged
+than as a man with a purpose opposed to that recent past of his which
+so interested her. It meant that, though she made no conditions as to
+his return to the French capital, this was what she secretly longed for
+in the event of marriage; and it robbed him of many an otherwise
+pleasant hour. Along with that came the widening breach between himself
+and his mother. Whenever any little occurrence had brought into more
+prominence than usual the disappointment that he was causing her it had
+sent him on lone and moody walks; or he was kept awake a great part of
+the night by the turmoil of spirit which such a recognition created. If
+Mrs. Yeobright could only have been led to see what a sound and worthy
+purpose this purpose of his was and how little it was being affected by
+his devotions to Eustacia, how differently would she regard him!
+
+Thus as his sight grew accustomed to the first blinding halo kindled
+about him by love and beauty, Yeobright began to perceive what a strait
+he was in. Sometimes he wished that he had never known Eustacia,
+immediately to retract the wish as brutal. Three antagonistic growths
+had to be kept alive: his mother’s trust in him, his plan for becoming
+a teacher, and Eustacia’s happiness. His fervid nature could not afford
+to relinquish one of these, though two of the three were as many as he
+could hope to preserve. Though his love was as chaste as that of
+Petrarch for his Laura, it had made fetters of what previously was only
+a difficulty. A position which was not too simple when he stood
+whole-hearted had become indescribably complicated by the addition of
+Eustacia. Just when his mother was beginning to tolerate one scheme he
+had introduced another still bitterer than the first, and the
+combination was more than she could bear.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
+
+
+When Yeobright was not with Eustacia he was sitting slavishly over his
+books; when he was not reading he was meeting her. These meetings were
+carried on with the greatest secrecy.
+
+One afternoon his mother came home from a morning visit to Thomasin. He
+could see from a disturbance in the lines of her face that something
+had happened.
+
+“I have been told an incomprehensible thing,” she said mournfully. “The
+captain has let out at the Woman that you and Eustacia Vye are engaged
+to be married.”
+
+“We are,” said Yeobright. “But it may not be yet for a very long time.”
+
+“I should hardly think it _would_ be yet for a very long time! You will
+take her to Paris, I suppose?” She spoke with weary hopelessness.
+
+“I am not going back to Paris.”
+
+“What will you do with a wife, then?”
+
+“Keep a school in Budmouth, as I have told you.”
+
+“That’s incredible! The place is overrun with schoolmasters. You have
+no special qualifications. What possible chance is there for such as
+you?”
+
+“There is no chance of getting rich. But with my system of education,
+which is as new as it is true, I shall do a great deal of good to my
+fellow-creatures.”
+
+“Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be invented they
+would have found it out at the universities long before this time.”
+
+“Never, Mother. They cannot find it out, because their teachers don’t
+come in contact with the class which demands such a system—that is,
+those who have had no preliminary training. My plan is one for
+instilling high knowledge into empty minds without first cramming them
+with what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins.”
+
+“I might have believed you if you had kept yourself free from
+entanglements; but this woman—if she had been a good girl it would have
+been bad enough; but being——”
+
+“She is a good girl.”
+
+“So you think. A Corfu bandmaster’s daughter! What has her life been?
+Her surname even is not her true one.”
+
+“She is Captain Vye’s granddaughter, and her father merely took her
+mother’s name. And she is a lady by instinct.”
+
+“They call him ‘captain,’ but anybody is captain.”
+
+“He was in the Royal Navy!”
+
+“No doubt he has been to sea in some tub or other. Why doesn’t he look
+after her? No lady would rove about the heath at all hours of the day
+and night as she does. But that’s not all of it. There was something
+queer between her and Thomasin’s husband at one time—I am as sure of it
+as that I stand here.”
+
+“Eustacia has told me. He did pay her a little attention a year ago;
+but there’s no harm in that. I like her all the better.”
+
+“Clym,” said his mother with firmness, “I have no proofs against her,
+unfortunately. But if she makes you a good wife, there has never been a
+bad one.”
+
+“Believe me, you are almost exasperating,” said Yeobright vehemently.
+“And this very day I had intended to arrange a meeting between you. But
+you give me no peace; you try to thwart my wishes in everything.”
+
+“I hate the thought of any son of mine marrying badly! I wish I had
+never lived to see this; it is too much for me—it is more than I
+dreamt!” She turned to the window. Her breath was coming quickly, and
+her lips were pale, parted, and trembling.
+
+“Mother,” said Clym, “whatever you do, you will always be dear to
+me—that you know. But one thing I have a right to say, which is, that
+at my age I am old enough to know what is best for me.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright remained for some time silent and shaken, as if she
+could say no more. Then she replied, “Best? Is it best for you to
+injure your prospects for such a voluptuous, idle woman as that? Don’t
+you see that by the very fact of your choosing her you prove that you
+do not know what is best for you? You give up your whole thought—you
+set your whole soul—to please a woman.”
+
+“I do. And that woman is you.”
+
+“How can you treat me so flippantly!” said his mother, turning again to
+him with a tearful look. “You are unnatural, Clym, and I did not expect
+it.”
+
+“Very likely,” said he cheerlessly. “You did not know the measure you
+were going to mete me, and therefore did not know the measure that
+would be returned to you again.”
+
+“You answer me; you think only of her. You stick to her in all things.”
+
+“That proves her to be worthy. I have never yet supported what is bad.
+And I do not care only for her. I care for you and for myself, and for
+anything that is good. When a woman once dislikes another she is
+merciless!”
+
+“O Clym! please don’t go setting down as my fault what is your
+obstinate wrongheadedness. If you wished to connect yourself with an
+unworthy person why did you come home here to do it? Why didn’t you do
+it in Paris?—it is more the fashion there. You have come only to
+distress me, a lonely woman, and shorten my days! I wish that you would
+bestow your presence where you bestow your love!”
+
+Clym said huskily, “You are my mother. I will say no more—beyond this,
+that I beg your pardon for having thought this my home. I will no
+longer inflict myself upon you; I’ll go.” And he went out with tears in
+his eyes.
+
+It was a sunny afternoon at the beginning of summer, and the moist
+hollows of the heath had passed from their brown to their green stage.
+Yeobright walked to the edge of the basin which extended down from
+Mistover and Rainbarrow.
+
+By this time he was calm, and he looked over the landscape. In the
+minor valleys, between the hillocks which diversified the contour of
+the vale, the fresh young ferns were luxuriantly growing up, ultimately
+to reach a height of five or six feet. He descended a little way, flung
+himself down in a spot where a path emerged from one of the small
+hollows, and waited. Hither it was that he had promised Eustacia to
+bring his mother this afternoon, that they might meet and be friends.
+His attempt had utterly failed.
+
+He was in a nest of vivid green. The ferny vegetation round him, though
+so abundant, was quite uniform—it was a grove of machine-made foliage,
+a world of green triangles with saw-edges, and not a single flower. The
+air was warm with a vaporous warmth, and the stillness was unbroken.
+Lizards, grasshoppers, and ants were the only living things to be
+beheld. The scene seemed to belong to the ancient world of the
+carboniferous period, when the forms of plants were few, and of the
+fern kind; when there was neither bud nor blossom, nothing but a
+monotonous extent of leafage, amid which no bird sang.
+
+When he had reclined for some considerable time, gloomily pondering, he
+discerned above the ferns a drawn bonnet of white silk approaching from
+the left, and Yeobright knew directly that it covered the head of her
+he loved. His heart awoke from its apathy to a warm excitement, and,
+jumping to his feet, he said aloud, “I knew she was sure to come.”
+
+She vanished in a hollow for a few moments, and then her whole form
+unfolded itself from the brake.
+
+“Only you here?” she exclaimed, with a disappointed air, whose
+hollowness was proved by her rising redness and her half-guilty low
+laugh. “Where is Mrs. Yeobright?”
+
+“She has not come,” he replied in a subdued tone.
+
+“I wish I had known that you would be here alone,” she said seriously,
+“and that we were going to have such an idle, pleasant time as this.
+Pleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to
+double it. I have not thought once today of having you all to myself
+this afternoon, and the actual moment of a thing is so soon gone.”
+
+“It is indeed.”
+
+“Poor Clym!” she continued, looking tenderly into his face. “You are
+sad. Something has happened at your home. Never mind what is—let us
+only look at what seems.”
+
+“But, darling, what shall we do?” said he.
+
+“Still go on as we do now—just live on from meeting to meeting, never
+minding about another day. You, I know, are always thinking of that—I
+can see you are. But you must not—will you, dear Clym?”
+
+“You are just like all women. They are ever content to build their
+lives on any incidental position that offers itself; whilst men would
+fain make a globe to suit them. Listen to this, Eustacia. There is a
+subject I have determined to put off no longer. Your sentiment on the
+wisdom of _Carpe diem_ does not impress me today. Our present mode of
+life must shortly be brought to an end.”
+
+“It is your mother!”
+
+“It is. I love you none the less in telling you; it is only right you
+should know.”
+
+“I have feared my bliss,” she said, with the merest motion of her lips.
+“It has been too intense and consuming.”
+
+“There is hope yet. There are forty years of work in me yet, and why
+should you despair? I am only at an awkward turning. I wish people
+wouldn’t be so ready to think that there is no progress without
+uniformity.”
+
+“Ah—your mind runs off to the philosophical side of it. Well, these sad
+and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to
+look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to
+indulge in. I have heard of people, who, upon coming suddenly into
+happiness, have died from anxiety lest they should not live to enjoy
+it. I felt myself in that whimsical state of uneasiness lately; but I
+shall be spared it now. Let us walk on.”
+
+Clym took the hand which was already bared for him—it was a favourite
+way with them to walk bare hand in bare hand—and led her through the
+ferns. They formed a very comely picture of love at full flush, as they
+walked along the valley that late afternoon, the sun sloping down on
+their right, and throwing their thin spectral shadows, tall as poplar
+trees, far out across the furze and fern. Eustacia went with her head
+thrown back fancifully, a certain glad and voluptuous air of triumph
+pervading her eyes at having won by her own unaided self a man who was
+her perfect complement in attainment, appearance, and age. On the young
+man’s part, the paleness of face which he had brought with him from
+Paris, and the incipient marks of time and thought, were less
+perceptible than when he returned, the healthful and energetic
+sturdiness which was his by nature having partially recovered its
+original proportions. They wandered onward till they reached the nether
+margin of the heath, where it became marshy and merged in moorland.
+
+“I must part from you here, Clym,” said Eustacia.
+
+They stood still and prepared to bid each other farewell. Everything
+before them was on a perfect level. The sun, resting on the horizon
+line, streamed across the ground from between copper-coloured and lilac
+clouds, stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green. All
+dark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun were overspread by a
+purple haze, against which groups of wailing gnats shone out, rising
+upwards and dancing about like sparks of fire.
+
+“O! this leaving you is too hard to bear!” exclaimed Eustacia in a
+sudden whisper of anguish. “Your mother will influence you too much; I
+shall not be judged fairly, it will get afloat that I am not a good
+girl, and the witch story will be added to make me blacker!”
+
+“They cannot. Nobody dares to speak disrespectfully of you or of me.”
+
+“Oh how I wish I was sure of never losing you—that you could not be
+able to desert me anyhow!”
+
+Clym stood silent a moment. His feelings were high, the moment was
+passionate, and he cut the knot.
+
+“You shall be sure of me, darling,” he said, folding her in his arms.
+“We will be married at once.”
+
+“O Clym!”
+
+“Do you agree to it?”
+
+“If—if we can.”
+
+“We certainly can, both being of full age. And I have not followed my
+occupation all these years without having accumulated money; and if you
+will agree to live in a tiny cottage somewhere on the heath, until I
+take a house in Budmouth for the school, we can do it at a very little
+expense.”
+
+“How long shall we have to live in the tiny cottage, Clym?”
+
+“About six months. At the end of that time I shall have finished my
+reading—yes, we will do it, and this heart-aching will be over. We
+shall, of course, live in absolute seclusion, and our married life will
+only begin to outward view when we take the house in Budmouth, where I
+have already addressed a letter on the matter. Would your grandfather
+allow you?”
+
+“I think he would—on the understanding that it should not last longer
+than six months.”
+
+“I will guarantee that, if no misfortune happens.”
+
+“If no misfortune happens,” she repeated slowly.
+
+“Which is not likely. Dearest, fix the exact day.”
+
+And then they consulted on the question, and the day was chosen. It was
+to be a fortnight from that time.
+
+This was the end of their talk, and Eustacia left him. Clym watched her
+as she retired towards the sun. The luminous rays wrapped her up with
+her increasing distance, and the rustle of her dress over the sprouting
+sedge and grass died away. As he watched, the dead flat of the scenery
+overpowered him, though he was fully alive to the beauty of that
+untarnished early summer green which was worn for the nonce by the
+poorest blade. There was something in its oppressive horizontality
+which too much reminded him of the arena of life; it gave him a sense
+of bare equality with, and no superiority to, a single living thing
+under the sun.
+
+Eustacia was now no longer the goddess but the woman to him, a being to
+fight for, support, help, be maligned for. Now that he had reached a
+cooler moment he would have preferred a less hasty marriage; but the
+card was laid, and he determined to abide by the game. Whether Eustacia
+was to add one other to the list of those who love too hotly to love
+long and well, the forthcoming event was certainly a ready way of
+proving.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete
+
+
+All that evening smart sounds denoting an active packing up came from
+Yeobright’s room to the ears of his mother downstairs.
+
+Next morning he departed from the house and again proceeded across the
+heath. A long day’s march was before him, his object being to secure a
+dwelling to which he might take Eustacia when she became his wife. Such
+a house, small, secluded, and with its windows boarded up, he had
+casually observed a month earlier, about two miles beyond the village
+of East Egdon, and six miles distant altogether; and thither he
+directed his steps today.
+
+The weather was far different from that of the evening before. The
+yellow and vapoury sunset which had wrapped up Eustacia from his
+parting gaze had presaged change. It was one of those not infrequent
+days of an English June which are as wet and boisterous as November.
+The cold clouds hastened on in a body, as if painted on a moving slide.
+Vapours from other continents arrived upon the wind, which curled and
+parted round him as he walked on.
+
+At length Clym reached the margin of a fir and beech plantation that
+had been enclosed from heath-land in the year of his birth. Here the
+trees, laden heavily with their new and humid leaves, were now
+suffering more damage than during the highest winds of winter, when the
+boughs are especially disencumbered to do battle with the storm. The
+wet young beeches were undergoing amputations, bruises, cripplings, and
+harsh lacerations, from which the wasting sap would bleed for many a
+day to come, and which would leave scars visible till the day of their
+burning. Each stem was wrenched at the root, where it moved like a bone
+in its socket, and at every onset of the gale convulsive sounds came
+from the branches, as if pain were felt. In a neighbouring brake a
+finch was trying to sing; but the wind blew under his feathers till
+they stood on end, twisted round his little tail, and made him give up
+his song.
+
+Yet a few yards to Yeobright’s left, on the open heath, how
+ineffectively gnashed the storm! Those gusts which tore the trees
+merely waved the furze and heather in a light caress. Egdon was made
+for such times as these.
+
+Yeobright reached the empty house about midday. It was almost as lonely
+as that of Eustacia’s grandfather, but the fact that it stood near a
+heath was disguised by a belt of firs which almost enclosed the
+premises. He journeyed on about a mile further to the village in which
+the owner lived, and, returning with him to the house, arrangements
+were completed, and the man undertook that one room at least should be
+ready for occupation the next day. Clym’s intention was to live there
+alone until Eustacia should join him on their wedding-day.
+
+Then he turned to pursue his way homeward through the drizzle that had
+so greatly transformed the scene. The ferns, among which he had lain in
+comfort yesterday, were dripping moisture from every frond, wetting his
+legs through as he brushed past; and the fur of the rabbits leaping
+before him was clotted into dark locks by the same watery surrounding.
+
+He reached home damp and weary enough after his ten-mile walk. It had
+hardly been a propitious beginning, but he had chosen his course, and
+would show no swerving. The evening and the following morning were
+spent in concluding arrangements for his departure. To stay at home a
+minute longer than necessary after having once come to his
+determination would be, he felt, only to give new pain to his mother by
+some word, look, or deed.
+
+He had hired a conveyance and sent off his goods by two o’clock that
+day. The next step was to get some furniture, which, after serving for
+temporary use in the cottage, would be available for the house at
+Budmouth when increased by goods of a better description. A mart
+extensive enough for the purpose existed at Anglebury, some miles
+beyond the spot chosen for his residence, and there he resolved to pass
+the coming night.
+
+It now only remained to wish his mother good-bye. She was sitting by
+the window as usual when he came downstairs.
+
+“Mother, I am going to leave you,” he said, holding out his hand.
+
+“I thought you were, by your packing,” replied Mrs. Yeobright in a
+voice from which every particle of emotion was painfully excluded.
+
+“And you will part friends with me?”
+
+“Certainly, Clym.”
+
+“I am going to be married on the twenty-fifth.”
+
+“I thought you were going to be married.”
+
+“And then—and then you must come and see us. You will understand me
+better after that, and our situation will not be so wretched as it is
+now.”
+
+“I do not think it likely I shall come to see you.”
+
+“Then it will not be my fault or Eustacia’s, Mother. Good-bye!”
+
+He kissed her cheek, and departed in great misery, which was several
+hours in lessening itself to a controllable level. The position had
+been such that nothing more could be said without, in the first place,
+breaking down a barrier; and that was not to be done.
+
+No sooner had Yeobright gone from his mother’s house than her face
+changed its rigid aspect for one of blank despair. After a while she
+wept, and her tears brought some relief. During the rest of the day she
+did nothing but walk up and down the garden path in a state bordering
+on stupefaction. Night came, and with it but little rest. The next day,
+with an instinct to do something which should reduce prostration to
+mournfulness, she went to her son’s room, and with her own hands
+arranged it in order, for an imaginary time when he should return
+again. She gave some attention to her flowers, but it was perfunctorily
+bestowed, for they no longer charmed her.
+
+It was a great relief when, early in the afternoon, Thomasin paid her
+an unexpected visit. This was not the first meeting between the
+relatives since Thomasin’s marriage; and past blunders having been in a
+rough way rectified, they could always greet each other with pleasure
+and ease.
+
+The oblique band of sunlight which followed her through the door became
+the young wife well. It illuminated her as her presence illuminated the
+heath. In her movements, in her gaze, she reminded the beholder of the
+feathered creatures who lived around her home. All similes and
+allegories concerning her began and ended with birds. There was as much
+variety in her motions as in their flight. When she was musing she was
+a kestrel, which hangs in the air by an invisible motion of its wings.
+When she was in a high wind her light body was blown against trees and
+banks like a heron’s. When she was frightened she darted noiselessly
+like a kingfisher. When she was serene she skimmed like a swallow, and
+that is how she was moving now.
+
+“You are looking very blithe, upon my word, Tamsie,” said Mrs.
+Yeobright, with a sad smile. “How is Damon?”
+
+“He is very well.”
+
+“Is he kind to you, Thomasin?” And Mrs. Yeobright observed her
+narrowly.
+
+“Pretty fairly.”
+
+“Is that honestly said?”
+
+“Yes, Aunt. I would tell you if he were unkind.” She added, blushing,
+and with hesitation, “He—I don’t know if I ought to complain to you
+about this, but I am not quite sure what to do. I want some money, you
+know, Aunt—some to buy little things for myself—and he doesn’t give me
+any. I don’t like to ask him; and yet, perhaps, he doesn’t give it me
+because he doesn’t know. Ought I to mention it to him, Aunt?”
+
+“Of course you ought. Have you never said a word on the matter?”
+
+“You see, I had some of my own,” said Thomasin evasively, “and I have
+not wanted any of his until lately. I did just say something about it
+last week; but he seems—not to remember.”
+
+“He must be made to remember. You are aware that I have a little box
+full of spade-guineas, which your uncle put into my hands to divide
+between yourself and Clym whenever I chose. Perhaps the time has come
+when it should be done. They can be turned into sovereigns at any
+moment.”
+
+“I think I should like to have my share—that is, if you don’t mind.”
+
+“You shall, if necessary. But it is only proper that you should first
+tell your husband distinctly that you are without any, and see what he
+will do.”
+
+“Very well, I will.... Aunt, I have heard about Clym. I know you are in
+trouble about him, and that’s why I have come.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned away, and her features worked in her attempt to
+conceal her feelings. Then she ceased to make any attempt, and said,
+weeping, “O Thomasin, do you think he hates me? How can he bear to
+grieve me so, when I have lived only for him through all these years?”
+
+“Hate you—no,” said Thomasin soothingly. “It is only that he loves her
+too well. Look at it quietly—do. It is not so very bad of him. Do you
+know, I thought it not the worst match he could have made. Miss Vye’s
+family is a good one on her mother’s side; and her father was a
+romantic wanderer—a sort of Greek Ulysses.”
+
+“It is no use, Thomasin; it is no use. Your intention is good; but I
+will not trouble you to argue. I have gone through the whole that can
+be said on either side times, and many times. Clym and I have not
+parted in anger; we have parted in a worse way. It is not a passionate
+quarrel that would have broken my heart; it is the steady opposition
+and persistence in going wrong that he has shown. O Thomasin, he was so
+good as a little boy—so tender and kind!”
+
+“He was, I know.”
+
+“I did not think one whom I called mine would grow up to treat me like
+this. He spoke to me as if I opposed him to injure him. As though I
+could wish him ill!”
+
+“There are worse women in the world than Eustacia Vye.”
+
+“There are too many better that’s the agony of it. It was she,
+Thomasin, and she only, who led your husband to act as he did—I would
+swear it!”
+
+“No,” said Thomasin eagerly. “It was before he knew me that he thought
+of her, and it was nothing but a mere flirtation.”
+
+“Very well; we will let it be so. There is little use in unravelling
+that now. Sons must be blind if they will. Why is it that a woman can
+see from a distance what a man cannot see close? Clym must do as he
+will—he is nothing more to me. And this is maternity—to give one’s best
+years and best love to ensure the fate of being despised!”
+
+“You are too unyielding. Think how many mothers there are whose sons
+have brought them to public shame by real crimes before you feel so
+deeply a case like this.”
+
+“Thomasin, don’t lecture me—I can’t have it. It is the excess above
+what we expect that makes the force of the blow, and that may not be
+greater in their case than in mine—they may have foreseen the worst....
+I am wrongly made, Thomasin,” she added, with a mournful smile. “Some
+widows can guard against the wounds their children give them by turning
+their hearts to another husband and beginning life again. But I always
+was a poor, weak, one-idea’d creature—I had not the compass of heart
+nor the enterprise for that. Just as forlorn and stupefied as I was
+when my husband’s spirit flew away I have sat ever since—never
+attempting to mend matters at all. I was comparatively a young woman
+then, and I might have had another family by this time, and have been
+comforted by them for the failure of this one son.”
+
+“It is more noble in you that you did not.”
+
+“The more noble, the less wise.”
+
+“Forget it, and be soothed, dear Aunt. And I shall not leave you alone
+for long. I shall come and see you every day.”
+
+And for one week Thomasin literally fulfilled her word. She endeavoured
+to make light of the wedding; and brought news of the preparations, and
+that she was invited to be present. The next week she was rather
+unwell, and did not appear. Nothing had as yet been done about the
+guineas, for Thomasin feared to address her husband again on the
+subject, and Mrs. Yeobright had insisted upon this.
+
+One day just before this time Wildeve was standing at the door of the
+Quiet Woman. In addition to the upward path through the heath to
+Rainbarrow and Mistover, there was a road which branched from the
+highway a short distance below the inn, and ascended to Mistover by a
+circuitous and easy incline. This was the only route on that side for
+vehicles to the captain’s retreat. A light cart from the nearest town
+descended the road, and the lad who was driving pulled up in front of
+the inn for something to drink.
+
+“You come from Mistover?” said Wildeve.
+
+“Yes. They are taking in good things up there. Going to be a wedding.”
+And the driver buried his face in his mug.
+
+Wildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before, and a sudden
+expression of pain overspread his face. He turned for a moment into the
+passage to hide it. Then he came back again.
+
+“Do you mean Miss Vye?” he said. “How is it—that she can be married so
+soon?”
+
+“By the will of God and a ready young man, I suppose.”
+
+“You don’t mean Mr. Yeobright?”
+
+“Yes. He has been creeping about with her all the spring.”
+
+“I suppose—she was immensely taken with him?”
+
+“She is crazy about him, so their general servant of all work tells me.
+And that lad Charley that looks after the horse is all in a daze about
+it. The stun-poll has got fond-like of her.”
+
+“Is she lively—is she glad? Going to be married so soon—well!”
+
+“It isn’t so very soon.”
+
+“No; not so very soon.”
+
+Wildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious heartache within him.
+He rested his elbow upon the mantelpiece and his face upon his hand.
+When Thomasin entered the room he did not tell her of what he had
+heard. The old longing for Eustacia had reappeared in his soul—and it
+was mainly because he had discovered that it was another man’s
+intention to possess her.
+
+To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered; to care
+for the remote, to dislike the near; it was Wildeve’s nature always.
+This is the true mark of the man of sentiment. Though Wildeve’s fevered
+feeling had not been elaborated to real poetical compass, it was of the
+standard sort. His might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+The Morning and the Evening of a Day
+
+
+The wedding morning came. Nobody would have imagined from appearances
+that Blooms-End had any interest in Mistover that day. A solemn
+stillness prevailed around the house of Clym’s mother, and there was no
+more animation indoors. Mrs. Yeobright, who had declined to attend the
+ceremony, sat by the breakfast table in the old room which communicated
+immediately with the porch, her eyes listlessly directed towards the
+open door. It was the room in which, six months earlier, the merry
+Christmas party had met, to which Eustacia came secretly and as a
+stranger. The only living thing that entered now was a sparrow; and
+seeing no movements to cause alarm, he hopped boldly round the room,
+endeavoured to go out by the window, and fluttered among the
+pot-flowers. This roused the lonely sitter, who got up, released the
+bird, and went to the door. She was expecting Thomasin, who had written
+the night before to state that the time had come when she would wish to
+have the money and that she would if possible call this day.
+
+Yet Thomasin occupied Mrs. Yeobright’s thoughts but slightly as she
+looked up the valley of the heath, alive with butterflies, and with
+grasshoppers whose husky noises on every side formed a whispered
+chorus. A domestic drama, for which the preparations were now being
+made a mile or two off, was but little less vividly present to her eyes
+than if enacted before her. She tried to dismiss the vision, and walked
+about the garden plot; but her eyes ever and anon sought out the
+direction of the parish church to which Mistover belonged, and her
+excited fancy clove the hills which divided the building from her eyes.
+The morning wore away. Eleven o’clock struck—could it be that the
+wedding was then in progress? It must be so. She went on imagining the
+scene at the church, which he had by this time approached with his
+bride. She pictured the little group of children by the gate as the
+pony carriage drove up in which, as Thomasin had learnt, they were
+going to perform the short journey. Then she saw them enter and proceed
+to the chancel and kneel; and the service seemed to go on.
+
+She covered her face with her hands. “O, it is a mistake!” she groaned.
+“And he will rue it some day, and think of me!”
+
+While she remained thus, overcome by her forebodings, the old clock
+indoors whizzed forth twelve strokes. Soon after, faint sounds floated
+to her ear from afar over the hills. The breeze came from that quarter,
+and it had brought with it the notes of distant bells, gaily starting
+off in a peal: one, two, three, four, five. The ringers at East Egdon
+were announcing the nuptials of Eustacia and her son.
+
+“Then it is over,” she murmured. “Well, well! and life too will be over
+soon. And why should I go on scalding my face like this? Cry about one
+thing in life, cry about all; one thread runs through the whole piece.
+And yet we say, ‘a time to laugh!’”
+
+Towards evening Wildeve came. Since Thomasin’s marriage Mrs. Yeobright
+had shown him that grim friendliness which at last arises in all such
+cases of undesired affinity. The vision of what ought to have been is
+thrown aside in sheer weariness, and browbeaten human endeavour
+listlessly makes the best of the fact that is. Wildeve, to do him
+justice, had behaved very courteously to his wife’s aunt; and it was
+with no surprise that she saw him enter now.
+
+“Thomasin has not been able to come, as she promised to do,” he replied
+to her inquiry, which had been anxious, for she knew that her niece was
+badly in want of money. “The captain came down last night and
+personally pressed her to join them today. So, not to be unpleasant,
+she determined to go. They fetched her in the pony-chaise, and are
+going to bring her back.”
+
+“Then it is done,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “Have they gone to their new
+home?”
+
+“I don’t know. I have had no news from Mistover since Thomasin left to
+go.”
+
+“You did not go with her?” said she, as if there might be good reasons
+why.
+
+“I could not,” said Wildeve, reddening slightly. “We could not both
+leave the house; it was rather a busy morning, on account of Anglebury
+Great Market. I believe you have something to give to Thomasin? If you
+like, I will take it.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright hesitated, and wondered if Wildeve knew what the
+something was. “Did she tell you of this?” she inquired.
+
+“Not particularly. She casually dropped a remark about having arranged
+to fetch some article or other.”
+
+“It is hardly necessary to send it. She can have it whenever she
+chooses to come.”
+
+“That won’t be yet. In the present state of her health she must not go
+on walking so much as she has done.” He added, with a faint twang of
+sarcasm, “What wonderful thing is it that I cannot be trusted to take?”
+
+“Nothing worth troubling you with.”
+
+“One would think you doubted my honesty,” he said, with a laugh, though
+his colour rose in a quick resentfulness frequent with him.
+
+“You need think no such thing,” said she drily. “It is simply that I,
+in common with the rest of the world, feel that there are certain
+things which had better be done by certain people than by others.”
+
+“As you like, as you like,” said Wildeve laconically. “It is not worth
+arguing about. Well, I think I must turn homeward again, as the inn
+must not be left long in charge of the lad and the maid only.”
+
+He went his way, his farewell being scarcely so courteous as his
+greeting. But Mrs. Yeobright knew him thoroughly by this time, and took
+little notice of his manner, good or bad.
+
+When Wildeve was gone Mrs. Yeobright stood and considered what would be
+the best course to adopt with regard to the guineas, which she had not
+liked to entrust to Wildeve. It was hardly credible that Thomasin had
+told him to ask for them, when the necessity for them had arisen from
+the difficulty of obtaining money at his hands. At the same time
+Thomasin really wanted them, and might be unable to come to Blooms-End
+for another week at least. To take or send the money to her at the inn
+would be impolite, since Wildeve would pretty surely be present, or
+would discover the transaction; and if, as her aunt suspected, he
+treated her less kindly than she deserved to be treated, he might then
+get the whole sum out of her gentle hands. But on this particular
+evening Thomasin was at Mistover, and anything might be conveyed to her
+there without the knowledge of her husband. Upon the whole the
+opportunity was worth taking advantage of.
+
+Her son, too, was there, and was now married. There could be no more
+proper moment to render him his share of the money than the present.
+And the chance that would be afforded her, by sending him this gift, of
+showing how far she was from bearing him ill-will, cheered the sad
+mother’s heart.
+
+She went upstairs and took from a locked drawer a little box, out of
+which she poured a hoard of broad unworn guineas that had lain there
+many a year. There were a hundred in all, and she divided them into two
+heaps, fifty in each. Tying up these in small canvas bags, she went
+down to the garden and called to Christian Cantle, who was loitering
+about in hope of a supper which was not really owed him. Mrs. Yeobright
+gave him the moneybags, charged him to go to Mistover, and on no
+account to deliver them into any one’s hands save her son’s and
+Thomasin’s. On further thought she deemed it advisable to tell
+Christian precisely what the two bags contained, that he might be fully
+impressed with their importance. Christian pocketed the moneybags,
+promised the greatest carefulness, and set out on his way.
+
+“You need not hurry,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “It will be better not to
+get there till after dusk, and then nobody will notice you. Come back
+here to supper, if it is not too late.”
+
+It was nearly nine o’clock when he began to ascend the vale towards
+Mistover; but the long days of summer being at their climax, the first
+obscurity of evening had only just begun to tan the landscape. At this
+point of his journey Christian heard voices, and found that they
+proceeded from a company of men and women who were traversing a hollow
+ahead of him, the tops only of their heads being visible.
+
+He paused and thought of the money he carried. It was almost too early
+even for Christian seriously to fear robbery; nevertheless he took a
+precaution which ever since his boyhood he had adopted whenever he
+carried more than two or three shillings upon his person—a precaution
+somewhat like that of the owner of the Pitt Diamond when filled with
+similar misgivings. He took off his boots, untied the guineas, and
+emptied the contents of one little bag into the right boot, and of the
+other into the left, spreading them as flatly as possible over the
+bottom of each, which was really a spacious coffer by no means limited
+to the size of the foot. Pulling them on again and lacing them to the
+very top, he proceeded on his way, more easy in his head than under his
+soles.
+
+His path converged towards that of the noisy company, and on coming
+nearer he found to his relief that they were several Egdon people whom
+he knew very well, while with them walked Fairway, of Blooms-End.
+
+“What! Christian going too?” said Fairway as soon as he recognized the
+newcomer. “You’ve got no young woman nor wife to your name to gie a
+gown-piece to, I’m sure.”
+
+“What d’ye mean?” said Christian.
+
+“Why, the raffle. The one we go to every year. Going to the raffle as
+well as ourselves?”
+
+“Never knew a word o’t. Is it like cudgel playing or other sportful
+forms of bloodshed? I don’t want to go, thank you, Mister Fairway, and
+no offence.”
+
+“Christian don’t know the fun o’t, and ’twould be a fine sight for
+him,” said a buxom woman. “There’s no danger at all, Christian. Every
+man puts in a shilling apiece, and one wins a gown-piece for his wife
+or sweetheart if he’s got one.”
+
+“Well, as that’s not my fortune there’s no meaning in it to me. But I
+should like to see the fun, if there’s nothing of the black art in it,
+and if a man may look on without cost or getting into any dangerous
+wrangle?”
+
+“There will be no uproar at all,” said Timothy. “Sure, Christian, if
+you’d like to come we’ll see there’s no harm done.”
+
+“And no ba’dy gaieties, I suppose? You see, neighbours, if so, it would
+be setting father a bad example, as he is so light moral’d. But a
+gown-piece for a shilling, and no black art—’tis worth looking in to
+see, and it wouldn’t hinder me half an hour. Yes, I’ll come, if you’ll
+step a little way towards Mistover with me afterwards, supposing night
+should have closed in, and nobody else is going that way?”
+
+One or two promised; and Christian, diverging from his direct path,
+turned round to the right with his companions towards the Quiet Woman.
+
+When they entered the large common room of the inn they found assembled
+there about ten men from among the neighbouring population, and the
+group was increased by the new contingent to double that number. Most
+of them were sitting round the room in seats divided by wooden elbows
+like those of crude cathedral stalls, which were carved with the
+initials of many an illustrious drunkard of former times who had passed
+his days and his nights between them, and now lay as an alcoholic
+cinder in the nearest churchyard. Among the cups on the long table
+before the sitters lay an open parcel of light drapery—the gown-piece,
+as it was called—which was to be raffled for. Wildeve was standing with
+his back to the fireplace smoking a cigar; and the promoter of the
+raffle, a packman from a distant town, was expatiating upon the value
+of the fabric as material for a summer dress.
+
+“Now, gentlemen,” he continued, as the newcomers drew up to the table,
+“there’s five have entered, and we want four more to make up the
+number. I think, by the faces of those gentlemen who have just come in,
+that they are shrewd enough to take advantage of this rare opportunity
+of beautifying their ladies at a very trifling expense.”
+
+Fairway, Sam, and another placed their shillings on the table, and the
+man turned to Christian.
+
+“No, sir,” said Christian, drawing back, with a quick gaze of
+misgiving. “I am only a poor chap come to look on, an it please ye,
+sir. I don’t so much as know how you do it. If so be I was sure of
+getting it I would put down the shilling; but I couldn’t otherwise.”
+
+“I think you might almost be sure,” said the pedlar. “In fact, now I
+look into your face, even if I can’t say you are sure to win, I can say
+that I never saw anything look more like winning in my life.”
+
+“You’ll anyhow have the same chance as the rest of us,” said Sam.
+
+“And the extra luck of being the last comer,” said another.
+
+“And I was born wi’ a caul, and perhaps can be no more ruined than
+drowned?” Christian added, beginning to give way.
+
+Ultimately Christian laid down his shilling, the raffle began, and the
+dice went round. When it came to Christian’s turn he took the box with
+a trembling hand, shook it fearfully, and threw a pair-royal. Three of
+the others had thrown common low pairs, and all the rest mere points.
+
+“The gentleman looked like winning, as I said,” observed the chapman
+blandly. “Take it, sir; the article is yours.”
+
+“Haw-haw-haw!” said Fairway. “I’m damned if this isn’t the quarest
+start that ever I knowed!”
+
+“Mine?” asked Christian, with a vacant stare from his target eyes. “I—I
+haven’t got neither maid, wife, nor widder belonging to me at all, and
+I’m afeard it will make me laughed at to ha’e it, Master Traveller.
+What with being curious to join in I never thought of that! What shall
+I do wi’ a woman’s clothes in _my_ bedroom, and not lose my decency!”
+
+“Keep ’em, to be sure,” said Fairway, “if it is only for luck. Perhaps
+’twill tempt some woman that thy poor carcase had no power over when
+standing empty-handed.”
+
+“Keep it, certainly,” said Wildeve, who had idly watched the scene from
+a distance.
+
+The table was then cleared of the articles, and the men began to drink.
+
+“Well, to be sure!” said Christian, half to himself. “To think I should
+have been born so lucky as this, and not have found it out until now!
+What curious creatures these dice be—powerful rulers of us all, and yet
+at my command! I am sure I never need be afeared of anything after
+this.” He handled the dice fondly one by one. “Why, sir,” he said in a
+confidential whisper to Wildeve, who was near his left hand, “if I
+could only use this power that’s in me of multiplying money I might do
+some good to a near relation of yours, seeing what I’ve got about me of
+hers—eh?” He tapped one of his money-laden boots upon the floor.
+
+“What do you mean?” said Wildeve.
+
+“That’s a secret. Well, I must be going now.” He looked anxiously
+towards Fairway.
+
+“Where are you going?” Wildeve asked.
+
+“To Mistover Knap. I have to see Mrs. Thomasin there—that’s all.”
+
+“I am going there, too, to fetch Mrs. Wildeve. We can walk together.”
+
+Wildeve became lost in thought, and a look of inward illumination came
+into his eyes. It was money for his wife that Mrs. Yeobright could not
+trust him with. “Yet she could trust this fellow,” he said to himself.
+“Why doesn’t that which belongs to the wife belong to the husband too?”
+
+He called to the pot-boy to bring him his hat, and said, “Now,
+Christian, I am ready.”
+
+“Mr. Wildeve,” said Christian timidly, as he turned to leave the room,
+“would you mind lending me them wonderful little things that carry my
+luck inside ’em, that I might practise a bit by myself, you know?” He
+looked wistfully at the dice and box lying on the mantlepiece.
+
+“Certainly,” said Wildeve carelessly. “They were only cut out by some
+lad with his knife, and are worth nothing.” And Christian went back and
+privately pocketed them.
+
+Wildeve opened the door and looked out. The night was warm and cloudy.
+“By Gad! ’tis dark,” he continued. “But I suppose we shall find our
+way.”
+
+“If we should lose the path it might be awkward,” said Christian. “A
+lantern is the only shield that will make it safe for us.”
+
+“Let’s have a lantern by all means.” The stable lantern was fetched and
+lighted. Christian took up his gownpiece, and the two set out to ascend
+the hill.
+
+Within the room the men fell into chat till their attention was for a
+moment drawn to the chimney-corner. This was large, and, in addition to
+its proper recess, contained within its jambs, like many on Egdon, a
+receding seat, so that a person might sit there absolutely unobserved,
+provided there was no fire to light him up, as was the case now and
+throughout the summer. From the niche a single object protruded into
+the light from the candles on the table. It was a clay pipe, and its
+colour was reddish. The men had been attracted to this object by a
+voice behind the pipe asking for a light.
+
+“Upon my life, it fairly startled me when the man spoke!” said Fairway,
+handing a candle. “Oh—’tis the reddleman! You’ve kept a quiet tongue,
+young man.”
+
+“Yes, I had nothing to say,” observed Venn. In a few minutes he arose
+and wished the company good night.
+
+Meanwhile Wildeve and Christian had plunged into the heath.
+
+It was a stagnant, warm, and misty night, full of all the heavy
+perfumes of new vegetation not yet dried by hot sun, and among these
+particularly the scent of the fern. The lantern, dangling from
+Christian’s hand, brushed the feathery fronds in passing by, disturbing
+moths and other winged insects, which flew out and alighted upon its
+horny panes.
+
+“So you have money to carry to Mrs. Wildeve?” said Christian’s
+companion, after a silence. “Don’t you think it very odd that it
+shouldn’t be given to me?”
+
+“As man and wife be one flesh, ’twould have been all the same, I should
+think,” said Christian. “But my strict documents was, to give the money
+into Mrs. Wildeve’s hand—and ’tis well to do things right.”
+
+“No doubt,” said Wildeve. Any person who had known the circumstances
+might have perceived that Wildeve was mortified by the discovery that
+the matter in transit was money, and not, as he had supposed when at
+Blooms-End, some fancy nick-nack which only interested the two women
+themselves. Mrs. Yeobright’s refusal implied that his honour was not
+considered to be of sufficiently good quality to make him a safer
+bearer of his wife’s property.
+
+“How very warm it is tonight, Christian!” he said, panting, when they
+were nearly under Rainbarrow. “Let us sit down for a few minutes, for
+Heaven’s sake.”
+
+Wildeve flung himself down on the soft ferns; and Christian, placing
+the lantern and parcel on the ground, perched himself in a cramped
+position hard by, his knees almost touching his chin. He presently
+thrust one hand into his coat-pocket and began shaking it about.
+
+“What are you rattling in there?” said Wildeve.
+
+“Only the dice, sir,” said Christian, quickly withdrawing his hand.
+“What magical machines these little things be, Mr. Wildeve! ’Tis a game
+I should never get tired of. Would you mind my taking ’em out and
+looking at ’em for a minute, to see how they are made? I didn’t like to
+look close before the other men, for fear they should think it bad
+manners in me.” Christian took them out and examined them in the hollow
+of his hand by the lantern light. “That these little things should
+carry such luck, and such charm, and such a spell, and such power in
+’em, passes all I ever heard or zeed,” he went on, with a fascinated
+gaze at the dice, which, as is frequently the case in country places,
+were made of wood, the points being burnt upon each face with the end
+of a wire.
+
+“They are a great deal in a small compass, You think?”
+
+“Yes. Do ye suppose they really be the devil’s playthings, Mr. Wildeve?
+If so, ’tis no good sign that I be such a lucky man.”
+
+“You ought to win some money, now that you’ve got them. Any woman would
+marry you then. Now is your time, Christian, and I would recommend you
+not to let it slip. Some men are born to luck, some are not. I belong
+to the latter class.”
+
+“Did you ever know anybody who was born to it besides myself?”
+
+“O yes. I once heard of an Italian, who sat down at a gaming table with
+only a louis, (that’s a foreign sovereign), in his pocket. He played on
+for twenty-four hours, and won ten thousand pounds, stripping the bank
+he had played against. Then there was another man who had lost a
+thousand pounds, and went to the broker’s next day to sell stock, that
+he might pay the debt. The man to whom he owed the money went with him
+in a hackney-coach; and to pass the time they tossed who should pay the
+fare. The ruined man won, and the other was tempted to continue the
+game, and they played all the way. When the coachman stopped he was
+told to drive home again: the whole thousand pounds had been won back
+by the man who was going to sell.”
+
+“Ha—ha—splendid!” exclaimed Christian. “Go on—go on!”
+
+“Then there was a man of London, who was only a waiter at White’s
+clubhouse. He began playing first half-crown stakes, and then higher
+and higher, till he became very rich, got an appointment in India, and
+rose to be Governor of Madras. His daughter married a member of
+Parliament, and the Bishop of Carlisle stood godfather to one of the
+children.”
+
+“Wonderful! wonderful!”
+
+“And once there was a young man in America who gambled till he had lost
+his last dollar. He staked his watch and chain, and lost as before;
+staked his umbrella, lost again; staked his hat, lost again; staked his
+coat and stood in his shirt-sleeves, lost again. Began taking off his
+breeches, and then a looker-on gave him a trifle for his pluck. With
+this he won. Won back his coat, won back his hat, won back his
+umbrella, his watch, his money, and went out of the door a rich man.”
+
+“Oh, ’tis too good—it takes away my breath! Mr. Wildeve, I think I will
+try another shilling with you, as I am one of that sort; no danger can
+come o’t, and you can afford to lose.”
+
+“Very well,” said Wildeve, rising. Searching about with the lantern, he
+found a large flat stone, which he placed between himself and
+Christian, and sat down again. The lantern was opened to give more
+light, and its rays directed upon the stone. Christian put down a
+shilling, Wildeve another, and each threw. Christian won. They played
+for two, Christian won again.
+
+“Let us try four,” said Wildeve. They played for four. This time the
+stakes were won by Wildeve.
+
+“Ah, those little accidents will, of course, sometimes happen, to the
+luckiest man,” he observed.
+
+“And now I have no more money!” explained Christian excitedly. “And
+yet, if I could go on, I should get it back again, and more. I wish
+this was mine.” He struck his boot upon the ground, so that the guineas
+chinked within.
+
+“What! you have not put Mrs. Wildeve’s money there?”
+
+“Yes. ’Tis for safety. Is it any harm to raffle with a married lady’s
+money when, if I win, I shall only keep my winnings, and give her her
+own all the same; and if t’other man wins, her money will go to the
+lawful owner?”
+
+“None at all.”
+
+Wildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean
+estimation in which he was held by his wife’s friends; and it cut his
+heart severely. As the minutes passed he had gradually drifted into a
+revengeful intention without knowing the precise moment of forming it.
+This was to teach Mrs. Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be;
+in other words, to show her if he could that her niece’s husband was
+the proper guardian of her niece’s money.
+
+“Well, here goes!” said Christian, beginning to unlace one boot. “I
+shall dream of it nights and nights, I suppose; but I shall always
+swear my flesh don’t crawl when I think o’t!”
+
+He thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one of poor Thomasin’s
+precious guineas, piping hot. Wildeve had already placed a sovereign on
+the stone. The game was then resumed. Wildeve won first, and Christian
+ventured another, winning himself this time. The game fluctuated, but
+the average was in Wildeve’s favour. Both men became so absorbed in the
+game that they took no heed of anything but the pigmy objects
+immediately beneath their eyes, the flat stone, the open lantern, the
+dice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves which lay under the light,
+were the whole world to them.
+
+At length Christian lost rapidly; and presently, to his horror, the
+whole fifty guineas belonging to Thomasin had been handed over to his
+adversary.
+
+“I don’t care—I don’t care!” he moaned, and desperately set about
+untying his left boot to get at the other fifty. “The devil will toss
+me into the flames on his three-pronged fork for this night’s work, I
+know! But perhaps I shall win yet, and then I’ll get a wife to sit up
+with me o’ nights and I won’t be afeard, I won’t! Here’s another
+for’ee, my man!” He slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and the
+dice-box was rattled again.
+
+Time passed on. Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself.
+When commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than a
+bitter practical joke on Mrs. Yeobright. To win the money, fairly or
+otherwise, and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt’s
+presence, had been the dim outline of his purpose. But men are drawn
+from their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and it
+was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been
+reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than that
+of winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was now no longer
+gambling for his wife’s money, but for Yeobright’s; though of this fact
+Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards.
+
+It was nearly eleven o’clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian
+placed Yeobright’s last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty
+seconds it had gone the way of its companions.
+
+Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of
+remorse, “O, what shall I do with my wretched self?” he groaned. “What
+shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?”
+
+“Do? Live on just the same.”
+
+“I won’t live on just the same! I’ll die! I say you are a—a——”
+
+“A man sharper than my neighbour.”
+
+“Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!”
+
+“Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly.”
+
+“I don’t know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You’ve got money
+that isn’t your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym’s.”
+
+“How’s that?”
+
+“Because I had to gie fifty of ’em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so.”
+
+“Oh?... Well, ’twould have been more graceful of her to have given them
+to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now.”
+
+Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could
+be heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and
+tottered away out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to
+return to the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to
+meet his wife, who was to be driven home in the captain’s four-wheel.
+While he was closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a
+neighbouring bush and came forward into the lantern light. It was the
+reddleman approaching.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+A New Force Disturbs the Current
+
+
+Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word
+being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been
+seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid
+it on the stone.
+
+“You have been watching us from behind that bush?” said Wildeve.
+
+The reddleman nodded. “Down with your stake,” he said. “Or haven’t you
+pluck enough to go on?”
+
+Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily begun
+with full pockets than left off with the same; and though Wildeve in a
+cooler temper might have prudently declined this invitation, the
+excitement of his recent success carried him completely away. He placed
+one of the guineas on a slab beside the reddleman’s sovereign. “Mine is
+a guinea,” he said.
+
+“A guinea that’s not your own,” said Venn sarcastically.
+
+“It is my own,” answered Wildeve haughtily. “It is my wife’s, and what
+is hers is mine.”
+
+“Very well; let’s make a beginning.” He shook the box, and threw eight,
+ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.
+
+This encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts amounted
+to forty-five.
+
+Down went another of the reddleman’s sovereigns against his first one
+which Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no
+pair. The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed
+the stakes.
+
+“Here you are again,” said Wildeve contemptuously. “Double the stakes.”
+He laid two of Thomasin’s guineas, and the reddleman his two pounds.
+Venn won again. New stakes were laid on the stone, and the gamblers
+proceeded as before.
+
+Wildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game was beginning to
+tell upon his temper. He writhed, fumed, shifted his seat, and the
+beating of his heart was almost audible. Venn sat with lips impassively
+closed and eyes reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles; he scarcely
+appeared to breathe. He might have been an Arab, or an automaton; he
+would have been like a red sandstone statue but for the motion of his
+arm with the dice-box.
+
+The game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour of the other,
+without any great advantage on the side of either. Nearly twenty
+minutes were passed thus. The light of the candle had by this time
+attracted heath-flies, moths, and other winged creatures of night,
+which floated round the lantern, flew into the flame, or beat about the
+faces of the two players.
+
+But neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes
+being concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an
+arena vast and important as a battlefield. By this time a change had
+come over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty
+guineas—Thomasin’s fifty, and ten of Clym’s—had passed into his hands.
+Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated.
+
+“‘Won back his coat,’” said Venn slily.
+
+Another throw, and the money went the same way.
+
+“‘Won back his hat,’” continued Venn.
+
+“Oh, oh!” said Wildeve.
+
+“‘Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out of the door a
+rich man,’” added Venn sentence by sentence, as stake after stake
+passed over to him.
+
+“Five more!” shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. “And three casts
+be hanged—one shall decide.”
+
+The red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded, and followed
+his example. Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and
+five points. He clapped his hands; “I have done it this time—hurrah!”
+
+“There are two playing, and only one has thrown,” said the reddleman,
+quietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so intently
+converged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were visible,
+like rays in a fog.
+
+Venn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes was disclosed.
+
+Wildeve was full of fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes
+Wildeve seized the dice and hurled them, box and all, into the
+darkness, uttering a fearful imprecation. Then he arose and began
+stamping up and down like a madman.
+
+“It is all over, then?” said Venn.
+
+“No, no!” cried Wildeve. “I mean to have another chance yet. I must!”
+
+“But, my good man, what have you done with the dice?”
+
+“I threw them away—it was a momentary irritation. What a fool I am!
+Here—come and help me to look for them—we must find them again.”
+
+Wildeve snatched up the lantern and began anxiously prowling among the
+furze and fern.
+
+“You are not likely to find them there,” said Venn, following. “What
+did you do such a crazy thing as that for? Here’s the box. The dice
+can’t be far off.”
+
+Wildeve turned the light eagerly upon the spot where Venn had found the
+box, and mauled the herbage right and left. In the course of a few
+minutes one of the dice was found. They searched on for some time, but
+no other was to be seen.
+
+“Never mind,” said Wildeve; “let’s play with one.”
+
+“Agreed,” said Venn.
+
+Down they sat again, and recommenced with single guinea stakes; and the
+play went on smartly. But Fortune had unmistakably fallen in love with
+the reddleman tonight. He won steadily, till he was the owner of
+fourteen more of the gold pieces. Seventy-nine of the hundred guineas
+were his, Wildeve possessing only twenty-one. The aspect of the two
+opponents was now singular. Apart from motions, a complete diorama of
+the fluctuations of the game went on in their eyes. A diminutive
+candle-flame was mirrored in each pupil, and it would have been
+possible to distinguish therein between the moods of hope and the moods
+of abandonment, even as regards the reddleman, though his facial
+muscles betrayed nothing at all. Wildeve played on with the
+recklessness of despair.
+
+“What’s that?” he suddenly exclaimed, hearing a rustle; and they both
+looked up.
+
+They were surrounded by dusky forms between four and five feet high,
+standing a few paces beyond the rays of the lantern. A moment’s
+inspection revealed that the encircling figures were heath-croppers,
+their heads being all towards the players, at whom they gazed intently.
+
+“Hoosh!” said Wildeve, and the whole forty or fifty animals at once
+turned and galloped away. Play was again resumed.
+
+Ten minutes passed away. Then a large death’s head moth advanced from
+the obscure outer air, wheeled twice round the lantern, flew straight
+at the candle, and extinguished it by the force of the blow. Wildeve
+had just thrown, but had not lifted the box to see what he had cast;
+and now it was impossible.
+
+“What the infernal!” he shrieked. “Now, what shall we do? Perhaps I
+have thrown six—have you any matches?”
+
+“None,” said Venn.
+
+“Christian had some—I wonder where he is. Christian!”
+
+But there was no reply to Wildeve’s shout, save a mournful whining from
+the herons which were nesting lower down the vale. Both men looked
+blankly round without rising. As their eyes grew accustomed to the
+darkness they perceived faint greenish points of light among the grass
+and fern. These lights dotted the hillside like stars of a low
+magnitude.
+
+“Ah—glowworms,” said Wildeve. “Wait a minute. We can continue the
+game.”
+
+Venn sat still, and his companion went hither and thither till he had
+gathered thirteen glowworms—as many as he could find in a space of four
+or five minutes—upon a fox-glove leaf which he pulled for the purpose.
+The reddleman vented a low humorous laugh when he saw his adversary
+return with these. “Determined to go on, then?” he said drily.
+
+“I always am!” said Wildeve angrily. And shaking the glowworms from the
+leaf he ranged them with a trembling hand in a circle on the stone,
+leaving a space in the middle for the descent of the dice-box, over
+which the thirteen tiny lamps threw a pale phosphoric shine. The game
+was again renewed. It happened to be that season of the year at which
+glowworms put forth their greatest brilliancy, and the light they
+yielded was more than ample for the purpose, since it is possible on
+such nights to read the handwriting of a letter by the light of two or
+three.
+
+The incongruity between the men’s deeds and their environment was
+great. Amid the soft juicy vegetation of the hollow in which they sat,
+the motionless and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of
+guineas, the rattle of dice, the exclamations of the reckless players.
+
+Wildeve had lifted the box as soon as the lights were obtained, and the
+solitary die proclaimed that the game was still against him.
+
+“I won’t play any more—you’ve been tampering with the dice,” he
+shouted.
+
+“How—when they were your own?” said the reddleman.
+
+“We’ll change the game: the lowest point shall win the stake—it may cut
+off my ill luck. Do you refuse?”
+
+“No—go on,” said Venn.
+
+“O, there they are again—damn them!” cried Wildeve, looking up. The
+heath-croppers had returned noiselessly, and were looking on with erect
+heads just as before, their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as if they
+were wondering what mankind and candlelight could have to do in these
+haunts at this untoward hour.
+
+“What a plague those creatures are—staring at me so!” he said, and
+flung a stone, which scattered them; when the game was continued as
+before.
+
+Wildeve had now ten guineas left; and each laid five. Wildeve threw
+three points; Venn two, and raked in the coins. The other seized the
+die, and clenched his teeth upon it in sheer rage, as if he would bite
+it in pieces. “Never give in—here are my last five!” he cried, throwing
+them down. “Hang the glowworms—they are going out. Why don’t you burn,
+you little fools? Stir them up with a thorn.”
+
+He probed the glowworms with a bit of stick, and rolled them over, till
+the bright side of their tails was upwards.
+
+“There’s light enough. Throw on,” said Venn.
+
+Wildeve brought down the box within the shining circle and looked
+eagerly. He had thrown ace. “Well done!—I said it would turn, and it
+has turned.” Venn said nothing; but his hand shook slightly.
+
+He threw ace also.
+
+“O!” said Wildeve. “Curse me!”
+
+The die smacked the stone a second time. It was ace again. Venn looked
+gloomy, threw—the die was seen to be lying in two pieces, the cleft
+sides uppermost.
+
+“I’ve thrown nothing at all,” he said.
+
+“Serves me right—I split the die with my teeth. Here—take your money.
+Blank is less than one.”
+
+“I don’t wish it.”
+
+“Take it, I say—you’ve won it!” And Wildeve threw the stakes against
+the reddleman’s chest. Venn gathered them up, arose, and withdrew from
+the hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.
+
+When he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the extinguished
+lantern in his hand, went towards the highroad. On reaching it he stood
+still. The silence of night pervaded the whole heath except in one
+direction; and that was towards Mistover. There he could hear the noise
+of light wheels, and presently saw two carriagelamps descending the
+hill. Wildeve screened himself under a bush and waited.
+
+The vehicle came on and passed before him. It was a hired carriage, and
+behind the coachman were two persons whom he knew well. There sat
+Eustacia and Yeobright, the arm of the latter being round her waist.
+They turned the sharp corner at the bottom towards the temporary home
+which Clym had hired and furnished, about five miles to the eastward.
+
+Wildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight of his lost love,
+whose preciousness in his eyes was increasing in geometrical
+progression with each new incident that reminded him of their hopeless
+division. Brimming with the subtilized misery that he was capable of
+feeling, he followed the opposite way towards the inn.
+
+About the same moment that Wildeve stepped into the highway Venn also
+had reached it at a point a hundred yards further on; and he, hearing
+the same wheels, likewise waited till the carriage should come up. When
+he saw who sat therein he seemed to be disappointed. Reflecting a
+minute or two, during which interval the carriage rolled on, he crossed
+the road, and took a short cut through the furze and heath to a point
+where the turnpike road bent round in ascending a hill. He was now
+again in front of the carriage, which presently came up at a walking
+pace. Venn stepped forward and showed himself.
+
+Eustacia started when the lamp shone upon him, and Clym’s arm was
+involuntarily withdrawn from her waist. He said, “What, Diggory? You
+are having a lonely walk.”
+
+“Yes—I beg your pardon for stopping you,” said Venn. “But I am waiting
+about for Mrs. Wildeve: I have something to give her from Mrs.
+Yeobright. Can you tell me if she’s gone home from the party yet?”
+
+“No. But she will be leaving soon. You may possibly meet her at the
+corner.”
+
+Venn made a farewell obeisance, and walked back to his former position,
+where the byroad from Mistover joined the highway. Here he remained
+fixed for nearly half an hour, and then another pair of lights came
+down the hill. It was the old-fashioned wheeled nondescript belonging
+to the captain, and Thomasin sat in it alone, driven by Charley.
+
+The reddleman came up as they slowly turned the corner. “I beg pardon
+for stopping you, Mrs. Wildeve,” he said. “But I have something to give
+you privately from Mrs. Yeobright.” He handed a small parcel; it
+consisted of the hundred guineas he had just won, roughly twisted up in
+a piece of paper.
+
+Thomasin recovered from her surprise, and took the packet. “That’s all,
+ma’am—I wish you good night,” he said, and vanished from her view.
+
+Thus Venn, in his anxiety to rectify matters, had placed in Thomasin’s
+hands not only the fifty guineas which rightly belonged to her, but
+also the fifty intended for her cousin Clym. His mistake had been based
+upon Wildeve’s words at the opening of the game, when he indignantly
+denied that the guinea was not his own. It had not been comprehended by
+the reddleman that at halfway through the performance the game was
+continued with the money of another person; and it was an error which
+afterwards helped to cause more misfortune than treble the loss in
+money value could have done.
+
+The night was now somewhat advanced; and Venn plunged deeper into the
+heath, till he came to a ravine where his van was standing—a spot not
+more than two hundred yards from the site of the gambling bout. He
+entered this movable home of his, lit his lantern, and, before closing
+his door for the night, stood reflecting on the circumstances of the
+preceding hours. While he stood the dawn grew visible in the northeast
+quarter of the heavens, which, the clouds having cleared off, was
+bright with a soft sheen at this midsummer time, though it was only
+between one and two o’clock. Venn, thoroughly weary, then shut his door
+and flung himself down to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOURTH—THE CLOSED DOOR
+
+
+
+
+I.
+The Rencounter by the Pool
+
+
+The July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson heather to scarlet.
+It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season,
+in which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the
+second or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial changes
+which alone were possible here; it followed the green or young-fern
+period, representing the morn, and preceded the brown period, when the
+heathbells and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be in
+turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period, representing
+night.
+
+Clym and Eustacia, in their little house at Alderworth, beyond East
+Egdon, were living on with a monotony which was delightful to them. The
+heath and changes of weather were quite blotted out from their eyes for
+the present. They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid
+from them surroundings of any inharmonious colour, and gave to all
+things the character of light. When it rained they were charmed,
+because they could remain indoors together all day with such a show of
+reason; when it was fine they were charmed, because they could sit
+together on the hills. They were like those double stars which revolve
+round and round each other, and from a distance appear to be one. The
+absolute solitude in which they lived intensified their reciprocal
+thoughts; yet some might have said that it had the disadvantage of
+consuming their mutual affections at a fearfully prodigal rate.
+Yeobright did not fear for his own part; but recollection of Eustacia’s
+old speech about the evanescence of love, now apparently forgotten by
+her, sometimes caused him to ask himself a question; and he recoiled at
+the thought that the quality of finiteness was not foreign to Eden.
+
+When three or four weeks had been passed thus, Yeobright resumed his
+reading in earnest. To make up for lost time he studied indefatigably,
+for he wished to enter his new profession with the least possible
+delay.
+
+Now, Eustacia’s dream had always been that, once married to Clym, she
+would have the power of inducing him to return to Paris. He had
+carefully withheld all promise to do so; but would he be proof against
+her coaxing and argument? She had calculated to such a degree on the
+probability of success that she had represented Paris, and not
+Budmouth, to her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home.
+Her hopes were bound up in this dream. In the quiet days since their
+marriage, when Yeobright had been poring over her lips, her eyes, and
+the lines of her face, she had mused and mused on the subject, even
+while in the act of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the books,
+indicating a future which was antagonistic to her dream, struck her
+with a positively painful jar. She was hoping for the time when, as the
+mistress of some pretty establishment, however small, near a Parisian
+Boulevard, she would be passing her days on the skirts at least of the
+gay world, and catching stray wafts from those town pleasures she was
+so well fitted to enjoy. Yet Yeobright was as firm in the contrary
+intention as if the tendency of marriage were rather to develop the
+fantasies of young philanthropy than to sweep them away.
+
+Her anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something in Clym’s
+undeviating manner which made her hesitate before sounding him on the
+subject. At this point in their experience, however, an incident helped
+her. It occurred one evening about six weeks after their union, and
+arose entirely out of the unconscious misapplication of Venn of the
+fifty guineas intended for Yeobright.
+
+A day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin had sent a note to
+her aunt to thank her. She had been surprised at the largeness of the
+amount; but as no sum had ever been mentioned she set that down to her
+late uncle’s generosity. She had been strictly charged by her aunt to
+say nothing to her husband of this gift; and Wildeve, as was natural
+enough, had not brought himself to mention to his wife a single
+particular of the midnight scene in the heath. Christian’s terror, in
+like manner, had tied his tongue on the share he took in that
+proceeding; and hoping that by some means or other the money had gone
+to its proper destination, he simply asserted as much, without giving
+details.
+
+Therefore, when a week or two had passed away, Mrs. Yeobright began to
+wonder why she never heard from her son of the receipt of the present;
+and to add gloom to her perplexity came the possibility that resentment
+might be the cause of his silence. She could hardly believe as much,
+but why did he not write? She questioned Christian, and the confusion
+in his answers would at once have led her to believe that something was
+wrong, had not one-half of his story been corroborated by Thomasin’s
+note.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was in this state of uncertainty when she was informed
+one morning that her son’s wife was visiting her grandfather at
+Mistover. She determined to walk up the hill, see Eustacia, and
+ascertain from her daughter-in-law’s lips whether the family guineas,
+which were to Mrs. Yeobright what family jewels are to wealthier
+dowagers, had miscarried or not.
+
+When Christian learnt where she was going his concern reached its
+height. At the moment of her departure he could prevaricate no longer,
+and, confessing to the gambling, told her the truth as far as he knew
+it—that the guineas had been won by Wildeve.
+
+“What, is he going to keep them?” Mrs. Yeobright cried.
+
+“I hope and trust not!” moaned Christian. “He’s a good man, and perhaps
+will do right things. He said you ought to have gied Mr. Clym’s share
+to Eustacia, and that’s perhaps what he’ll do himself.”
+
+To Mrs. Yeobright, as soon as she could calmly reflect, there was much
+likelihood in this, for she could hardly believe that Wildeve would
+really appropriate money belonging to her son. The intermediate course
+of giving it to Eustacia was the sort of thing to please Wildeve’s
+fancy. But it filled the mother with anger none the less. That Wildeve
+should have got command of the guineas after all, and should rearrange
+the disposal of them, placing Clym’s share in Clym’s wife’s hands,
+because she had been his own sweetheart, and might be so still, was as
+irritating a pain as any that Mrs. Yeobright had ever borne.
+
+She instantly dismissed the wretched Christian from her employ for his
+conduct in the affair; but, feeling quite helpless and unable to do
+without him, told him afterwards that he might stay a little longer if
+he chose. Then she hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less
+promising emotion towards her daughter-in-law than she had felt half an
+hour earlier, when planning her journey. At that time it was to inquire
+in a friendly spirit if there had been any accidental loss; now it was
+to ask plainly if Wildeve had privately given her money which had been
+intended as a sacred gift to Clym.
+
+She started at two o’clock, and her meeting with Eustacia was hastened
+by the appearance of the young lady beside the pool and bank which
+bordered her grandfather’s premises, where she stood surveying the
+scene, and perhaps thinking of the romantic enactments it had witnessed
+in past days. When Mrs. Yeobright approached, Eustacia surveyed her
+with the calm stare of a stranger.
+
+The mother-in-law was the first to speak. “I was coming to see you,”
+she said.
+
+“Indeed!” said Eustacia with surprise, for Mrs. Yeobright, much to the
+girl’s mortification, had refused to be present at the wedding. “I did
+not at all expect you.”
+
+“I was coming on business only,” said the visitor, more coldly than at
+first. “Will you excuse my asking this—Have you received a gift from
+Thomasin’s husband?”
+
+“A gift?”
+
+“I mean money!”
+
+“What—I myself?”
+
+“Well, I meant yourself, privately—though I was not going to put it in
+that way.”
+
+“Money from Mr. Wildeve? No—never! Madam, what do you mean by that?”
+Eustacia fired up all too quickly, for her own consciousness of the old
+attachment between herself and Wildeve led her to jump to the
+conclusion that Mrs. Yeobright also knew of it, and might have come to
+accuse her of receiving dishonourable presents from him now.
+
+“I simply ask the question,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “I have been——”
+
+“You ought to have better opinions of me—I feared you were against me
+from the first!” exclaimed Eustacia.
+
+“No. I was simply for Clym,” replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much
+emphasis in her earnestness. “It is the instinct of everyone to look
+after their own.”
+
+“How can you imply that he required guarding against me?” cried
+Eustacia, passionate tears in her eyes. “I have not injured him by
+marrying him! What sin have I done that you should think so ill of me?
+You had no right to speak against me to him when I have never wronged
+you.”
+
+“I only did what was fair under the circumstances,” said Mrs. Yeobright
+more softly. “I would rather not have gone into this question at
+present, but you compel me. I am not ashamed to tell you the honest
+truth. I was firmly convinced that he ought not to marry you—therefore
+I tried to dissuade him by all the means in my power. But it is done
+now, and I have no idea of complaining any more. I am ready to welcome
+you.”
+
+“Ah, yes, it is very well to see things in that business point of
+view,” murmured Eustacia with a smothered fire of feeling. “But why
+should you think there is anything between me and Mr. Wildeve? I have a
+spirit as well as you. I am indignant; and so would any woman be. It
+was a condescension in me to be Clym’s wife, and not a manœuvre, let me
+remind you; and therefore I will not be treated as a schemer whom it
+becomes necessary to bear with because she has crept into the family.”
+
+“Oh!” said Mrs. Yeobright, vainly endeavouring to control her anger. “I
+have never heard anything to show that my son’s lineage is not as good
+as the Vyes’—perhaps better. It is amusing to hear you talk of
+condescension.”
+
+“It was condescension, nevertheless,” said Eustacia vehemently. “And if
+I had known then what I know now, that I should be living in this wild
+heath a month after my marriage, I—I should have thought twice before
+agreeing.”
+
+“It would be better not to say that; it might not sound truthful. I am
+not aware that any deception was used on his part—I know there was
+not—whatever might have been the case on the other side.”
+
+“This is too exasperating!” answered the younger woman huskily, her
+face crimsoning, and her eyes darting light. “How can you dare to speak
+to me like that? I insist upon repeating to you that had I known that
+my life would from my marriage up to this time have been as it is, I
+should have said _No_. I don’t complain. I have never uttered a sound
+of such a thing to him; but it is true. I hope therefore that in the
+future you will be silent on my eagerness. If you injure me now you
+injure yourself.”
+
+“Injure you? Do you think I am an evil-disposed person?”
+
+“You injured me before my marriage, and you have now suspected me of
+secretly favouring another man for money!”
+
+“I could not help what I thought. But I have never spoken of you
+outside my house.”
+
+“You spoke of me within it, to Clym, and you could not do worse.”
+
+“I did my duty.”
+
+“And I’ll do mine.”
+
+“A part of which will possibly be to set him against his mother. It is
+always so. But why should I not bear it as others have borne it before
+me!”
+
+“I understand you,” said Eustacia, breathless with emotion. “You think
+me capable of every bad thing. Who can be worse than a wife who
+encourages a lover, and poisons her husband’s mind against his
+relative? Yet that is now the character given to me. Will you not come
+and drag him out of my hands?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright gave back heat for heat.
+
+“Don’t rage at me, madam! It ill becomes your beauty, and I am not
+worth the injury you may do it on my account, I assure you. I am only a
+poor old woman who has lost a son.”
+
+“If you had treated me honourably you would have had him still.”
+Eustacia said, while scalding tears trickled from her eyes. “You have
+brought yourself to folly; you have caused a division which can never
+be healed!”
+
+“I have done nothing. This audacity from a young woman is more than I
+can bear.”
+
+“It was asked for; you have suspected me, and you have made me speak of
+my husband in a way I would not have done. You will let him know that I
+have spoken thus, and it will cause misery between us. Will you go away
+from me? You are no friend!”
+
+“I will go when I have spoken a word. If anyone says I have come here
+to question you without good grounds for it, that person speaks
+untruly. If anyone says that I attempted to stop your marriage by any
+but honest means, that person, too, does not speak the truth. I have
+fallen on an evil time; God has been unjust to me in letting you insult
+me! Probably my son’s happiness does not lie on this side of the grave,
+for he is a foolish man who neglects the advice of his parent. You,
+Eustacia, stand on the edge of a precipice without knowing it. Only
+show my son one-half the temper you have shown me today—and you may
+before long—and you will find that though he is as gentle as a child
+with you now, he can be as hard as steel!”
+
+The excited mother then withdrew, and Eustacia, panting, stood looking
+into the pool.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song
+
+
+The result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia, instead of
+passing the afternoon with her grandfather, hastily returned home to
+Clym, where she arrived three hours earlier than she had been expected.
+
+She came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes still showing
+traces of her recent excitement. Yeobright looked up astonished; he had
+never seen her in any way approaching to that state before. She passed
+him by, and would have gone upstairs unnoticed, but Clym was so
+concerned that he immediately followed her.
+
+“What is the matter, Eustacia?” he said. She was standing on the
+hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in
+front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not
+answer; and then she replied in a low voice—
+
+“I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!”
+
+A weight fell like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustacia
+had arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a wish
+that she would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her
+mother-in-law, or adopt any other means she might think fit to bring
+about a reconciliation. She had set out gaily; and he had hoped for
+much.
+
+“Why is this?” he asked.
+
+“I cannot tell—I cannot remember. I met your mother. And I will never
+meet her again.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now? I won’t have wicked opinions
+passed on me by anybody. O! it was too humiliating to be asked if I had
+received any money from him, or encouraged him, or something of the
+sort—I don’t exactly know what!”
+
+“How could she have asked you that?”
+
+“She did.”
+
+“Then there must have been some meaning in it. What did my mother say
+besides?”
+
+“I don’t know what she said, except in so far as this, that we both
+said words which can never be forgiven!”
+
+“Oh, there must be some misapprehension. Whose fault was it that her
+meaning was not made clear?”
+
+“I would rather not say. It may have been the fault of the
+circumstances, which were awkward at the very least. O Clym—I cannot
+help expressing it—this is an unpleasant position that you have placed
+me in. But you must improve it—yes, say you will—for I hate it all now!
+Yes, take me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation, Clym! I
+don’t mind how humbly we live there at first, if it can only be Paris,
+and not Egdon Heath.”
+
+“But I have quite given up that idea,” said Yeobright, with surprise.
+“Surely I never led you to expect such a thing?”
+
+“I own it. Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept out of mind, and
+that one was mine. Must I not have a voice in the matter, now I am your
+wife and the sharer of your doom?”
+
+“Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale of discussion;
+and I thought this was specially so, and by mutual agreement.”
+
+“Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear,” she said in a low voice; and her
+eyes drooped, and she turned away.
+
+This indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia’s bosom
+disconcerted her husband. It was the first time that he had confronted
+the fact of the indirectness of a woman’s movement towards her desire.
+But his intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia well. All the
+effect that her remark had upon him was a resolve to chain himself more
+closely than ever to his books, so as to be the sooner enabled to
+appeal to substantial results from another course in arguing against
+her whim.
+
+Next day the mystery of the guineas was explained. Thomasin paid them a
+hurried visit, and Clym’s share was delivered up to him by her own
+hands. Eustacia was not present at the time.
+
+“Then this is what my mother meant,” exclaimed Clym. “Thomasin, do you
+know that they have had a bitter quarrel?”
+
+There was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin’s
+manner towards her cousin. It is the effect of marriage to engender in
+several directions some of the reserve it annihilates in one. “Your
+mother told me,” she said quietly. “She came back to my house after
+seeing Eustacia.”
+
+“The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass. Was Mother much disturbed
+when she came to you, Thomasin?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Very much indeed?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered his
+eyes with his hand.
+
+“Don’t trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends.”
+
+He shook his head. “Not two people with inflammable natures like
+theirs. Well, what must be will be.”
+
+“One thing is cheerful in it—the guineas are not lost.”
+
+“I would rather have lost them twice over than have had this happen.”
+
+Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to be
+indispensable—that he should speedily make some show of progress in his
+scholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hours
+during many nights.
+
+One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with a strange
+sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon the
+window-blind, and at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obliged
+him to close his eyelids quickly. At every new attempt to look about
+him the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, and
+excoriating tears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged to tie a bandage
+over his brow while dressing; and during the day it could not be
+abandoned. Eustacia was thoroughly alarmed. On finding that the case
+was no better the next morning they decided to send to Anglebury for a
+surgeon.
+
+Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acute
+inflammation induced by Clym’s night studies, continued in spite of a
+cold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.
+
+Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was so
+anxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shut up
+in a room from which all light was excluded, and his condition would
+have been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him by the
+glimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon be over;
+but at the surgeon’s third visit he learnt to his dismay that although
+he might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the course of a
+month, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print of any
+description, would have to be given up for a long time to come.
+
+One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten the
+gloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia,
+but she carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Suppose
+he should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficient
+strength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial
+to her feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling
+among the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to cohere
+into substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after day
+passed by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this
+mournful groove, and she would go away from him into the garden and
+weep despairing tears.
+
+Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought he
+would not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more unhappy;
+and the seclusion of their life was such that she would hardly be
+likely to learn the news except through a special messenger.
+Endeavouring to take the trouble as philosophically as possible, he
+waited on till the third week had arrived, when he went into the open
+air for the first time since the attack. The surgeon visited him again
+at this stage, and Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion. The
+young man learnt with added surprise that the date at which he might
+expect to resume his labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes being
+in that peculiar state which, though affording him sight enough for
+walking about, would not admit of their being strained upon any
+definite object without incurring the risk of reproducing ophthalmia in
+its acute form.
+
+Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quiet
+firmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was not to
+be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world through
+smoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and fatal to any
+kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in the face of
+mishaps which only affected his social standing; and, apart from
+Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if it could be
+made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To keep a cottage
+night-school was one such form; and his affliction did not master his
+spirit as it might otherwise have done.
+
+He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon with
+which he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old home.
+He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron,
+and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of a
+man who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and Yeobright
+learnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.
+
+Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym’s condition, and added, “Now, if
+yours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just the
+same.”
+
+“Yes, I could,” said Yeobright musingly. “How much do you get for
+cutting these faggots?”
+
+“Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well on
+the wages.”
+
+During the whole of Yeobright’s walk home to Alderworth he was lost in
+reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up to
+the house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went
+across to her.
+
+“Darling,” he said, “I am much happier. And if my mother were
+reconciled to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite.”
+
+“I fear that will never be,” she said, looking afar with her beautiful
+stormy eyes. “How _can_ you say ‘I am happier,’ and nothing changed?”
+
+“It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and
+get a living at, in this time of misfortune.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I am going to be a furze- and turf-cutter.”
+
+“No, Clym!” she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in her
+face going off again, and leaving her worse than before.
+
+“Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the
+little money we’ve got when I can keep down expenditures by an honest
+occupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but
+that in a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?”
+
+“But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance.”
+
+“We don’t require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly well
+off.”
+
+“In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and such
+people!” A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia’s face, which he did not
+see. There had been nonchalance in his tone, showing her that he felt
+no absolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive horror.
+
+The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey’s cottage, and borrowed of
+him leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook, to use till he should be
+able to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth with his new
+fellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the
+furze grew thickest he struck the first blow in his adopted calling.
+His sight, like the wings in Rasselas, though useless to him for his
+grand purpose, sufficed for this strait, and he found that when a
+little practice should have hardened his palms against blistering he
+would be able to work with ease.
+
+Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and went
+off to the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from four
+o’clock in the morning till noon; then, when the heat of the day was at
+its highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards coming
+out again and working till dusk at nine.
+
+This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements,
+and by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that his
+closest friend might have passed by without recognizing him. He was a
+brown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, and nothing
+more. Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actually at work,
+owing to thoughts of Eustacia’s position and his mother’s estrangement,
+when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully disposed and calm.
+
+His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world being
+limited to a circuit of a few feet from his person. His familiars were
+creeping and winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their
+band. Bees hummed around his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at
+the heath and furze-flowers at his side in such numbers as to weigh
+them down to the sod. The strange amber-coloured butterflies which
+Egdon produced, and which were never seen elsewhere, quivered in the
+breath of his lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and sported with the
+glittering point of his hook as he flourished it up and down. Tribes of
+emerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet, falling awkwardly on
+their backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance might
+rule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations under the fern-fronds
+with silent ones of homely hue. Huge flies, ignorant of larders and
+wire-netting, and quite in a savage state, buzzed about him without
+knowing that he was a man. In and out of the fern-dells snakes glided
+in their most brilliant blue and yellow guise, it being the season
+immediately following the shedding of their old skins, when their
+colours are brightest. Litters of young rabbits came out from their
+forms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the hot beams blazing through
+the delicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing it to a
+blood-red transparency in which the veins could be seen. None of them
+feared him.
+
+The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself a
+pleasure. A forced limitation of effort offered a justification of
+homely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly
+have allowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers were
+unimpeded. Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged
+to accompany Humphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would
+amuse his companion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and
+so while away the time.
+
+On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in the
+direction of Yeobright’s place of work. He was busily chopping away at
+the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from his
+position representing the labour of the day. He did not observe her
+approach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent of
+song. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earning
+money by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; but to
+hear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which, however
+satisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated
+lady-wife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he still
+went on singing:—
+
+“Le point du jour
+A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;
+Flore est plus belle à son retour;
+L’oiseau reprend doux chant d’amour;
+Tout célèbre dans la nature
+Le point du jour.
+
+“Le point du jour
+Cause parfois, cause douleur extrême;
+Que l’espace des nuits est court
+Pour le berger brûlant d’amour,
+Forcé de quitter ce qu’il aime
+Au point du jour.”
+
+
+It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much about
+social failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in
+sick despair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of
+that mood and condition in him. Then she came forward.
+
+“I would starve rather than do it!” she exclaimed vehemently. “And you
+can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!”
+
+“Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving,” he
+said gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, and
+took her hand. “Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only a
+little old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and now just
+applies to my life with you. Has your love for me all died, then,
+because my appearance is no longer that of a fine gentleman?”
+
+“Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make me not
+love you.”
+
+“Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing that?”
+
+“Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won’t give in to mine when I
+wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything you
+dislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am your wife,
+and why will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!”
+
+“I know what that tone means.”
+
+“What tone?”
+
+“The tone in which you said, ‘Your wife indeed.’ It meant, ‘Your wife,
+worse luck.’”
+
+“It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may have
+reason, though she is not without heart, and if I felt ‘worse luck,’ it
+was no ignoble feeling—it was only too natural. There, you see that at
+any rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how, before we were
+married, I warned you that I had not good wifely qualities?”
+
+“You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noble
+course would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me,
+Eustacia, though I may no longer be king of you.”
+
+“You are my husband. Does not that content you?”
+
+“Not unless you are my wife without regret.”
+
+“I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a serious
+matter on your hands.”
+
+“Yes, I saw that.”
+
+“Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen any such
+thing; you are too severe upon me, Clym—I won’t like your speaking so
+at all.”
+
+“Well, I married you in spite of it, and don’t regret doing so. How
+cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was a
+warmer heart than yours.”
+
+“Yes, I fear we are cooling—I see it as well as you,” she sighed
+mournfully. “And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never
+tired of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have
+thought then that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright to
+yours, nor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months—is it possible?
+Yes, ’tis too true!”
+
+“You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that’s a hopeful
+sign.”
+
+“No. I don’t sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh for,
+or any other woman in my place.”
+
+“That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste an
+unfortunate man?”
+
+“Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity as
+much as you. As much?—I think I deserve it more. For you can sing! It
+would be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a
+cloud as this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would
+astonish and confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you felt
+careless about your own affliction, you might have refrained from
+singing out of sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a
+position I would curse rather than sing.”
+
+Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. “Now, don’t you suppose, my
+inexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,
+against the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam and
+smoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see of
+life the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great in
+its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small in mine of
+furze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings vouchsafed to us
+are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any great hardship when
+they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time. Have you indeed lost
+all tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a few cheerful moments?”
+
+“I have still some tenderness left for you.”
+
+“Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with
+good fortune!”
+
+“I cannot listen to this, Clym—it will end bitterly,” she said in a
+broken voice. “I will go home.”
+
+
+
+
+III.
+She Goes Out to Battle against Depression
+
+
+A few days later, before the month of August had expired, Eustacia and
+Yeobright sat together at their early dinner.
+
+Eustacia’s manner had become of late almost apathetic. There was a
+forlorn look about her beautiful eyes which, whether she deserved it or
+not, would have excited pity in the breast of anyone who had known her
+during the full flush of her love for Clym. The feelings of husband and
+wife varied, in some measure, inversely with their positions. Clym, the
+afflicted man, was cheerful; and he even tried to comfort her, who had
+never felt a moment of physical suffering in her whole life.
+
+“Come, brighten up, dearest; we shall be all right again. Some day
+perhaps I shall see as well as ever. And I solemnly promise that I’ll
+leave off cutting furze as soon as I have the power to do anything
+better. You cannot seriously wish me to stay idling at home all day?”
+
+“But it is so dreadful—a furze-cutter! and you a man who have lived
+about the world, and speak French, and German, and who are fit for what
+is so much better than this.”
+
+“I suppose when you first saw me and heard about me I was wrapped in a
+sort of golden halo to your eyes—a man who knew glorious things, and
+had mixed in brilliant scenes—in short, an adorable, delightful,
+distracting hero?”
+
+“Yes,” she said, sobbing.
+
+“And now I am a poor fellow in brown leather.”
+
+“Don’t taunt me. But enough of this. I will not be depressed any more.
+I am going from home this afternoon, unless you greatly object. There
+is to be a village picnic—a gipsying, they call it—at East Egdon, and I
+shall go.”
+
+“To dance?”
+
+“Why not? You can sing.”
+
+“Well, well, as you will. Must I come to fetch you?”
+
+“If you return soon enough from your work. But do not inconvenience
+yourself about it. I know the way home, and the heath has no terror for
+me.”
+
+“And can you cling to gaiety so eagerly as to walk all the way to a
+village festival in search of it?”
+
+“Now, you don’t like my going alone! Clym, you are not jealous?”
+
+“No. But I would come with you if it could give you any pleasure;
+though, as things stand, perhaps you have too much of me already.
+Still, I somehow wish that you did not want to go. Yes, perhaps I am
+jealous; and who could be jealous with more reason than I, a half-blind
+man, over such a woman as you?”
+
+“Don’t think like it. Let me go, and don’t take all my spirits away!”
+
+“I would rather lose all my own, my sweet wife. Go and do whatever you
+like. Who can forbid your indulgence in any whim? You have all my heart
+yet, I believe; and because you bear with me, who am in truth a drag
+upon you, I owe you thanks. Yes, go alone and shine. As for me, I will
+stick to my doom. At that kind of meeting people would shun me. My hook
+and gloves are like the St. Lazarus rattle of the leper, warning the
+world to get out of the way of a sight that would sadden them.” He
+kissed her, put on his leggings, and went out.
+
+When he was gone she rested her head upon her hands and said to
+herself, “Two wasted lives—his and mine. And I am come to this! Will it
+drive me out of my mind?”
+
+She cast about for any possible course which offered the least
+improvement on the existing state of things, and could find none. She
+imagined how all those Budmouth ones who should learn what had become
+of her would say, “Look at the girl for whom nobody was good enough!”
+To Eustacia the situation seemed such a mockery of her hopes that death
+appeared the only door of relief if the satire of Heaven should go much
+further.
+
+Suddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, “But I’ll shake it off.
+Yes, I _will_ shake it off! No one shall know my suffering. I’ll be
+bitterly merry, and ironically gay, and I’ll laugh in derision. And
+I’ll begin by going to this dance on the green.”
+
+She ascended to her bedroom and dressed herself with scrupulous care.
+To an onlooker her beauty would have made her feelings almost seem
+reasonable. The gloomy corner into which accident as much as
+indiscretion had brought this woman might have led even a moderate
+partisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking the Supreme
+Power by what right a being of such exquisite finish had been placed in
+circumstances calculated to make of her charms a curse rather than a
+blessing.
+
+It was five in the afternoon when she came out from the house ready for
+her walk. There was material enough in the picture for twenty new
+conquests. The rebellious sadness that was rather too apparent when she
+sat indoors without a bonnet was cloaked and softened by her outdoor
+attire, which always had a sort of nebulousness about it, devoid of
+harsh edges anywhere; so that her face looked from its environment as
+from a cloud, with no noticeable lines of demarcation between flesh and
+clothes. The heat of the day had scarcely declined as yet, and she went
+along the sunny hills at a leisurely pace, there being ample time for
+her idle expedition. Tall ferns buried her in their leafage whenever
+her path lay through them, which now formed miniature forests, though
+not one stem of them would remain to bud the next year.
+
+The site chosen for the village festivity was one of the lawnlike oases
+which were occasionally, yet not often, met with on the plateaux of the
+heath district. The brakes of furze and fern terminated abruptly round
+the margin, and the grass was unbroken. A green cattletrack skirted the
+spot, without, however, emerging from the screen of fern, and this path
+Eustacia followed, in order to reconnoitre the group before joining it.
+The lusty notes of the East Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and
+she now beheld the musicians themselves, sitting in a blue wagon with
+red wheels scrubbed as bright as new, and arched with sticks, to which
+boughs and flowers were tied. In front of this was the grand central
+dance of fifteen or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferior
+individuals whose gyrations were not always in strict keeping with the
+tune.
+
+The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a flush on their
+faces footed it to the girls, who, with the excitement and the
+exercise, blushed deeper than the pink of their numerous ribbons. Fair
+ones with long curls, fair ones with short curls, fair ones with
+lovelocks, fair ones with braids, flew round and round; and a beholder
+might well have wondered how such a prepossessing set of young women of
+like size, age, and disposition, could have been collected together
+where there were only one or two villages to choose from. In the
+background was one happy man dancing by himself, with closed eyes,
+totally oblivious of all the rest. A fire was burning under a pollard
+thorn a few paces off, over which three kettles hung in a row. Hard by
+was a table where elderly dames prepared tea, but Eustacia looked among
+them in vain for the cattle-dealer’s wife who had suggested that she
+should come, and had promised to obtain a courteous welcome for her.
+
+This unexpected absence of the only local resident whom Eustacia knew
+considerably damaged her scheme for an afternoon of reckless gaiety.
+Joining in became a matter of difficulty, notwithstanding that, were
+she to advance, cheerful dames would come forward with cups of tea and
+make much of her as a stranger of superior grace and knowledge to
+themselves. Having watched the company through the figures of two
+dances, she decided to walk a little further, to a cottage where she
+might get some refreshment, and then return homeward in the shady time
+of evening.
+
+This she did, and by the time that she retraced her steps towards the
+scene of the gipsying, which it was necessary to repass on her way to
+Alderworth, the sun was going down. The air was now so still that she
+could hear the band afar off, and it seemed to be playing with more
+spirit, if that were possible, than when she had come away. On reaching
+the hill the sun had quite disappeared; but this made little difference
+either to Eustacia or to the revellers, for a round yellow moon was
+rising before her, though its rays had not yet outmastered those from
+the west. The dance was going on just the same, but strangers had
+arrived and formed a ring around the figure, so that Eustacia could
+stand among these without a chance of being recognized.
+
+A whole village-full of sensuous emotion, scattered abroad all the year
+long, surged here in a focus for an hour. The forty hearts of those
+waving couples were beating as they had not done since, twelve months
+before, they had come together in similar jollity. For the time
+paganism was revived in their hearts, the pride of life was all in all,
+and they adored none other than themselves.
+
+How many of those impassioned but temporary embraces were destined to
+become perpetual was possibly the wonder of some of those who indulged
+in them, as well as of Eustacia who looked on. She began to envy those
+pirouetters, to hunger for the hope and happiness which the fascination
+of the dance seemed to engender within them. Desperately fond of
+dancing herself, one of Eustacia’s expectations of Paris had been the
+opportunity it might afford her of indulgence in this favourite
+pastime. Unhappily, that expectation was now extinct within her for
+ever.
+
+Whilst she abstractedly watched them spinning and fluctuating in the
+increasing moonlight she suddenly heard her name whispered by a voice
+over her shoulder. Turning in surprise, she beheld at her elbow one
+whose presence instantly caused her to flush to the temples.
+
+It was Wildeve. Till this moment he had not met her eye since the
+morning of his marriage, when she had been loitering in the church, and
+had startled him by lifting her veil and coming forward to sign the
+register as witness. Yet why the sight of him should have instigated
+that sudden rush of blood she could not tell.
+
+Before she could speak he whispered, “Do you like dancing as much as
+ever?”
+
+“I think I do,” she replied in a low voice.
+
+“Will you dance with me?”
+
+“It would be a great change for me; but will it not seem strange?”
+
+“What strangeness can there be in relations dancing together?”
+
+“Ah—yes, relations. Perhaps none.”
+
+“Still, if you don’t like to be seen, pull down your veil; though there
+is not much risk of being known by this light. Lots of strangers are
+here.”
+
+She did as he suggested; and the act was a tacit acknowledgment that
+she accepted his offer.
+
+Wildeve gave her his arm and took her down on the outside of the ring
+to the bottom of the dance, which they entered. In two minutes more
+they were involved in the figure and began working their way upwards to
+the top. Till they had advanced halfway thither Eustacia wished more
+than once that she had not yielded to his request; from the middle to
+the top she felt that, since she had come out to seek pleasure, she was
+only doing a natural thing to obtain it. Fairly launched into the
+ceaseless glides and whirls which their new position as top couple
+opened up to them, Eustacia’s pulses began to move too quickly for long
+rumination of any kind.
+
+Through the length of five-and-twenty couples they threaded their giddy
+way, and a new vitality entered her form. The pale ray of evening lent
+a fascination to the experience. There is a certain degree and tone of
+light which tends to disturb the equilibrium of the senses, and to
+promote dangerously the tenderer moods; added to movement, it drives
+the emotions to rankness, the reason becoming sleepy and unperceiving
+in inverse proportion; and this light fell now upon these two from the
+disc of the moon. All the dancing girls felt the symptoms, but Eustacia
+most of all. The grass under their feet became trodden away, and the
+hard, beaten surface of the sod, when viewed aslant towards the
+moonlight, shone like a polished table. The air became quite still, the
+flag above the wagon which held the musicians clung to the pole, and
+the players appeared only in outline against the sky; except when the
+circular mouths of the trombone, ophicleide, and French horn gleamed
+out like huge eyes from the shade of their figures. The pretty dresses
+of the maids lost their subtler day colours and showed more or less of
+a misty white. Eustacia floated round and round on Wildeve’s arm, her
+face rapt and statuesque; her soul had passed away from and forgotten
+her features, which were left empty and quiescent, as they always are
+when feeling goes beyond their register.
+
+How near she was to Wildeve! it was terrible to think of. She could
+feel his breathing, and he, of course, could feel hers. How badly she
+had treated him! yet, here they were treading one measure. The
+enchantment of the dance surprised her. A clear line of difference
+divided like a tangible fence her experience within this maze of motion
+from her experience without it. Her beginning to dance had been like a
+change of atmosphere; outside, she had been steeped in arctic frigidity
+by comparison with the tropical sensations here. She had entered the
+dance from the troubled hours of her late life as one might enter a
+brilliant chamber after a night walk in a wood. Wildeve by himself
+would have been merely an agitation; Wildeve added to the dance, and
+the moonlight, and the secrecy, began to be a delight. Whether his
+personality supplied the greater part of this sweetly compounded
+feeling, or whether the dance and the scene weighed the more therein,
+was a nice point upon which Eustacia herself was entirely in a cloud.
+
+People began to say “Who are they?” but no invidious inquiries were
+made. Had Eustacia mingled with the other girls in their ordinary daily
+walks the case would have been different: here she was not
+inconvenienced by excessive inspection, for all were wrought to their
+brightest grace by the occasion. Like the planet Mercury surrounded by
+the lustre of sunset, her permanent brilliancy passed without much
+notice in the temporary glory of the situation.
+
+As for Wildeve, his feelings are easy to guess. Obstacles were a
+ripening sun to his love, and he was at this moment in a delirium of
+exquisite misery. To clasp as his for five minutes what was another
+man’s through all the rest of the year was a kind of thing he of all
+men could appreciate. He had long since begun to sigh again for
+Eustacia; indeed, it may be asserted that signing the marriage register
+with Thomasin was the natural signal to his heart to return to its
+first quarters, and that the extra complication of Eustacia’s marriage
+was the one addition required to make that return compulsory.
+
+Thus, for different reasons, what was to the rest an exhilarating
+movement was to these two a riding upon the whirlwind. The dance had
+come like an irresistible attack upon whatever sense of social order
+there was in their minds, to drive them back into old paths which were
+now doubly irregular. Through three dances in succession they spun
+their way; and then, fatigued with the incessant motion, Eustacia
+turned to quit the circle in which she had already remained too long.
+Wildeve led her to a grassy mound a few yards distant, where she sat
+down, her partner standing beside her. From the time that he addressed
+her at the beginning of the dance till now they had not exchanged a
+word.
+
+“The dance and the walking have tired you?” he said tenderly.
+
+“No; not greatly.”
+
+“It is strange that we should have met here of all places, after
+missing each other so long.”
+
+“We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose.”
+
+“Yes. But you began that proceeding—by breaking a promise.”
+
+“It is scarcely worth while to talk of that now. We have formed other
+ties since then—you no less than I.”
+
+“I am sorry to hear that your husband is ill.”
+
+“He is not ill—only incapacitated.”
+
+“Yes—that is what I mean. I sincerely sympathize with you in your
+trouble. Fate has treated you cruelly.”
+
+She was silent awhile. “Have you heard that he has chosen to work as a
+furze-cutter?” she said in a low, mournful voice.
+
+“It has been mentioned to me,” answered Wildeve hesitatingly. “But I
+hardly believed it.”
+
+“It is true. What do you think of me as a furze-cutter’s wife?”
+
+“I think the same as ever of you, Eustacia. Nothing of that sort can
+degrade you—you ennoble the occupation of your husband.”
+
+“I wish I could feel it.”
+
+“Is there any chance of Mr. Yeobright getting better?”
+
+“He thinks so. I doubt it.”
+
+“I was quite surprised to hear that he had taken a cottage. I thought,
+in common with other people, that he would have taken you off to a home
+in Paris immediately after you had married him. ‘What a gay, bright
+future she has before her!’ I thought. He will, I suppose, return there
+with you, if his sight gets strong again?”
+
+Observing that she did not reply he regarded her more closely. She was
+almost weeping. Images of a future never to be enjoyed, the revived
+sense of her bitter disappointment, the picture of the neighbour’s
+suspended ridicule which was raised by Wildeve’s words, had been too
+much for proud Eustacia’s equanimity.
+
+Wildeve could hardly control his own too forward feelings when he saw
+her silent perturbation. But he affected not to notice this, and she
+soon recovered her calmness.
+
+“You do not intend to walk home by yourself?” he asked.
+
+“O yes,” said Eustacia. “What could hurt me on this heath, who have
+nothing?”
+
+“By diverging a little I can make my way home the same as yours. I
+shall be glad to keep you company as far as Throope Corner.” Seeing
+that Eustacia sat on in hesitation he added, “Perhaps you think it
+unwise to be seen in the same road with me after the events of last
+summer?”
+
+“Indeed I think no such thing,” she said haughtily. “I shall accept
+whose company I choose, for all that may be said by the miserable
+inhabitants of Egdon.”
+
+“Then let us walk on—if you are ready. Our nearest way is towards that
+holly bush with the dark shadow that you see down there.”
+
+Eustacia arose, and walked beside him in the direction signified,
+brushing her way over the damping heath and fern, and followed by the
+strains of the merrymakers, who still kept up the dance. The moon had
+now waxed bright and silvery, but the heath was proof against such
+illumination, and there was to be observed the striking scene of a
+dark, rayless tract of country under an atmosphere charged from its
+zenith to its extremities with whitest light. To an eye above them
+their two faces would have appeared amid the expanse like two pearls on
+a table of ebony.
+
+On this account the irregularities of the path were not visible, and
+Wildeve occasionally stumbled; whilst Eustacia found it necessary to
+perform some graceful feats of balancing whenever a small tuft of
+heather or root of furze protruded itself through the grass of the
+narrow track and entangled her feet. At these junctures in her progress
+a hand was invariably stretched forward to steady her, holding her
+firmly until smooth ground was again reached, when the hand was again
+withdrawn to a respectful distance.
+
+They performed the journey for the most part in silence, and drew near
+to Throope Corner, a few hundred yards from which a short path branched
+away to Eustacia’s house. By degrees they discerned coming towards them
+a pair of human figures, apparently of the male sex.
+
+When they came a little nearer Eustacia broke the silence by saying,
+“One of those men is my husband. He promised to come to meet me.”
+
+“And the other is my greatest enemy,” said Wildeve.
+
+“It looks like Diggory Venn.”
+
+“That is the man.”
+
+“It is an awkward meeting,” said she; “but such is my fortune. He knows
+too much about me, unless he could know more, and so prove to himself
+that what he now knows counts for nothing. Well, let it be—you must
+deliver me up to them.”
+
+“You will think twice before you direct me to do that. Here is a man
+who has not forgotten an item in our meetings at Rainbarrow—he is in
+company with your husband. Which of them, seeing us together here, will
+believe that our meeting and dancing at the gipsy party was by chance?”
+
+“Very well,” she whispered gloomily. “Leave me before they come up.”
+
+Wildeve bade her a tender farewell, and plunged across the fern and
+furze, Eustacia slowly walking on. In two or three minutes she met her
+husband and his companion.
+
+“My journey ends here for tonight, reddleman,” said Yeobright as soon
+as he perceived her. “I turn back with this lady. Good night.”
+
+“Good night, Mr. Yeobright,” said Venn. “I hope to see you better
+soon.”
+
+The moonlight shone directly upon Venn’s face as he spoke, and revealed
+all its lines to Eustacia. He was looking suspiciously at her. That
+Venn’s keen eye had discerned what Yeobright’s feeble vision had not—a
+man in the act of withdrawing from Eustacia’s side—was within the
+limits of the probable.
+
+If Eustacia had been able to follow the reddleman she would soon have
+found striking confirmation of her thought. No sooner had Clym given
+her his arm and led her off the scene than the reddleman turned back
+from the beaten track towards East Egdon, whither he had been strolling
+merely to accompany Clym in his walk, Diggory’s van being again in the
+neighbourhood. Stretching out his long legs, he crossed the pathless
+portion of the heath somewhat in the direction which Wildeve had taken.
+Only a man accustomed to nocturnal rambles could at this hour have
+descended those shaggy slopes with Venn’s velocity without falling
+headlong into a pit, or snapping off his leg by jamming his foot into
+some rabbit burrow. But Venn went on without much inconvenience to
+himself, and the course of his scamper was towards the Quiet Woman Inn.
+This place he reached in about half an hour, and he was well aware that
+no person who had been near Throope Corner when he started could have
+got down here before him.
+
+The lonely inn was not yet closed, though scarcely an individual was
+there, the business done being chiefly with travellers who passed the
+inn on long journeys, and these had now gone on their way. Venn went to
+the public room, called for a mug of ale, and inquired of the maid in
+an indifferent tone if Mr. Wildeve was at home.
+
+Thomasin sat in an inner room and heard Venn’s voice. When customers
+were present she seldom showed herself, owing to her inherent dislike
+for the business; but perceiving that no one else was there tonight she
+came out.
+
+“He is not at home yet, Diggory,” she said pleasantly. “But I expected
+him sooner. He has been to East Egdon to buy a horse.”
+
+“Did he wear a light wideawake?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I saw him at Throope Corner, leading one home,” said Venn drily.
+“A beauty, with a white face and a mane as black as night. He will soon
+be here, no doubt.” Rising and looking for a moment at the pure, sweet
+face of Thomasin, over which a shadow of sadness had passed since the
+time when he had last seen her, he ventured to add, “Mr. Wildeve seems
+to be often away at this time.”
+
+“O yes,” cried Thomasin in what was intended to be a tone of gaiety.
+“Husbands will play the truant, you know. I wish you could tell me of
+some secret plan that would help me to keep him home at my will in the
+evenings.”
+
+“I will consider if I know of one,” replied Venn in that same light
+tone which meant no lightness. And then he bowed in a manner of his own
+invention and moved to go. Thomasin offered him her hand; and without a
+sigh, though with food for many, the reddleman went out.
+
+When Wildeve returned, a quarter of an hour later Thomasin said simply,
+and in the abashed manner usual with her now, “Where is the horse,
+Damon?”
+
+“O, I have not bought it, after all. The man asks too much.”
+
+“But somebody saw you at Throope Corner leading it home—a beauty, with
+a white face and a mane as black as night.”
+
+“Ah!” said Wildeve, fixing his eyes upon her; “who told you that?”
+
+“Venn the reddleman.”
+
+The expression of Wildeve’s face became curiously condensed. “That is a
+mistake—it must have been someone else,” he said slowly and testily,
+for he perceived that Venn’s countermoves had begun again.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+Rough Coercion Is Employed
+
+
+Those words of Thomasin, which seemed so little, but meant so much,
+remained in the ears of Diggory Venn: “Help me to keep him home in the
+evenings.”
+
+On this occasion Venn had arrived on Egdon Heath only to cross to the
+other side—he had no further connection with the interests of the
+Yeobright family, and he had a business of his own to attend to. Yet he
+suddenly began to feel himself drifting into the old track of
+manœuvring on Thomasin’s account.
+
+He sat in his van and considered. From Thomasin’s words and manner he
+had plainly gathered that Wildeve neglected her. For whom could he
+neglect her if not for Eustacia? Yet it was scarcely credible that
+things had come to such a head as to indicate that Eustacia
+systematically encouraged him. Venn resolved to reconnoitre somewhat
+carefully the lonely road which led along the vale from Wildeve’s
+dwelling to Clym’s house at Alderworth.
+
+At this time, as has been seen, Wildeve was quite innocent of any
+predetermined act of intrigue, and except at the dance on the green he
+had not once met Eustacia since her marriage. But that the spirit of
+intrigue was in him had been shown by a recent romantic habit of his—a
+habit of going out after dark and strolling towards Alderworth, there
+looking at the moon and stars, looking at Eustacia’s house, and walking
+back at leisure.
+
+Accordingly, when watching on the night after the festival, the
+reddleman saw him ascend by the little path, lean over the front gate
+of Clym’s garden, sigh, and turn to go back again. It was plain that
+Wildeve’s intrigue was rather ideal than real. Venn retreated before
+him down the hill to a place where the path was merely a deep groove
+between the heather; here he mysteriously bent over the ground for a
+few minutes, and retired. When Wildeve came on to that spot his ankle
+was caught by something, and he fell headlong.
+
+As soon as he had recovered the power of respiration he sat up and
+listened. There was not a sound in the gloom beyond the spiritless stir
+of the summer wind. Feeling about for the obstacle which had flung him
+down, he discovered that two tufts of heath had been tied together
+across the path, forming a loop, which to a traveller was certain
+overthrow. Wildeve pulled off the string that bound them, and went on
+with tolerable quickness. On reaching home he found the cord to be of a
+reddish colour. It was just what he had expected.
+
+Although his weaknesses were not specially those akin to physical fear,
+this species of coup-de-Jarnac from one he knew too well troubled the
+mind of Wildeve. But his movements were unaltered thereby. A night or
+two later he again went along the vale to Alderworth, taking the
+precaution of keeping out of any path. The sense that he was watched,
+that craft was employed to circumvent his errant tastes, added piquancy
+to a journey so entirely sentimental, so long as the danger was of no
+fearful sort. He imagined that Venn and Mrs. Yeobright were in league,
+and felt that there was a certain legitimacy in combating such a
+coalition.
+
+The heath tonight appeared to be totally deserted; and Wildeve, after
+looking over Eustacia’s garden gate for some little time, with a cigar
+in his mouth, was tempted by the fascination that emotional smuggling
+had for his nature to advance towards the window, which was not quite
+closed, the blind being only partly drawn down. He could see into the
+room, and Eustacia was sitting there alone. Wildeve contemplated her
+for a minute, and then retreating into the heath beat the ferns
+lightly, whereupon moths flew out alarmed. Securing one, he returned to
+the window, and holding the moth to the chink, opened his hand. The
+moth made towards the candle upon Eustacia’s table, hovered round it
+two or three times, and flew into the flame.
+
+Eustacia started up. This had been a well-known signal in old times
+when Wildeve had used to come secretly wooing to Mistover. She at once
+knew that Wildeve was outside, but before she could consider what to do
+her husband came in from upstairs. Eustacia’s face burnt crimson at the
+unexpected collision of incidents, and filled it with an animation that
+it too frequently lacked.
+
+“You have a very high colour, dearest,” said Yeobright, when he came
+close enough to see it. “Your appearance would be no worse if it were
+always so.”
+
+“I am warm,” said Eustacia. “I think I will go into the air for a few
+minutes.”
+
+“Shall I go with you?”
+
+“O no. I am only going to the gate.”
+
+She arose, but before she had time to get out of the room a loud
+rapping began upon the front door.
+
+“I’ll go—I’ll go,” said Eustacia in an unusually quick tone for her;
+and she glanced eagerly towards the window whence the moth had flown;
+but nothing appeared there.
+
+“You had better not at this time of the evening,” he said. Clym stepped
+before her into the passage, and Eustacia waited, her somnolent manner
+covering her inner heat and agitation.
+
+She listened, and Clym opened the door. No words were uttered outside,
+and presently he closed it and came back, saying, “Nobody was there. I
+wonder what that could have meant?”
+
+He was left to wonder during the rest of the evening, for no
+explanation offered itself, and Eustacia said nothing, the additional
+fact that she knew of only adding more mystery to the performance.
+
+Meanwhile a little drama had been acted outside which saved Eustacia
+from all possibility of compromising herself that evening at least.
+Whilst Wildeve had been preparing his moth-signal another person had
+come behind him up to the gate. This man, who carried a gun in his
+hand, looked on for a moment at the other’s operation by the window,
+walked up to the house, knocked at the door, and then vanished round
+the corner and over the hedge.
+
+“Damn him!” said Wildeve. “He has been watching me again.”
+
+As his signal had been rendered futile by this uproarious rapping
+Wildeve withdrew, passed out at the gate, and walked quickly down the
+path without thinking of anything except getting away unnoticed.
+Halfway down the hill the path ran near a knot of stunted hollies,
+which in the general darkness of the scene stood as the pupil in a
+black eye. When Wildeve reached this point a report startled his ear,
+and a few spent gunshots fell among the leaves around him.
+
+There was no doubt that he himself was the cause of that gun’s
+discharge; and he rushed into the clump of hollies, beating the bushes
+furiously with his stick; but nobody was there. This attack was a more
+serious matter than the last, and it was some time before Wildeve
+recovered his equanimity. A new and most unpleasant system of menace
+had begun, and the intent appeared to be to do him grievous bodily
+harm. Wildeve had looked upon Venn’s first attempt as a species of
+horseplay, which the reddleman had indulged in for want of knowing
+better; but now the boundary line was passed which divides the annoying
+from the perilous.
+
+Had Wildeve known how thoroughly in earnest Venn had become he might
+have been still more alarmed. The reddleman had been almost exasperated
+by the sight of Wildeve outside Clym’s house, and he was prepared to go
+to any lengths short of absolutely shooting him, to terrify the young
+innkeeper out of his recalcitrant impulses. The doubtful legitimacy of
+such rough coercion did not disturb the mind of Venn. It troubles few
+such minds in such cases, and sometimes this is not to be regretted.
+From the impeachment of Strafford to Farmer Lynch’s short way with the
+scamps of Virginia there have been many triumphs of justice which are
+mockeries of law.
+
+About half a mile below Clym’s secluded dwelling lay a hamlet where
+lived one of the two constables who preserved the peace in the parish
+of Alderworth, and Wildeve went straight to the constable’s cottage.
+Almost the first thing that he saw on opening the door was the
+constable’s truncheon hanging to a nail, as if to assure him that here
+were the means to his purpose. On inquiry, however, of the constable’s
+wife he learnt that the constable was not at home. Wildeve said he
+would wait.
+
+The minutes ticked on, and the constable did not arrive. Wildeve cooled
+down from his state of high indignation to a restless dissatisfaction
+with himself, the scene, the constable’s wife, and the whole set of
+circumstances. He arose and left the house. Altogether, the experience
+of that evening had had a cooling, not to say a chilling, effect on
+misdirected tenderness, and Wildeve was in no mood to ramble again to
+Alderworth after nightfall in hope of a stray glance from Eustacia.
+
+Thus far the reddleman had been tolerably successful in his rude
+contrivances for keeping down Wildeve’s inclination to rove in the
+evening. He had nipped in the bud the possible meeting between Eustacia
+and her old lover this very night. But he had not anticipated that the
+tendency of his action would be to divert Wildeve’s movement rather
+than to stop it. The gambling with the guineas had not conduced to make
+him a welcome guest to Clym; but to call upon his wife’s relative was
+natural, and he was determined to see Eustacia. It was necessary to
+choose some less untoward hour than ten o’clock at night. “Since it is
+unsafe to go in the evening,” he said, “I’ll go by day.”
+
+Meanwhile Venn had left the heath and gone to call upon Mrs. Yeobright,
+with whom he had been on friendly terms since she had learnt what a
+providential countermove he had made towards the restitution of the
+family guineas. She wondered at the lateness of his call, but had no
+objection to see him.
+
+He gave her a full account of Clym’s affliction, and of the state in
+which he was living; then, referring to Thomasin, touched gently upon
+the apparent sadness of her days. “Now, ma’am, depend upon it,” he
+said, “you couldn’t do a better thing for either of ’em than to make
+yourself at home in their houses, even if there should be a little
+rebuff at first.”
+
+“Both she and my son disobeyed me in marrying; therefore I have no
+interest in their households. Their troubles are of their own making.”
+Mrs. Yeobright tried to speak severely; but the account of her son’s
+state had moved her more than she cared to show.
+
+“Your visits would make Wildeve walk straighter than he is inclined to
+do, and might prevent unhappiness down the heath.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I saw something tonight out there which I didn’t like at all. I wish
+your son’s house and Mr. Wildeve’s were a hundred miles apart instead
+of four or five.”
+
+“Then there _was_ an understanding between him and Clym’s wife when he
+made a fool of Thomasin!”
+
+“We’ll hope there’s no understanding now.”
+
+“And our hope will probably be very vain. O Clym! O Thomasin!”
+
+“There’s no harm done yet. In fact, I’ve persuaded Wildeve to mind his
+own business.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“O, not by talking—by a plan of mine called the silent system.”
+
+“I hope you’ll succeed.”
+
+“I shall if you help me by calling and making friends with your son.
+You’ll have a chance then of using your eyes.”
+
+“Well, since it has come to this,” said Mrs. Yeobright sadly, “I will
+own to you, reddleman, that I thought of going. I should be much
+happier if we were reconciled. The marriage is unalterable, my life may
+be cut short, and I should wish to die in peace. He is my only son; and
+since sons are made of such stuff I am not sorry I have no other. As
+for Thomasin, I never expected much from her; and she has not
+disappointed me. But I forgave her long ago; and I forgive him now.
+I’ll go.”
+
+At this very time of the reddleman’s conversation with Mrs. Yeobright
+at Blooms-End another conversation on the same subject was languidly
+proceeding at Alderworth.
+
+All the day Clym had borne himself as if his mind were too full of its
+own matter to allow him to care about outward things, and his words now
+showed what had occupied his thoughts. It was just after the mysterious
+knocking that he began the theme. “Since I have been away today,
+Eustacia, I have considered that something must be done to heal up this
+ghastly breach between my dear mother and myself. It troubles me.”
+
+“What do you propose to do?” said Eustacia abstractedly, for she could
+not clear away from her the excitement caused by Wildeve’s recent
+manœuvre for an interview.
+
+“You seem to take a very mild interest in what I propose, little or
+much,” said Clym, with tolerable warmth.
+
+“You mistake me,” she answered, reviving at his reproach. “I am only
+thinking.”
+
+“What of?”
+
+“Partly of that moth whose skeleton is getting burnt up in the wick of
+the candle,” she said slowly. “But you know I always take an interest
+in what you say.”
+
+“Very well, dear. Then I think I must go and call upon her.” ...He went
+on with tender feeling: “It is a thing I am not at all too proud to do,
+and only a fear that I might irritate her has kept me away so long. But
+I must do something. It is wrong in me to allow this sort of thing to
+go on.”
+
+“What have you to blame yourself about?”
+
+“She is getting old, and her life is lonely, and I am her only son.”
+
+“She has Thomasin.”
+
+“Thomasin is not her daughter; and if she were that would not excuse
+me. But this is beside the point. I have made up my mind to go to her,
+and all I wish to ask you is whether you will do your best to help
+me—that is, forget the past; and if she shows her willingness to be
+reconciled, meet her halfway by welcoming her to our house, or by
+accepting a welcome to hers?”
+
+At first Eustacia closed her lips as if she would rather do anything on
+the whole globe than what he suggested. But the lines of her mouth
+softened with thought, though not so far as they might have softened,
+and she said, “I will put nothing in your way; but after what has
+passed it is asking too much that I go and make advances.”
+
+“You never distinctly told me what did pass between you.”
+
+“I could not do it then, nor can I now. Sometimes more bitterness is
+sown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that
+may be the case here.” She paused a few moments, and added, “If you had
+never returned to your native place, Clym, what a blessing it would
+have been for you!... It has altered the destinies of——”
+
+“Three people.”
+
+“Five,” Eustacia thought; but she kept that in.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+The Journey across the Heath
+
+
+Thursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series of days
+during which snug houses were stifling, and when cool draughts were
+treats; when cracks appeared in clayey gardens, and were called
+“earthquakes” by apprehensive children; when loose spokes were
+discovered in the wheels of carts and carriages; and when stinging
+insects haunted the air, the earth, and every drop of water that was to
+be found.
+
+In Mrs. Yeobright’s garden large-leaved plants of a tender kind flagged
+by ten o’clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward at eleven; and
+even stiff cabbages were limp by noon.
+
+It was about eleven o’clock on this day that Mrs. Yeobright started
+across the heath towards her son’s house, to do her best in getting
+reconciled with him and Eustacia, in conformity with her words to the
+reddleman. She had hoped to be well advanced in her walk before the
+heat of the day was at its highest, but after setting out she found
+that this was not to be done. The sun had branded the whole heath with
+its mark, even the purple heath-flowers having put on a brownness under
+the dry blazes of the few preceding days. Every valley was filled with
+air like that of a kiln, and the clean quartz sand of the winter
+water-courses, which formed summer paths, had undergone a species of
+incineration since the drought had set in.
+
+In cool, fresh weather Mrs. Yeobright would have found no inconvenience
+in walking to Alderworth, but the present torrid attack made the
+journey a heavy undertaking for a woman past middle age; and at the end
+of the third mile she wished that she had hired Fairway to drive her a
+portion at least of the distance. But from the point at which she had
+arrived it was as easy to reach Clym’s house as to get home again. So
+she went on, the air around her pulsating silently, and oppressing the
+earth with lassitude. She looked at the sky overhead, and saw that the
+sapphirine hue of the zenith in spring and early summer had been
+replaced by a metallic violet.
+
+Occasionally she came to a spot where independent worlds of ephemerons
+were passing their time in mad carousal, some in the air, some on the
+hot ground and vegetation, some in the tepid and stringy water of a
+nearly dried pool. All the shallower ponds had decreased to a vaporous
+mud amid which the maggoty shapes of innumerable obscure creatures
+could be indistinctly seen, heaving and wallowing with enjoyment. Being
+a woman not disinclined to philosophize she sometimes sat down under
+her umbrella to rest and to watch their happiness, for a certain
+hopefulness as to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind, and
+between important thoughts left it free to dwell on any infinitesimal
+matter which caught her eyes.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright had never before been to her son’s house, and its exact
+position was unknown to her. She tried one ascending path and another,
+and found that they led her astray. Retracing her steps, she came again
+to an open level, where she perceived at a distance a man at work. She
+went towards him and inquired the way.
+
+The labourer pointed out the direction, and added, “Do you see that
+furze-cutter, ma’am, going up that footpath yond?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright strained her eyes, and at last said that she did
+perceive him.
+
+“Well, if you follow him you can make no mistake. He’s going to the
+same place, ma’am.”
+
+She followed the figure indicated. He appeared of a russet hue, not
+more distinguishable from the scene around him than the green
+caterpillar from the leaf it feeds on. His progress when actually
+walking was more rapid than Mrs. Yeobright’s; but she was enabled to
+keep at an equable distance from him by his habit of stopping whenever
+he came to a brake of brambles, where he paused awhile. On coming in
+her turn to each of these spots she found half a dozen long limp
+brambles which he had cut from the bush during his halt and laid out
+straight beside the path. They were evidently intended for furze-faggot
+bonds which he meant to collect on his return.
+
+The silent being who thus occupied himself seemed to be of no more
+account in life than an insect. He appeared as a mere parasite of the
+heath, fretting its surface in his daily labour as a moth frets a
+garment, entirely engrossed with its products, having no knowledge of
+anything in the world but fern, furze, heath, lichens, and moss.
+
+The furze-cutter was so absorbed in the business of his journey that he
+never turned his head; and his leather-legged and gauntleted form at
+length became to her as nothing more than a moving handpost to show her
+the way. Suddenly she was attracted to his individuality by observing
+peculiarities in his walk. It was a gait she had seen somewhere before;
+and the gait revealed the man to her, as the gait of Ahimaaz in the
+distant plain made him known to the watchman of the king. “His walk is
+exactly as my husband’s used to be,” she said; and then the thought
+burst upon her that the furze-cutter was her son.
+
+She was scarcely able to familiarize herself with this strange reality.
+She had been told that Clym was in the habit of cutting furze, but she
+had supposed that he occupied himself with the labour only at odd
+times, by way of useful pastime; yet she now beheld him as a
+furze-cutter and nothing more—wearing the regulation dress of the
+craft, and thinking the regulation thoughts, to judge by his motions.
+Planning a dozen hasty schemes for at once preserving him and Eustacia
+from this mode of life, she throbbingly followed the way, and saw him
+enter his own door.
+
+At one side of Clym’s house was a knoll, and on the top of the knoll a
+clump of fir trees so highly thrust up into the sky that their foliage
+from a distance appeared as a black spot in the air above the crown of
+the hill. On reaching this place Mrs. Yeobright felt distressingly
+agitated, weary, and unwell. She ascended, and sat down under their
+shade to recover herself, and to consider how best to break the ground
+with Eustacia, so as not to irritate a woman underneath whose apparent
+indolence lurked passions even stronger and more active than her own.
+
+The trees beneath which she sat were singularly battered, rude, and
+wild, and for a few minutes Mrs. Yeobright dismissed thoughts of her
+own storm-broken and exhausted state to contemplate theirs. Not a bough
+in the nine trees which composed the group but was splintered, lopped,
+and distorted by the fierce weather that there held them at its mercy
+whenever it prevailed. Some were blasted and split as if by lightning,
+black stains as from fire marking their sides, while the ground at
+their feet was strewn with dead fir-needles and heaps of cones blown
+down in the gales of past years. The place was called the Devil’s
+Bellows, and it was only necessary to come there on a March or November
+night to discover the forcible reasons for that name. On the present
+heated afternoon, when no perceptible wind was blowing, the trees kept
+up a perpetual moan which one could hardly believe to be caused by the
+air.
+
+Here she sat for twenty minutes or more ere she could summon resolution
+to go down to the door, her courage being lowered to zero by her
+physical lassitude. To any other person than a mother it might have
+seemed a little humiliating that she, the elder of the two women,
+should be the first to make advances. But Mrs. Yeobright had well
+considered all that, and she only thought how best to make her visit
+appear to Eustacia not abject but wise.
+
+From her elevated position the exhausted woman could perceive the roof
+of the house below, and the garden and the whole enclosure of the
+little domicile. And now, at the moment of rising, she saw a second man
+approaching the gate. His manner was peculiar, hesitating, and not that
+of a person come on business or by invitation. He surveyed the house
+with interest, and then walked round and scanned the outer boundary of
+the garden, as one might have done had it been the birthplace of
+Shakespeare, the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Château of Hougomont.
+After passing round and again reaching the gate he went in. Mrs.
+Yeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on finding her son and his
+wife by themselves; but a moment’s thought showed her that the presence
+of an acquaintance would take off the awkwardness of her first
+appearance in the house, by confining the talk to general matters until
+she had begun to feel comfortable with them. She came down the hill to
+the gate, and looked into the hot garden.
+
+There lay the cat asleep on the bare gravel of the path, as if beds,
+rugs, and carpets were unendurable. The leaves of the hollyhocks hung
+like half-closed umbrellas, the sap almost simmered in the stems, and
+foliage with a smooth surface glared like metallic mirrors. A small
+apple tree, of the sort called Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate,
+the only one which throve in the garden, by reason of the lightness of
+the soil; and among the fallen apples on the ground beneath were wasps
+rolling drunk with the juice, or creeping about the little caves in
+each fruit which they had eaten out before stupefied by its sweetness.
+By the door lay Clym’s furze-hook and the last handful of faggot-bonds
+she had seen him gather; they had plainly been thrown down there as he
+entered the house.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian
+
+
+Wildeve, as has been stated, was determined to visit Eustacia boldly,
+by day, and on the easy terms of a relation, since the reddleman had
+spied out and spoilt his walks to her by night. The spell that she had
+thrown over him in the moonlight dance made it impossible for a man
+having no strong puritanic force within him to keep away altogether. He
+merely calculated on meeting her and her husband in an ordinary manner,
+chatting a little while, and leaving again. Every outward sign was to
+be conventional; but the one great fact would be there to satisfy
+him—he would see her. He did not even desire Clym’s absence, since it
+was just possible that Eustacia might resent any situation which could
+compromise her dignity as a wife, whatever the state of her heart
+towards him. Women were often so.
+
+He went accordingly; and it happened that the time of his arrival
+coincided with that of Mrs. Yeobright’s pause on the hill near the
+house. When he had looked round the premises in the manner she had
+noticed he went and knocked at the door. There was a few minutes’
+interval, and then the key turned in the lock, the door opened, and
+Eustacia herself confronted him.
+
+Nobody could have imagined from her bearing now that here stood the
+woman who had joined with him in the impassioned dance of the week
+before, unless indeed he could have penetrated below the surface and
+gauged the real depth of that still stream.
+
+“I hope you reached home safely?” said Wildeve.
+
+“O yes,” she carelessly returned.
+
+“And were you not tired the next day? I feared you might be.”
+
+“I was rather. You need not speak low—nobody will over-hear us. My
+small servant is gone on an errand to the village.”
+
+“Then Clym is not at home?”
+
+“Yes, he is.”
+
+“O! I thought that perhaps you had locked the door because you were
+alone and were afraid of tramps.”
+
+“No—here is my husband.”
+
+They had been standing in the entry. Closing the front door and turning
+the key, as before, she threw open the door of the adjoining room and
+asked him to walk in. Wildeve entered, the room appearing to be empty;
+but as soon as he had advanced a few steps he started. On the hearthrug
+lay Clym asleep. Beside him were the leggings, thick boots, leather
+gloves, and sleeve-waistcoat in which he worked.
+
+“You may go in; you will not disturb him,” she said, following behind.
+“My reason for fastening the door is that he may not be intruded upon
+by any chance comer while lying here, if I should be in the garden or
+upstairs.”
+
+“Why is he sleeping there?” said Wildeve in low tones.
+
+“He is very weary. He went out at half-past four this morning, and has
+been working ever since. He cuts furze because it is the only thing he
+can do that does not put any strain upon his poor eyes.” The contrast
+between the sleeper’s appearance and Wildeve’s at this moment was
+painfully apparent to Eustacia, Wildeve being elegantly dressed in a
+new summer suit and light hat; and she continued: “Ah! you don’t know
+how differently he appeared when I first met him, though it is such a
+little while ago. His hands were as white and soft as mine; and look at
+them now, how rough and brown they are! His complexion is by nature
+fair, and that rusty look he has now, all of a colour with his leather
+clothes, is caused by the burning of the sun.”
+
+“Why does he go out at all!” Wildeve whispered.
+
+“Because he hates to be idle; though what he earns doesn’t add much to
+our exchequer. However, he says that when people are living upon their
+capital they must keep down current expenses by turning a penny where
+they can.”
+
+“The fates have not been kind to you, Eustacia Yeobright.”
+
+“I have nothing to thank them for.”
+
+“Nor has he—except for their one great gift to him.”
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+Wildeve looked her in the eyes.
+
+Eustacia blushed for the first time that day. “Well, I am a
+questionable gift,” she said quietly. “I thought you meant the gift of
+content—which he has, and I have not.”
+
+“I can understand content in such a case—though how the outward
+situation can attract him puzzles me.”
+
+“That’s because you don’t know him. He’s an enthusiast about ideas, and
+careless about outward things. He often reminds me of the Apostle
+Paul.”
+
+“I am glad to hear that he’s so grand in character as that.”
+
+“Yes; but the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent as a man in
+the Bible he would hardly have done in real life.”
+
+Their voices had instinctively dropped lower, though at first they had
+taken no particular care to avoid awakening Clym. “Well, if that means
+that your marriage is a misfortune to you, you know who is to blame,”
+said Wildeve.
+
+“The marriage is no misfortune in itself,” she retorted with some
+little petulance. “It is simply the accident which has happened since
+that has been the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for
+figs in a worldly sense, but how could I tell what time would bring
+forth?”
+
+“Sometimes, Eustacia, I think it is a judgment upon you. You rightly
+belonged to me, you know; and I had no idea of losing you.”
+
+“No, it was not my fault! Two could not belong to you; and remember
+that, before I was aware, you turned aside to another woman. It was
+cruel levity in you to do that. I never dreamt of playing such a game
+on my side till you began it on yours.”
+
+“I meant nothing by it,” replied Wildeve. “It was a mere interlude. Men
+are given to the trick of having a passing fancy for somebody else in
+the midst of a permanent love, which reasserts itself afterwards just
+as before. On account of your rebellious manner to me I was tempted to
+go further than I should have done; and when you still would keep
+playing the same tantalizing part I went further still, and married
+her.” Turning and looking again at the unconscious form of Clym, he
+murmured, “I am afraid that you don’t value your prize, Clym.... He
+ought to be happier than I in one thing at least. He may know what it
+is to come down in the world, and to be afflicted with a great personal
+calamity; but he probably doesn’t know what it is to lose the woman he
+loved.”
+
+“He is not ungrateful for winning her,” whispered Eustacia, “and in
+that respect he is a good man. Many women would go far for such a
+husband. But do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called
+life—music, poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that
+are going on in the great arteries of the world? That was the shape of
+my youthful dream; but I did not get it. Yet I thought I saw the way to
+it in my Clym.”
+
+“And you only married him on that account?”
+
+“There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I won’t
+say that I didn’t love him partly because I thought I saw a promise of
+that life in him.”
+
+“You have dropped into your old mournful key.”
+
+“But I am not going to be depressed,” she cried perversely. “I began a
+new system by going to that dance, and I mean to stick to it. Clym can
+sing merrily; why should not I?”
+
+Wildeve looked thoughtfully at her. “It is easier to say you will sing
+than to do it; though if I could I would encourage you in your attempt.
+But as life means nothing to me, without one thing which is now
+impossible, you will forgive me for not being able to encourage you.”
+
+“Damon, what is the matter with you, that you speak like that?” she
+asked, raising her deep shady eyes to his.
+
+“That’s a thing I shall never tell plainly; and perhaps if I try to
+tell you in riddles you will not care to guess them.”
+
+Eustacia remained silent for a minute, and she said, “We are in a
+strange relationship today. You mince matters to an uncommon nicety.
+You mean, Damon, that you still love me. Well, that gives me sorrow,
+for I am not made so entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing to
+spurn you for the information, as I ought to do. But we have said too
+much about this. Do you mean to wait until my husband is awake?”
+
+“I thought to speak to him; but it is unnecessary, Eustacia, if I
+offend you by not forgetting you, you are right to mention it; but do
+not talk of spurning.”
+
+She did not reply, and they stood looking musingly at Clym as he slept
+on in that profound sleep which is the result of physical labour
+carried on in circumstances that wake no nervous fear.
+
+“God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!” said Wildeve. “I have not slept
+like that since I was a boy—years and years ago.”
+
+While they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible, and a
+knock came to the door. Eustacia went to a window and looked out.
+
+Her countenance changed. First she became crimson, and then the red
+subsided till it even partially left her lips.
+
+“Shall I go away?” said Wildeve, standing up.
+
+“I hardly know.”
+
+“Who is it?”
+
+“Mrs. Yeobright. O, what she said to me that day! I cannot understand
+this visit—what does she mean? And she suspects that past time of
+ours.”
+
+“I am in your hands. If you think she had better not see me here I’ll
+go into the next room.”
+
+“Well, yes—go.”
+
+Wildeve at once withdrew; but before he had been half a minute in the
+adjoining apartment Eustacia came after him.
+
+“No,” she said, “we won’t have any of this. If she comes in she must
+see you—and think if she likes there’s something wrong! But how can I
+open the door to her, when she dislikes me—wishes to see not me, but
+her son? I won’t open the door!”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright knocked again more loudly.
+
+“Her knocking will, in all likelihood, awaken him,” continued Eustacia,
+“and then he will let her in himself. Ah—listen.”
+
+They could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if disturbed by the
+knocking, and he uttered the word “Mother.”
+
+“Yes—he is awake—he will go to the door,” she said, with a breath of
+relief. “Come this way. I have a bad name with her, and you must not be
+seen. Thus I am obliged to act by stealth, not because I do ill, but
+because others are pleased to say so.”
+
+By this time she had taken him to the back door, which was open,
+disclosing a path leading down the garden. “Now, one word, Damon,” she
+remarked as he stepped forth. “This is your first visit here; let it be
+your last. We have been hot lovers in our time, but it won’t do now.
+Good-bye.”
+
+“Good-bye,” said Wildeve. “I have had all I came for, and I am
+satisfied.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“A sight of you. Upon my eternal honour I came for no more.”
+
+Wildeve kissed his hand to the beautiful girl he addressed, and passed
+into the garden, where she watched him down the path, over the stile at
+the end, and into the ferns outside, which brushed his hips as he went
+along till he became lost in their thickets. When he had quite gone she
+slowly turned, and directed her attention to the interior of the house.
+
+But it was possible that her presence might not be desired by Clym and
+his mother at this moment of their first meeting, or that it would be
+superfluous. At all events, she was in no hurry to meet Mrs. Yeobright.
+She resolved to wait till Clym came to look for her, and glided back
+into the garden. Here she idly occupied herself for a few minutes, till
+finding no notice was taken of her she retraced her steps through the
+house to the front, where she listened for voices in the parlour. But
+hearing none she opened the door and went in. To her astonishment Clym
+lay precisely as Wildeve and herself had left him, his sleep apparently
+unbroken. He had been disturbed and made to dream and murmur by the
+knocking, but he had not awakened. Eustacia hastened to the door, and
+in spite of her reluctance to open it to a woman who had spoken of her
+so bitterly, she unfastened it and looked out. Nobody was to be seen.
+There, by the scraper, lay Clym’s hook and the handful of faggot-bonds
+he had brought home; in front of her were the empty path, the garden
+gate standing slightly ajar; and, beyond, the great valley of purple
+heath thrilling silently in the sun. Mrs. Yeobright was gone.
+
+Clym’s mother was at this time following a path which lay hidden from
+Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill. Her walk thither from the garden
+gate had been hasty and determined, as of a woman who was now no less
+anxious to escape from the scene than she had previously been to enter
+it. Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights were
+graven—that of Clym’s hook and brambles at the door, and that of a
+woman’s face at a window. Her lips trembled, becoming unnaturally thin
+as she murmured, “’Tis too much—Clym, how can he bear to do it! He is
+at home; and yet he lets her shut the door against me!”
+
+In her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house she had
+diverged from the straightest path homeward, and while looking about to
+regain it she came upon a little boy gathering whortleberries in a
+hollow. The boy was Johnny Nunsuch, who had been Eustacia’s stoker at
+the bonfire, and, with the tendency of a minute body to gravitate
+towards a greater, he began hovering round Mrs. Yeobright as soon as
+she appeared, and trotted on beside her without perceptible
+consciousness of his act.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke to him as one in a mesmeric sleep. “’Tis a long
+way home, my child, and we shall not get there till evening.”
+
+“I shall,” said her small companion. “I am going to play marnels afore
+supper, and we go to supper at six o’clock, because Father comes home.
+Does your father come home at six too?”
+
+“No, he never comes; nor my son either, nor anybody.”
+
+“What have made you so down? Have you seen a ooser?”
+
+“I have seen what’s worse—a woman’s face looking at me through a
+windowpane.”
+
+“Is that a bad sight?”
+
+“Yes. It is always a bad sight to see a woman looking out at a weary
+wayfarer and not letting her in.”
+
+“Once when I went to Throope Great Pond to catch effets I seed myself
+looking up at myself, and I was frightened and jumped back like
+anything.”
+
+...“If they had only shown signs of meeting my advances halfway how
+well it might have been done! But there is no chance. Shut out! She
+must have set him against me. Can there be beautiful bodies without
+hearts inside? I think so. I would not have done it against a
+neighbour’s cat on such a fiery day as this!”
+
+“What is it you say?”
+
+“Never again—never! Not even if they send for me!”
+
+“You must be a very curious woman to talk like that.”
+
+“O no, not at all,” she said, returning to the boy’s prattle. “Most
+people who grow up and have children talk as I do. When you grow up
+your mother will talk as I do too.”
+
+“I hope she won’t; because ’tis very bad to talk nonsense.”
+
+“Yes, child; it is nonsense, I suppose. Are you not nearly spent with
+the heat?”
+
+“Yes. But not so much as you be.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Your face is white and wet, and your head is hanging-down-like.”
+
+“Ah, I am exhausted from inside.”
+
+“Why do you, every time you take a step, go like this?” The child in
+speaking gave to his motion the jerk and limp of an invalid.
+
+“Because I have a burden which is more than I can bear.”
+
+The little boy remained silently pondering, and they tottered on side
+by side until more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when Mrs.
+Yeobright, whose weakness plainly increased, said to him, “I must sit
+down here to rest.”
+
+When she had seated herself he looked long in her face and said, “How
+funny you draw your breath—like a lamb when you drive him till he’s
+nearly done for. Do you always draw your breath like that?”
+
+“Not always.” Her voice was now so low as to be scarcely above a
+whisper.
+
+“You will go to sleep there, I suppose, won’t you? You have shut your
+eyes already.”
+
+“No. I shall not sleep much till—another day, and then I hope to have a
+long, long one—very long. Now can you tell me if Rimsmoor Pond is dry
+this summer?”
+
+“Rimsmoor Pond is, but Oker’s Pool isn’t, because he is deep, and is
+never dry—’tis just over there.”
+
+“Is the water clear?”
+
+“Yes, middling—except where the heath-croppers walk into it.”
+
+“Then, take this, and go as fast as you can, and dip me up the clearest
+you can find. I am very faint.”
+
+She drew from the small willow reticule that she carried in her hand an
+old-fashioned china teacup without a handle; it was one of half a dozen
+of the same sort lying in the reticule, which she had preserved ever
+since her childhood, and had brought with her today as a small present
+for Clym and Eustacia.
+
+The boy started on his errand, and soon came back with the water, such
+as it was. Mrs. Yeobright attempted to drink, but it was so warm as to
+give her nausea, and she threw it away. Afterwards she still remained
+sitting, with her eyes closed.
+
+The boy waited, played near her, caught several of the little brown
+butterflies which abounded, and then said as he waited again, “I like
+going on better than biding still. Will you soon start again?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“I wish I might go on by myself,” he resumed, fearing, apparently, that
+he was to be pressed into some unpleasant service. “Do you want me any
+more, please?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright made no reply.
+
+“What shall I tell Mother?” the boy continued.
+
+“Tell her you have seen a broken-hearted woman cast off by her son.”
+
+Before quite leaving her he threw upon her face a wistful glance, as if
+he had misgivings on the generosity of forsaking her thus. He gazed
+into her face in a vague, wondering manner, like that of one examining
+some strange old manuscript the key to whose characters is
+undiscoverable. He was not so young as to be absolutely without a sense
+that sympathy was demanded, he was not old enough to be free from the
+terror felt in childhood at beholding misery in adult quarters hitherto
+deemed impregnable; and whether she were in a position to cause trouble
+or to suffer from it, whether she and her affliction were something to
+pity or something to fear, it was beyond him to decide. He lowered his
+eyes and went on without another word. Before he had gone half a mile
+he had forgotten all about her, except that she was a woman who had sat
+down to rest.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright’s exertions, physical and emotional, had well-nigh
+prostrated her; but she continued to creep along in short stages with
+long breaks between. The sun had now got far to the west of south and
+stood directly in her face, like some merciless incendiary, brand in
+hand, waiting to consume her. With the departure of the boy all visible
+animation disappeared from the landscape, though the intermittent husky
+notes of the male grasshoppers from every tuft of furze were enough to
+show that amid the prostration of the larger animal species an unseen
+insect world was busy in all the fullness of life.
+
+In two hours she reached a slope about three-fourths the whole distance
+from Alderworth to her own home, where a little patch of
+shepherd’s-thyme intruded upon the path; and she sat down upon the
+perfumed mat it formed there. In front of her a colony of ants had
+established a thoroughfare across the way, where they toiled a
+never-ending and heavy-laden throng. To look down upon them was like
+observing a city street from the top of a tower. She remembered that
+this bustle of ants had been in progress for years at the same
+spot—doubtless those of the old times were the ancestors of these which
+walked there now. She leant back to obtain more thorough rest, and the
+soft eastern portion of the sky was as great a relief to her eyes as
+the thyme was to her head. While she looked a heron arose on that side
+of the sky and flew on with his face towards the sun. He had come
+dripping wet from some pool in the valleys, and as he flew the edges
+and lining of his wings, his thighs and his breast were so caught by
+the bright sunbeams that he appeared as if formed of burnished silver.
+Up in the zenith where he was seemed a free and happy place, away from
+all contact with the earthly ball to which she was pinioned; and she
+wished that she could arise uncrushed from its surface and fly as he
+flew then.
+
+But, being a mother, it was inevitable that she should soon cease to
+ruminate upon her own condition. Had the track of her next thought been
+marked by a streak in the air, like the path of a meteor, it would have
+shown a direction contrary to the heron’s, and have descended to the
+eastward upon the roof of Clym’s house.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends
+
+
+He in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up, and looked
+around. Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard by him, and though she
+held a book in her hand she had not looked into it for some time.
+
+“Well, indeed!” said Clym, brushing his eyes with his hands. “How
+soundly I have slept! I have had such a tremendous dream, too—one I
+shall never forget.”
+
+“I thought you had been dreaming,” said she.
+
+“Yes. It was about my mother. I dreamt that I took you to her house to
+make up differences, and when we got there we couldn’t get in, though
+she kept on crying to us for help. However, dreams are dreams. What
+o’clock is it, Eustacia?”
+
+“Half-past two.”
+
+“So late, is it? I didn’t mean to stay so long. By the time I have had
+something to eat it will be after three.”
+
+“Ann is not come back from the village, and I thought I would let you
+sleep on till she returned.”
+
+Clym went to the window and looked out. Presently he said, musingly,
+“Week after week passes, and yet Mother does not come. I thought I
+should have heard something from her long before this.”
+
+Misgiving, regret, fear, resolution, ran their swift course of
+expression in Eustacia’s dark eyes. She was face to face with a
+monstrous difficulty, and she resolved to get free of it by
+postponement.
+
+“I must certainly go to Blooms-End soon,” he continued, “and I think I
+had better go alone.” He picked up his leggings and gloves, threw them
+down again, and added, “As dinner will be so late today I will not go
+back to the heath, but work in the garden till the evening, and then,
+when it will be cooler, I will walk to Blooms-End. I am quite sure that
+if I make a little advance Mother will be willing to forget all. It
+will be rather late before I can get home, as I shall not be able to do
+the distance either way in less than an hour and a half. But you will
+not mind for one evening, dear? What are you thinking of to make you
+look so abstracted?”
+
+“I cannot tell you,” she said heavily. “I wish we didn’t live here,
+Clym. The world seems all wrong in this place.”
+
+“Well—if we make it so. I wonder if Thomasin has been to Blooms-End
+lately. I hope so. But probably not, as she is, I believe, expecting to
+be confined in a month or so. I wish I had thought of that before. Poor
+Mother must indeed be very lonely.”
+
+“I don’t like you going tonight.”
+
+“Why not tonight?”
+
+“Something may be said which will terribly injure me.”
+
+“My mother is not vindictive,” said Clym, his colour faintly rising.
+
+“But I wish you would not go,” Eustacia repeated in a low tone. “If you
+agree not to go tonight I promise to go by myself to her house
+tomorrow, and make it up with her, and wait till you fetch me.”
+
+“Why do you want to do that at this particular time, when at every
+previous time that I have proposed it you have refused?”
+
+“I cannot explain further than that I should like to see her alone
+before you go,” she answered, with an impatient move of her head, and
+looking at him with an anxiety more frequently seen upon those of a
+sanguine temperament than upon such as herself.
+
+“Well, it is very odd that just when I had decided to go myself you
+should want to do what I proposed long ago. If I wait for you to go
+tomorrow another day will be lost; and I know I shall be unable to rest
+another night without having been. I want to get this settled, and
+will. You must visit her afterwards—it will be all the same.”
+
+“I could even go with you now?”
+
+“You could scarcely walk there and back without a longer rest than I
+shall take. No, not tonight, Eustacia.”
+
+“Let it be as you say, then,” she replied in the quiet way of one who,
+though willing to ward off evil consequences by a mild effort, would
+let events fall out as they might sooner than wrestle hard to direct
+them.
+
+Clym then went into the garden; and a thoughtful languor stole over
+Eustacia for the remainder of the afternoon, which her husband
+attributed to the heat of the weather.
+
+In the evening he set out on the journey. Although the heat of summer
+was yet intense the days had considerably shortened, and before he had
+advanced a mile on his way all the heath purples, browns, and greens
+had merged in a uniform dress without airiness or graduation, and
+broken only by touches of white where the little heaps of clean quartz
+sand showed the entrance to a rabbit burrow, or where the white flints
+of a footpath lay like a thread over the slopes. In almost every one of
+the isolated and stunted thorns which grew here and there a nighthawk
+revealed his presence by whirring like the clack of a mill as long as
+he could hold his breath, then stopping, flapping his wings, wheeling
+round the bush, alighting, and after a silent interval of listening
+beginning to whirr again. At each brushing of Clym’s feet white
+millermoths flew into the air just high enough to catch upon their
+dusty wings the mellowed light from the west, which now shone across
+the depressions and levels of the ground without falling thereon to
+light them up.
+
+Yeobright walked on amid this quiet scene with a hope that all would
+soon be well. Three miles on he came to a spot where a soft perfume was
+wafted across his path, and he stood still for a moment to inhale the
+familiar scent. It was the place at which, four hours earlier, his
+mother had sat down exhausted on the knoll covered with
+shepherd’s-thyme. While he stood a sound between a breathing and a moan
+suddenly reached his ears.
+
+He looked to where the sound came from; but nothing appeared there save
+the verge of the hillock stretching against the sky in an unbroken
+line. He moved a few steps in that direction, and now he perceived a
+recumbent figure almost close to his feet.
+
+Among the different possibilities as to the person’s individuality
+there did not for a moment occur to Yeobright that it might be one of
+his own family. Sometimes furze-cutters had been known to sleep out of
+doors at these times, to save a long journey homeward and back again;
+but Clym remembered the moan and looked closer, and saw that the form
+was feminine; and a distress came over him like cold air from a cave.
+But he was not absolutely certain that the woman was his mother till he
+stooped and beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes.
+
+His breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry of anguish
+which would have escaped him died upon his lips. During the momentary
+interval that elapsed before he became conscious that something must be
+done all sense of time and place left him, and it seemed as if he and
+his mother were as when he was a child with her many years ago on this
+heath at hours similar to the present. Then he awoke to activity; and
+bending yet lower he found that she still breathed, and that her breath
+though feeble was regular, except when disturbed by an occasional gasp.
+
+“O, what is it! Mother, are you very ill—you are not dying?” he cried,
+pressing his lips to her face. “I am your Clym. How did you come here?
+What does it all mean?”
+
+At that moment the chasm in their lives which his love for Eustacia had
+caused was not remembered by Yeobright, and to him the present joined
+continuously with that friendly past that had been their experience
+before the division.
+
+She moved her lips, appeared to know him, but could not speak; and then
+Clym strove to consider how best to move her, as it would be necessary
+to get her away from the spot before the dews were intense. He was
+able-bodied, and his mother was thin. He clasped his arms round her,
+lifted her a little, and said, “Does that hurt you?”
+
+She shook her head, and he lifted her up; then, at a slow pace, went
+onward with his load. The air was now completely cool; but whenever he
+passed over a sandy patch of ground uncarpeted with vegetation there
+was reflected from its surface into his face the heat which it had
+imbibed during the day. At the beginning of his undertaking he had
+thought but little of the distance which yet would have to be traversed
+before Blooms-End could be reached; but though he had slept that
+afternoon he soon began to feel the weight of his burden. Thus he
+proceeded, like Æneas with his father; the bats circling round his
+head, nightjars flapping their wings within a yard of his face, and not
+a human being within call.
+
+While he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother exhibited
+signs of restlessness under the constraint of being borne along, as if
+his arms were irksome to her. He lowered her upon his knees and looked
+around. The point they had now reached, though far from any road, was
+not more than a mile from the Blooms-End cottages occupied by Fairway,
+Sam, Humphrey, and the Cantles. Moreover, fifty yards off stood a hut,
+built of clods and covered with thin turves, but now entirely disused.
+The simple outline of the lonely shed was visible, and thither he
+determined to direct his steps. As soon as he arrived he laid her down
+carefully by the entrance, and then ran and cut with his pocketknife an
+armful of the dryest fern. Spreading this within the shed, which was
+entirely open on one side, he placed his mother thereon; then he ran
+with all his might towards the dwelling of Fairway.
+
+Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, disturbed only by the broken
+breathing of the sufferer, when moving figures began to animate the
+line between heath and sky. In a few moments Clym arrived with Fairway,
+Humphrey, and Susan Nunsuch; Olly Dowden, who had chanced to be at
+Fairway’s, Christian and Grandfer Cantle following helter-skelter
+behind. They had brought a lantern and matches, water, a pillow, and a
+few other articles which had occurred to their minds in the hurry of
+the moment. Sam had been despatched back again for brandy, and a boy
+brought Fairway’s pony, upon which he rode off to the nearest medical
+man, with directions to call at Wildeve’s on his way, and inform
+Thomasin that her aunt was unwell.
+
+Sam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered by the light
+of the lantern; after which she became sufficiently conscious to
+signify by signs that something was wrong with her foot. Olly Dowden at
+length understood her meaning, and examined the foot indicated. It was
+swollen and red. Even as they watched the red began to assume a more
+livid colour, in the midst of which appeared a scarlet speck, smaller
+than a pea, and it was found to consist of a drop of blood, which rose
+above the smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere.
+
+“I know what it is,” cried Sam. “She has been stung by an adder!”
+
+“Yes,” said Clym instantly. “I remember when I was a child seeing just
+such a bite. O, my poor mother!”
+
+“It was my father who was bit,” said Sam. “And there’s only one way to
+cure it. You must rub the place with the fat of other adders, and the
+only way to get that is by frying them. That’s what they did for him.”
+
+“’Tis an old remedy,” said Clym distrustfully, “and I have doubts about
+it. But we can do nothing else till the doctor comes.”
+
+“’Tis a sure cure,” said Olly Dowden, with emphasis. “I’ve used it when
+I used to go out nursing.”
+
+“Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them,” said Clym gloomily.
+
+“I will see what I can do,” said Sam.
+
+He took a green hazel which he had used as a walking stick, split it at
+the end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand went
+out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and
+despatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying pan. Before she had returned Sam
+came in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in the
+cleft of the stick, and the other two hanging dead across it.
+
+“I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to be,”
+said Sam. “These limp ones are two I killed today at work; but as they
+don’t die till the sun goes down they can’t be very stale meat.”
+
+The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its
+small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back
+seemed to intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature,
+and the creature saw her—she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes.
+
+“Look at that,” murmured Christian Cantle. “Neighbours, how do we know
+but that something of the old serpent in God’s garden, that gied the
+apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes
+still? Look at his eye—for all the world like a villainous sort of
+black currant. ’Tis to be hoped he can’t ill-wish us! There’s folks in
+heath who’ve been overlooked already. I will never kill another adder
+as long as I live.”
+
+“Well, ’tis right to be afeard of things, if folks can’t help it,” said
+Grandfer Cantle. “’Twould have saved me many a brave danger in my
+time.”
+
+“I fancy I heard something outside the shed,” said Christian. “I wish
+troubles would come in the daytime, for then a man could show his
+courage, and hardly beg for mercy of the most broomstick old woman he
+should see, if he was a brave man, and able to run out of her sight!”
+
+“Even such an ignorant fellow as I should know better than do that,”
+said Sam.
+
+“Well, there’s calamities where we least expect it, whether or no.
+Neighbours, if Mrs. Yeobright were to die, d’ye think we should be took
+up and tried for the manslaughter of a woman?”
+
+“No, they couldn’t bring it in as that,” said Sam, “unless they could
+prove we had been poachers at some time of our lives. But she’ll fetch
+round.”
+
+“Now, if I had been stung by ten adders I should hardly have lost a
+day’s work for’t,” said Grandfer Cantle. “Such is my spirit when I am
+on my mettle. But perhaps ’tis natural in a man trained for war. Yes,
+I’ve gone through a good deal; but nothing ever came amiss to me after
+I joined the Locals in four.” He shook his head and smiled at a mental
+picture of himself in uniform. “I was always first in the most
+galliantest scrapes in my younger days!”
+
+“I suppose that was because they always used to put the biggest fool
+afore,” said Fairway from the fire, beside which he knelt, blowing it
+with his breath.
+
+“D’ye think so, Timothy?” said Grandfer Cantle, coming forward to
+Fairway’s side with sudden depression in his face. “Then a man may feel
+for years that he is good solid company, and be wrong about himself
+after all?”
+
+“Never mind that question, Grandfer. Stir your stumps and get some more
+sticks. ’Tis very nonsense of an old man to prattle so when life and
+death’s in mangling.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Grandfer Cantle, with melancholy conviction. “Well,
+this is a bad night altogether for them that have done well in their
+time; and if I were ever such a dab at the hautboy or tenor viol, I
+shouldn’t have the heart to play tunes upon ’em now.”
+
+Susan now arrived with the frying pan, when the live adder was killed
+and the heads of the three taken off. The remainders, being cut into
+lengths and split open, were tossed into the pan, which began hissing
+and crackling over the fire. Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from the
+carcases, whereupon Clym dipped the corner of his handkerchief into the
+liquid and anointed the wound.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil
+
+
+In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth, had
+become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The
+consequences which might result from Clym’s discovery that his mother
+had been turned from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable,
+and this was a quality in events which she hated as much as the
+dreadful.
+
+To be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome to her at any
+time, and this evening it was more irksome than usual by reason of the
+excitements of the past hours. The two visits had stirred her into
+restlessness. She was not wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness by
+the probability of appearing in an ill light in the discussion between
+Clym and his mother, but she was wrought to vexation, and her
+slumbering activities were quickened to the extent of wishing that she
+had opened the door. She had certainly believed that Clym was awake,
+and the excuse would be an honest one as far as it went; but nothing
+could save her from censure in refusing to answer at the first knock.
+Yet, instead of blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon
+the shoulders of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who had
+framed her situation and ruled her lot.
+
+At this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by night than by
+day, and when Clym had been absent about an hour she suddenly resolved
+to go out in the direction of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting him
+on his return. When she reached the garden gate she heard wheels
+approaching, and looking round beheld her grandfather coming up in his
+car.
+
+“I can’t stay a minute, thank ye,” he answered to her greeting. “I am
+driving to East Egdon; but I came round here just to tell you the news.
+Perhaps you have heard—about Mr. Wildeve’s fortune?”
+
+“No,” said Eustacia blankly.
+
+“Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand pounds—uncle died
+in Canada, just after hearing that all his family, whom he was sending
+home, had gone to the bottom in the Cassiopeia; so Wildeve has come
+into everything, without in the least expecting it.”
+
+Eustacia stood motionless awhile. “How long has he known of this?” she
+asked.
+
+“Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew it at ten
+o’clock, when Charley came back. Now, he is what I call a lucky man.
+What a fool you were, Eustacia!”
+
+“In what way?” she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness.
+
+“Why, in not sticking to him when you had him.”
+
+“Had him, indeed!”
+
+“I did not know there had ever been anything between you till lately;
+and, faith, I should have been hot and strong against it if I had
+known; but since it seems that there was some sniffing between ye, why
+the deuce didn’t you stick to him?”
+
+Eustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could say as much upon
+that subject as he if she chose.
+
+“And how is your poor purblind husband?” continued the old man. “Not a
+bad fellow either, as far as he goes.”
+
+“He is quite well.”
+
+“It is a good thing for his cousin what-d’ye-call-her? By George, you
+ought to have been in that galley, my girl! Now I must drive on. Do you
+want any assistance? What’s mine is yours, you know.”
+
+“Thank you, Grandfather, we are not in want at present,” she said
+coldly. “Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly as a useful pastime,
+because he can do nothing else.”
+
+“He is paid for his pastime, isn’t he? Three shillings a hundred, I
+heard.”
+
+“Clym has money,” she said, colouring, “but he likes to earn a little.”
+
+“Very well; good night.” And the captain drove on.
+
+When her grandfather was gone Eustacia went on her way mechanically;
+but her thoughts were no longer concerning her mother-in-law and Clym.
+Wildeve, notwithstanding his complaints against his fate, had been
+seized upon by destiny and placed in the sunshine once more. Eleven
+thousand pounds! From every Egdon point of view he was a rich man. In
+Eustacia’s eyes, too, it was an ample sum—one sufficient to supply
+those wants of hers which had been stigmatized by Clym in his more
+austere moods as vain and luxurious. Though she was no lover of money
+she loved what money could bring; and the new accessories she imagined
+around him clothed Wildeve with a great deal of interest. She
+recollected now how quietly well-dressed he had been that morning—he
+had probably put on his newest suit, regardless of damage by briars and
+thorns. And then she thought of his manner towards herself.
+
+“O I see it, I see it,” she said. “How much he wishes he had me now,
+that he might give me all I desire!”
+
+In recalling the details of his glances and words—at the time scarcely
+regarded—it became plain to her how greatly they had been dictated by
+his knowledge of this new event. “Had he been a man to bear a jilt
+ill-will he would have told me of his good fortune in crowing tones;
+instead of doing that he mentioned not a word, in deference to my
+misfortunes, and merely implied that he loved me still, as one superior
+to him.”
+
+Wildeve’s silence that day on what had happened to him was just the
+kind of behaviour calculated to make an impression on such a woman.
+Those delicate touches of good taste were, in fact, one of the strong
+points in his demeanour towards the other sex. The peculiarity of
+Wildeve was that, while at one time passionate, upbraiding, and
+resentful towards a woman, at another he would treat her with such
+unparalleled grace as to make previous neglect appear as no
+discourtesy, injury as no insult, interference as a delicate attention,
+and the ruin of her honour as excess of chivalry. This man, whose
+admiration today Eustacia had disregarded, whose good wishes she had
+scarcely taken the trouble to accept, whom she had shown out of the
+house by the back door, was the possessor of eleven thousand pounds—a
+man of fair professional education, and one who had served his articles
+with a civil engineer.
+
+So intent was Eustacia upon Wildeve’s fortunes that she forgot how much
+closer to her own course were those of Clym; and instead of walking on
+to meet him at once she sat down upon a stone. She was disturbed in her
+reverie by a voice behind, and turning her head beheld the old lover
+and fortunate inheritor of wealth immediately beside her.
+
+She remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look might have
+told any man who knew her so well as Wildeve that she was thinking of
+him.
+
+“How did you come here?” she said in her clear low tone. “I thought you
+were at home.”
+
+“I went on to the village after leaving your garden; and now I have
+come back again—that’s all. Which way are you walking, may I ask?”
+
+She waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. “I am going to meet
+my husband. I think I may possibly have got into trouble whilst you
+were with me today.”
+
+“How could that be?”
+
+“By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright.”
+
+“I hope that visit of mine did you no harm.”
+
+“None. It was not your fault,” she said quietly.
+
+By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on
+together, without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia
+broke silence by saying, “I assume I must congratulate you.”
+
+“On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since I
+didn’t get something else, I must be content with getting that.”
+
+“You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn’t you tell me today when
+you came?” she said in the tone of a neglected person. “I heard of it
+quite by accident.”
+
+“I did mean to tell you,” said Wildeve. “But I—well, I will speak
+frankly—I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your
+star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work,
+as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you
+would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I
+could not help feeling too that in many respects he was a richer man
+than I.”
+
+At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, “What, would
+you exchange with him—your fortune for me?”
+
+“I certainly would,” said Wildeve.
+
+“As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change
+the subject?”
+
+“Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you care
+to hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds, keep one
+thousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand travel for a
+year or so.”
+
+“Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?”
+
+“From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then I
+shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot weather
+comes on. In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a plan not
+yet settled, I shall go to Australia and round to India. By that time I
+shall have begun to have had enough of it. Then I shall probably come
+back to Paris again, and there I shall stay as long as I can afford
+to.”
+
+“Back to Paris again,” she murmured in a voice that was nearly a sigh.
+She had never once told Wildeve of the Parisian desires which Clym’s
+description had sown in her; yet here was he involuntarily in a
+position to gratify them. “You think a good deal of Paris?” she added.
+
+“Yes. In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot of the world.”
+
+“And in mine! And Thomasin will go with you?”
+
+“Yes, if she cares to. She may prefer to stay at home.”
+
+“So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!”
+
+“I suppose you will. But we know whose fault that is.”
+
+“I am not blaming you,” she said quickly.
+
+“Oh, I thought you were. If ever you _should_ be inclined to blame me,
+think of a certain evening by Rainbarrow, when you promised to meet me
+and did not. You sent me a letter; and my heart ached to read that as I
+hope yours never will. That was one point of divergence. I then did
+something in haste.... But she is a good woman, and I will say no
+more.”
+
+“I know that the blame was on my side that time,” said Eustacia. “But
+it had not always been so. However, it is my misfortune to be too
+sudden in feeling. O, Damon, don’t reproach me any more—I can’t bear
+that.”
+
+They went on silently for a distance of two or three miles, when
+Eustacia said suddenly, “Haven’t you come out of your way, Mr.
+Wildeve?”
+
+“My way is anywhere tonight. I will go with you as far as the hill on
+which we can see Blooms-End, as it is getting late for you to be
+alone.”
+
+“Don’t trouble. I am not obliged to be out at all. I think I would
+rather you did not accompany me further. This sort of thing would have
+an odd look if known.”
+
+“Very well, I will leave you.” He took her hand unexpectedly, and
+kissed it—for the first time since her marriage. “What light is that on
+the hill?” he added, as it were to hide the caress.
+
+She looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding from the open
+side of a hovel a little way before them. The hovel, which she had
+hitherto always found empty, seemed to be inhabited now.
+
+“Since you have come so far,” said Eustacia, “will you see me safely
+past that hut? I thought I should have met Clym somewhere about here,
+but as he doesn’t appear I will hasten on and get to Blooms-End before
+he leaves.”
+
+They advanced to the turf-shed, and when they got near it the firelight
+and the lantern inside showed distinctly enough the form of a woman
+reclining on a bed of fern, a group of heath men and women standing
+around her. Eustacia did not recognize Mrs. Yeobright in the reclining
+figure, nor Clym as one of the standers-by till she came close. Then
+she quickly pressed her hand up on Wildeve’s arm and signified to him
+to come back from the open side of the shed into the shadow.
+
+“It is my husband and his mother,” she whispered in an agitated voice.
+“What can it mean? Will you step forward and tell me?”
+
+Wildeve left her side and went to the back wall of the hut. Presently
+Eustacia perceived that he was beckoning to her, and she advanced and
+joined him.
+
+“It is a serious case,” said Wildeve.
+
+From their position they could hear what was proceeding inside.
+
+“I cannot think where she could have been going,” said Clym to someone.
+“She had evidently walked a long way, but even when she was able to
+speak just now she would not tell me where. What do you really think of
+her?”
+
+“There is a great deal to fear,” was gravely answered, in a voice which
+Eustacia recognized as that of the only surgeon in the district. “She
+has suffered somewhat from the bite of the adder; but it is exhaustion
+which has overpowered her. My impression is that her walk must have
+been exceptionally long.”
+
+“I used to tell her not to overwalk herself this weather,” said Clym,
+with distress. “Do you think we did well in using the adder’s fat?”
+
+“Well, it is a very ancient remedy—the old remedy of the
+viper-catchers, I believe,” replied the doctor. “It is mentioned as an
+infallible ointment by Hoffman, Mead, and I think the Abbé Fontana.
+Undoubtedly it was as good a thing as you could do; though I question
+if some other oils would not have been equally efficacious.”
+
+“Come here, come here!” was then rapidly said in anxious female tones,
+and Clym and the doctor could be heard rushing forward from the back
+part of the shed to where Mrs. Yeobright lay.
+
+“Oh, what is it?” whispered Eustacia.
+
+“’Twas Thomasin who spoke,” said Wildeve. “Then they have fetched her.
+I wonder if I had better go in—yet it might do harm.”
+
+For a long time there was utter silence among the group within; and it
+was broken at last by Clym saying, in an agonized voice, “O Doctor,
+what does it mean?”
+
+The doctor did not reply at once; ultimately he said, “She is sinking
+fast. Her heart was previously affected, and physical exhaustion has
+dealt the finishing blow.”
+
+Then there was a weeping of women, then waiting, then hushed
+exclamations, then a strange gasping sound, then a painful stillness.
+
+“It is all over,” said the doctor.
+
+Further back in the hut the cotters whispered, “Mrs. Yeobright is
+dead.”
+
+Almost at the same moment the two watchers observed the form of a small
+old-fashioned child entering at the open side of the shed. Susan
+Nunsuch, whose boy it was, went forward to the opening and silently
+beckoned to him to go back.
+
+“I’ve got something to tell ’ee, Mother,” he cried in a shrill tone.
+“That woman asleep there walked along with me today; and she said I was
+to say that I had seed her, and she was a broken-hearted woman and cast
+off by her son, and then I came on home.”
+
+A confused sob as from a man was heard within, upon which Eustacia
+gasped faintly, “That’s Clym—I must go to him—yet dare I do it? No—come
+away!”
+
+When they had withdrawn from the neighbourhood of the shed she said
+huskily, “I am to blame for this. There is evil in store for me.”
+
+“Was she not admitted to your house after all?” Wildeve inquired.
+
+“No, and that’s where it all lies! Oh, what shall I do! I shall not
+intrude upon them—I shall go straight home. Damon, good-bye! I cannot
+speak to you any more now.”
+
+They parted company; and when Eustacia had reached the next hill she
+looked back. A melancholy procession was wending its way by the light
+of the lantern from the hut towards Blooms-End. Wildeve was nowhere to
+be seen.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIFTH—THE DISCOVERY
+
+
+
+
+I.
+“Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery”
+
+
+One evening, about three weeks after the funeral of Mrs. Yeobright,
+when the silver face of the moon sent a bundle of beams directly upon
+the floor of Clym’s house at Alderworth, a woman came forth from
+within. She reclined over the garden gate as if to refresh herself
+awhile. The pale lunar touches which make beauties of hags lent
+divinity to this face, already beautiful.
+
+She had not long been there when a man came up the road and with some
+hesitation said to her, “How is he tonight, ma’am, if you please?”
+
+“He is better, though still very unwell, Humphrey,” replied Eustacia.
+
+“Is he light-headed, ma’am?”
+
+“No. He is quite sensible now.”
+
+“Do he rave about his mother just the same, poor fellow?” continued
+Humphrey.
+
+“Just as much, though not quite so wildly,” she said in a low voice.
+
+“It was very unfortunate, ma’am, that the boy Johnny should ever ha’
+told him his mother’s dying words, about her being broken-hearted and
+cast off by her son. ’Twas enough to upset any man alive.”
+
+Eustacia made no reply beyond that of a slight catch in her breath, as
+of one who fain would speak but could not; and Humphrey, declining her
+invitation to come in, went away.
+
+Eustacia turned, entered the house, and ascended to the front bedroom,
+where a shaded light was burning. In the bed lay Clym, pale, haggard,
+wide awake, tossing to one side and to the other, his eyes lit by a hot
+light, as if the fire in their pupils were burning up their substance.
+
+“Is it you, Eustacia?” he said as she sat down.
+
+“Yes, Clym. I have been down to the gate. The moon is shining
+beautifully, and there is not a leaf stirring.”
+
+“Shining, is it? What’s the moon to a man like me? Let it shine—let
+anything be, so that I never see another day!... Eustacia, I don’t know
+where to look—my thoughts go through me like swords. O, if any man
+wants to make himself immortal by painting a picture of wretchedness,
+let him come here!”
+
+“Why do you say so?”
+
+“I cannot help feeling that I did my best to kill her.”
+
+“No, Clym.”
+
+“Yes, it was so; it is useless to excuse me! My conduct to her was too
+hideous—I made no advances; and she could not bring herself to forgive
+me. Now she is dead! If I had only shown myself willing to make it up
+with her sooner, and we had been friends, and then she had died, it
+wouldn’t be so hard to bear. But I never went near her house, so she
+never came near mine, and didn’t know how welcome she would have
+been—that’s what troubles me. She did not know I was going to her house
+that very night, for she was too insensible to understand me. If she
+had only come to see me! I longed that she would. But it was not to
+be.”
+
+There escaped from Eustacia one of those shivering sighs which used to
+shake her like a pestilent blast. She had not yet told.
+
+But Yeobright was too deeply absorbed in the ramblings incidental to
+his remorseful state to notice her. During his illness he had been
+continually talking thus. Despair had been added to his original grief
+by the unfortunate disclosure of the boy who had received the last
+words of Mrs. Yeobright—words too bitterly uttered in an hour of
+misapprehension. Then his distress had overwhelmed him, and he longed
+for death as a field labourer longs for the shade. It was the pitiful
+sight of a man standing in the very focus of sorrow. He continually
+bewailed his tardy journey to his mother’s house, because it was an
+error which could never be rectified, and insisted that he must have
+been horribly perverted by some fiend not to have thought before that
+it was his duty to go to her, since she did not come to him. He would
+ask Eustacia to agree with him in his self-condemnation; and when she,
+seared inwardly by a secret she dared not tell, declared that she could
+not give an opinion, he would say, “That’s because you didn’t know my
+mother’s nature. She was always ready to forgive if asked to do so; but
+I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that made her
+unyielding. Yet not unyielding—she was proud and reserved, no more....
+Yes, I can understand why she held out against me so long. She was
+waiting for me. I dare say she said a hundred times in her sorrow,
+‘What a return he makes for all the sacrifices I have made for him!’ I
+never went to her! When I set out to visit her it was too late. To
+think of that is nearly intolerable!”
+
+Sometimes his condition had been one of utter remorse, unsoftened by a
+single tear of pure sorrow: and then he writhed as he lay, fevered far
+more by thought than by physical ills. “If I could only get one
+assurance that she did not die in a belief that I was resentful,” he
+said one day when in this mood, “it would be better to think of than a
+hope of heaven. But that I cannot do.”
+
+“You give yourself up too much to this wearying despair,” said
+Eustacia. “Other men’s mothers have died.”
+
+“That doesn’t make the loss of mine less. Yet it is less the loss than
+the circumstances of the loss. I sinned against her, and on that
+account there is no light for me.”
+
+“She sinned against you, I think.”
+
+“No, she did not. I committed the guilt; and may the whole burden be
+upon my head!”
+
+“I think you might consider twice before you say that,” Eustacia
+replied. “Single men have, no doubt, a right to curse themselves as
+much as they please; but men with wives involve two in the doom they
+pray down.”
+
+“I am in too sorry a state to understand what you are refining on,”
+said the wretched man. “Day and night shout at me, ‘You have helped to
+kill her.’ But in loathing myself I may, I own, be unjust to you, my
+poor wife. Forgive me for it, Eustacia, for I scarcely know what I do.”
+
+Eustacia was always anxious to avoid the sight of her husband in such a
+state as this, which had become as dreadful to her as the trial scene
+was to Judas Iscariot. It brought before her eyes the spectre of a
+worn-out woman knocking at a door which she would not open; and she
+shrank from contemplating it. Yet it was better for Yeobright himself
+when he spoke openly of his sharp regret, for in silence he endured
+infinitely more, and would sometimes remain so long in a tense,
+brooding mood, consuming himself by the gnawing of his thought, that it
+was imperatively necessary to make him talk aloud, that his grief might
+in some degree expend itself in the effort.
+
+Eustacia had not been long indoors after her look at the moonlight when
+a soft footstep came up to the house, and Thomasin was announced by the
+woman downstairs.
+
+“Ah, Thomasin! Thank you for coming tonight,” said Clym when she
+entered the room. “Here am I, you see. Such a wretched spectacle am I,
+that I shrink from being seen by a single friend, and almost from you.”
+
+“You must not shrink from me, dear Clym,” said Thomasin earnestly, in
+that sweet voice of hers which came to a sufferer like fresh air into a
+Black Hole. “Nothing in you can ever shock me or drive me away. I have
+been here before, but you don’t remember it.”
+
+“Yes, I do; I am not delirious, Thomasin, nor have I been so at all.
+Don’t you believe that if they say so. I am only in great misery at
+what I have done, and that, with the weakness, makes me seem mad. But
+it has not upset my reason. Do you think I should remember all about my
+mother’s death if I were out of my mind? No such good luck. Two months
+and a half, Thomasin, the last of her life, did my poor mother live
+alone, distracted and mourning because of me; yet she was unvisited by
+me, though I was living only six miles off. Two months and a
+half—seventy-five days did the sun rise and set upon her in that
+deserted state which a dog didn’t deserve! Poor people who had nothing
+in common with her would have cared for her, and visited her had they
+known her sickness and loneliness; but I, who should have been all to
+her, stayed away like a cur. If there is any justice in God let Him
+kill me now. He has nearly blinded me, but that is not enough. If He
+would only strike me with more pain I would believe in Him forever!”
+
+“Hush, hush! O, pray, Clym, don’t, don’t say it!” implored Thomasin,
+affrighted into sobs and tears; while Eustacia, at the other side of
+the room, though her pale face remained calm, writhed in her chair.
+Clym went on without heeding his cousin.
+
+“But I am not worth receiving further proof even of Heaven’s
+reprobation. Do you think, Thomasin, that she knew me—that she did not
+die in that horrid mistaken notion about my not forgiving her, which I
+can’t tell you how she acquired? If you could only assure me of that!
+Do you think so, Eustacia? Do speak to me.”
+
+“I think I can assure you that she knew better at last,” said Thomasin.
+The pallid Eustacia said nothing.
+
+“Why didn’t she come to my house? I would have taken her in and showed
+her how I loved her in spite of all. But she never came; and I didn’t
+go to her, and she died on the heath like an animal kicked out, nobody
+to help her till it was too late. If you could have seen her, Thomasin,
+as I saw her—a poor dying woman, lying in the dark upon the bare
+ground, moaning, nobody near, believing she was utterly deserted by all
+the world, it would have moved you to anguish, it would have moved a
+brute. And this poor woman my mother! No wonder she said to the child,
+‘You have seen a broken-hearted woman.’ What a state she must have been
+brought to, to say that! and who can have done it but I? It is too
+dreadful to think of, and I wish I could be punished more heavily than
+I am. How long was I what they called out of my senses?”
+
+“A week, I think.”
+
+“And then I became calm.”
+
+“Yes, for four days.”
+
+“And now I have left off being calm.”
+
+“But try to be quiet—please do, and you will soon be strong. If you
+could remove that impression from your mind—”
+
+“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “But I don’t want to get strong.
+What’s the use of my getting well? It would be better for me if I die,
+and it would certainly be better for Eustacia. Is Eustacia there?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It would be better for you, Eustacia, if I were to die?”
+
+“Don’t press such a question, dear Clym.”
+
+“Well, it really is but a shadowy supposition; for unfortunately I am
+going to live. I feel myself getting better. Thomasin, how long are you
+going to stay at the inn, now that all this money has come to your
+husband?”
+
+“Another month or two, probably; until my illness is over. We cannot
+get off till then. I think it will be a month or more.”
+
+“Yes, yes. Of course. Ah, Cousin Tamsie, you will get over your
+trouble—one little month will take you through it, and bring something
+to console you; but I shall never get over mine, and no consolation
+will come!”
+
+“Clym, you are unjust to yourself. Depend upon it, Aunt thought kindly
+of you. I know that, if she had lived, you would have been reconciled
+with her.”
+
+“But she didn’t come to see me, though I asked her, before I married,
+if she would come. Had she come, or had I gone there, she would never
+have died saying, ‘I am a broken-hearted woman, cast off by my son.’ My
+door has always been open to her—a welcome here has always awaited her.
+But that she never came to see.”
+
+“You had better not talk any more now, Clym,” said Eustacia faintly
+from the other part of the room, for the scene was growing intolerable
+to her.
+
+“Let me talk to you instead for the little time I shall be here,”
+Thomasin said soothingly. “Consider what a one-sided way you have of
+looking at the matter, Clym. When she said that to the little boy you
+had not found her and taken her into your arms; and it might have been
+uttered in a moment of bitterness. It was rather like Aunt to say
+things in haste. She sometimes used to speak so to me. Though she did
+not come I am convinced that she thought of coming to see you. Do you
+suppose a man’s mother could live two or three months without one
+forgiving thought? She forgave me; and why should she not have forgiven
+you?”
+
+“You laboured to win her round; I did nothing. I, who was going to
+teach people the higher secrets of happiness, did not know how to keep
+out of that gross misery which the most untaught are wise enough to
+avoid.”
+
+“How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?” said Eustacia.
+
+“Damon set me down at the end of the lane. He has driven into East
+Egdon on business, and he will come and pick me up by-and-by.”
+
+Accordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels. Wildeve had
+come, and was waiting outside with his horse and gig.
+
+“Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes,” said Thomasin.
+
+“I will run down myself,” said Eustacia.
+
+She went down. Wildeve had alighted, and was standing before the
+horse’s head when Eustacia opened the door. He did not turn for a
+moment, thinking the comer Thomasin. Then he looked, startled ever so
+little, and said one word: “Well?”
+
+“I have not yet told him,” she replied in a whisper.
+
+“Then don’t do so till he is well—it will be fatal. You are ill
+yourself.”
+
+“I am wretched.... O Damon,” she said, bursting into tears, “I—I can’t
+tell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly bear this. I can tell nobody of
+my trouble—nobody knows of it but you.”
+
+“Poor girl!” said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress, and at
+last led on so far as to take her hand. “It is hard, when you have done
+nothing to deserve it, that you should have got involved in such a web
+as this. You were not made for these sad scenes. I am to blame most. If
+I could only have saved you from it all!”
+
+“But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour
+after hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her
+death, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all,
+drives me into cold despair. I don’t know what to do. Should I tell him
+or should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that. O, I want to
+tell him; and yet I am afraid. If he finds it out he must surely kill
+me, for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings now. ‘Beware
+the fury of a patient man’ sounds day by day in my ears as I watch
+him.”
+
+“Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance. And when you tell,
+you must only tell part—for his own sake.”
+
+“Which part should I keep back?”
+
+Wildeve paused. “That I was in the house at the time,” he said in a low
+tone.
+
+“Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has been whispered. How much
+easier are hasty actions than speeches that will excuse them!”
+
+“If he were only to die—” Wildeve murmured.
+
+“Do not think of it! I would not buy hope of immunity by so cowardly a
+desire even if I hated him. Now I am going up to him again. Thomasin
+bade me tell you she would be down in a few minutes. Good-bye.”
+
+She returned, and Thomasin soon appeared. When she was seated in the
+gig with her husband, and the horse was turning to go off, Wildeve
+lifted his eyes to the bedroom windows. Looking from one of them he
+could discern a pale, tragic face watching him drive away. It was
+Eustacia’s.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding
+
+
+Clym’s grief became mitigated by wearing itself out. His strength
+returned, and a month after the visit of Thomasin he might have been
+seen walking about the garden. Endurance and despair, equanimity and
+gloom, the tints of health and the pallor of death, mingled weirdly in
+his face. He was now unnaturally silent upon all of the past that
+related to his mother; and though Eustacia knew that he was thinking of
+it none the less, she was only too glad to escape the topic ever to
+bring it up anew. When his mind had been weaker his heart had led him
+to speak out; but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he sank
+into taciturnity.
+
+One evening when he was thus standing in the garden, abstractedly
+spudding up a weed with his stick, a bony figure turned the corner of
+the house and came up to him.
+
+“Christian, isn’t it?” said Clym. “I am glad you have found me out. I
+shall soon want you to go to Blooms-End and assist me in putting the
+house in order. I suppose it is all locked up as I left it?”
+
+“Yes, Mister Clym.”
+
+“Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?”
+
+“Yes, without a drop o’ rain, thank God. But I was coming to tell ’ee
+of something else which is quite different from what we have lately had
+in the family. I am sent by the rich gentleman at the Woman, that we
+used to call the landlord, to tell ’ee that Mrs. Wildeve is doing well
+of a girl, which was born punctually at one o’clock at noon, or a few
+minutes more or less; and ’tis said that expecting of this increase is
+what have kept ’em there since they came into their money.”
+
+“And she is getting on well, you say?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Only Mr. Wildeve is twanky because ’tisn’t a boy—that’s what
+they say in the kitchen, but I was not supposed to notice that.”
+
+“Christian, now listen to me.”
+
+“Yes, sure, Mr. Yeobright.”
+
+“Did you see my mother the day before she died?”
+
+“No, I did not.”
+
+Yeobright’s face expressed disappointment.
+
+“But I zeed her the morning of the same day she died.”
+
+Clym’s look lighted up. “That’s nearer still to my meaning,” he said.
+
+“Yes, I know ’twas the same day; for she said, ‘I be going to see him,
+Christian; so I shall not want any vegetables brought in for dinner.’”
+
+“See whom?”
+
+“See you. She was going to your house, you understand.”
+
+Yeobright regarded Christian with intense surprise. “Why did you never
+mention this?” he said. “Are you sure it was my house she was coming
+to?”
+
+“O yes. I didn’t mention it because I’ve never zeed you lately. And as
+she didn’t get there it was all nought, and nothing to tell.”
+
+“And I have been wondering why she should have walked in the heath on
+that hot day! Well, did she say what she was coming for? It is a thing,
+Christian, I am very anxious to know.”
+
+“Yes, Mister Clym. She didn’t say it to me, though I think she did to
+one here and there.”
+
+“Do you know one person to whom she spoke of it?”
+
+“There is one man, please, sir, but I hope you won’t mention my name to
+him, as I have seen him in strange places, particular in dreams. One
+night last summer he glared at me like Famine and Sword, and it made me
+feel so low that I didn’t comb out my few hairs for two days. He was
+standing, as it might be, Mister Yeobright, in the middle of the path
+to Mistover, and your mother came up, looking as pale—”
+
+“Yes, when was that?”
+
+“Last summer, in my dream.”
+
+“Pooh! Who’s the man?”
+
+“Diggory, the reddleman. He called upon her and sat with her the
+evening before she set out to see you. I hadn’t gone home from work
+when he came up to the gate.”
+
+“I must see Venn—I wish I had known it before,” said Clym anxiously. “I
+wonder why he has not come to tell me?”
+
+“He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not be likely to
+know you wanted him.”
+
+“Christian,” said Clym, “you must go and find Venn. I am otherwise
+engaged, or I would go myself. Find him at once, and tell him I want to
+speak to him.”
+
+“I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day,” said Christian, looking
+dubiously round at the declining light; “but as to night-time, never is
+such a bad hand as I, Mister Yeobright.”
+
+“Search the heath when you will, so that you bring him soon. Bring him
+tomorrow, if you can.”
+
+Christian then departed. The morrow came, but no Venn. In the evening
+Christian arrived, looking very weary. He had been searching all day,
+and had heard nothing of the reddleman.
+
+“Inquire as much as you can tomorrow without neglecting your work,”
+said Yeobright. “Don’t come again till you have found him.”
+
+The next day Yeobright set out for the old house at Blooms-End, which,
+with the garden, was now his own. His severe illness had hindered all
+preparations for his removal thither; but it had become necessary that
+he should go and overlook its contents, as administrator to his
+mother’s little property; for which purpose he decided to pass the next
+night on the premises.
+
+He journeyed onward, not quickly or decisively, but in the slow walk of
+one who has been awakened from a stupefying sleep. It was early
+afternoon when he reached the valley. The expression of the place, the
+tone of the hour, were precisely those of many such occasions in days
+gone by; and these antecedent similarities fostered the illusion that
+she, who was there no longer, would come out to welcome him. The garden
+gate was locked and the shutters were closed, just as he himself had
+left them on the evening after the funeral. He unlocked the gate, and
+found that a spider had already constructed a large web, tying the door
+to the lintel, on the supposition that it was never to be opened again.
+When he had entered the house and flung back the shutters he set about
+his task of overhauling the cupboards and closets, burning papers, and
+considering how best to arrange the place for Eustacia’s reception,
+until such time as he might be in a position to carry out his
+long-delayed scheme, should that time ever arrive.
+
+As he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined for the
+alterations which would have to be made in the time-honoured furnishing
+of his parents and grandparents, to suit Eustacia’s modern ideas. The
+gaunt oak-cased clock, with the picture of the Ascension on the door
+panel and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes on the base; his
+grandmother’s corner cupboard with the glass door, through which the
+spotted china was visible; the dumb-waiter; the wooden tea trays; the
+hanging fountain with the brass tap—whither would these venerable
+articles have to be banished?
+
+He noticed that the flowers in the window had died for want of water,
+and he placed them out upon the ledge, that they might be taken away.
+While thus engaged he heard footsteps on the gravel without, and
+somebody knocked at the door.
+
+Yeobright opened it, and Venn was standing before him.
+
+“Good morning,” said the reddleman. “Is Mrs. Yeobright at home?”
+
+Yeobright looked upon the ground. “Then you have not seen Christian or
+any of the Egdon folks?” he said.
+
+“No. I have only just returned after a long stay away. I called here
+the day before I left.”
+
+“And you have heard nothing?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“My mother is—dead.”
+
+“Dead!” said Venn mechanically.
+
+“Her home now is where I shouldn’t mind having mine.”
+
+Venn regarded him, and then said, “If I didn’t see your face I could
+never believe your words. Have you been ill?”
+
+“I had an illness.”
+
+“Well, the change! When I parted from her a month ago everything seemed
+to say that she was going to begin a new life.”
+
+“And what seemed came true.”
+
+“You say right, no doubt. Trouble has taught you a deeper vein of talk
+than mine. All I meant was regarding her life here. She has died too
+soon.”
+
+“Perhaps through my living too long. I have had a bitter experience on
+that score this last month, Diggory. But come in; I have been wanting
+to see you.”
+
+He conducted the reddleman into the large room where the dancing had
+taken place the previous Christmas, and they sat down in the settle
+together. “There’s the cold fireplace, you see,” said Clym. “When that
+half-burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive! Little has
+been changed here yet. I can do nothing. My life creeps like a snail.”
+
+“How came she to die?” said Venn.
+
+Yeobright gave him some particulars of her illness and death, and
+continued: “After this no kind of pain will ever seem more than an
+indisposition to me. I began saying that I wanted to ask you something,
+but I stray from subjects like a drunken man. I am anxious to know what
+my mother said to you when she last saw you. You talked with her a long
+time, I think?”
+
+“I talked with her more than half an hour.”
+
+“About me?”
+
+“Yes. And it must have been on account of what we said that she was on
+the heath. Without question she was coming to see you.”
+
+“But why should she come to see me if she felt so bitterly against me?
+There’s the mystery.”
+
+“Yet I know she quite forgave ’ee.”
+
+“But, Diggory—would a woman, who had quite forgiven her son, say, when
+she felt herself ill on the way to his house, that she was
+broken-hearted because of his ill-usage? Never!”
+
+“What I know is that she didn’t blame you at all. She blamed herself
+for what had happened, and only herself. I had it from her own lips.”
+
+“You had it from her lips that I had _not_ ill-treated her; and at the
+same time another had it from her lips that I _had_ ill-treated her? My
+mother was no impulsive woman who changed her opinion every hour
+without reason. How can it be, Venn, that she should have told such
+different stories in close succession?”
+
+“I cannot say. It is certainly odd, when she had forgiven you, and had
+forgiven your wife, and was going to see ye on purpose to make
+friends.”
+
+“If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this
+incomprehensible thing!... Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only
+allowed to hold conversation with the dead—just once, a bare minute,
+even through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison—what we
+might learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And
+this mystery—I should then be at the bottom of it at once. But the
+grave has forever shut her in; and how shall it be found out now?”
+
+No reply was returned by his companion, since none could be given; and
+when Venn left, a few minutes later, Clym had passed from the dullness
+of sorrow to the fluctuation of carking incertitude.
+
+He continued in the same state all the afternoon. A bed was made up for
+him in the same house by a neighbour, that he might not have to return
+again the next day; and when he retired to rest in the deserted place
+it was only to remain awake hour after hour thinking the same thoughts.
+How to discover a solution to this riddle of death seemed a query of
+more importance than highest problems of the living. There was housed
+in his memory a vivid picture of the face of a little boy as he entered
+the hovel where Clym’s mother lay. The round eyes, eager gaze, the
+piping voice which enunciated the words, had operated like stilettos on
+his brain.
+
+A visit to the boy suggested itself as a means of gleaning new
+particulars; though it might be quite unproductive. To probe a child’s
+mind after the lapse of six weeks, not for facts which the child had
+seen and understood, but to get at those which were in their nature
+beyond him, did not promise much; yet when every obvious channel is
+blocked we grope towards the small and obscure. There was nothing else
+left to do; after that he would allow the enigma to drop into the abyss
+of undiscoverable things.
+
+It was about daybreak when he had reached this decision, and he at once
+arose. He locked up the house and went out into the green patch which
+merged in heather further on. In front of the white garden-palings the
+path branched into three like a broad arrow. The road to the right led
+to the Quiet Woman and its neighbourhood; the middle track led to
+Mistover Knap; the left-hand track led over the hill to another part of
+Mistover, where the child lived. On inclining into the latter path
+Yeobright felt a creeping chilliness, familiar enough to most people,
+and probably caused by the unsunned morning air. In after days he
+thought of it as a thing of singular significance.
+
+When Yeobright reached the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, the mother of the
+boy he sought, he found that the inmates were not yet astir. But in
+upland hamlets the transition from a-bed to abroad is surprisingly
+swift and easy. There no dense partition of yawns and toilets divides
+humanity by night from humanity by day. Yeobright tapped at the upper
+windowsill, which he could reach with his walking stick; and in three
+or four minutes the woman came down.
+
+It was not till this moment that Clym recollected her to be the person
+who had behaved so barbarously to Eustacia. It partly explained the
+insuavity with which the woman greeted him. Moreover, the boy had been
+ailing again; and Susan now, as ever since the night when he had been
+pressed into Eustacia’s service at the bonfire, attributed his
+indispositions to Eustacia’s influence as a witch. It was one of those
+sentiments which lurk like moles underneath the visible surface of
+manners, and may have been kept alive by Eustacia’s entreaty to the
+captain, at the time that he had intended to prosecute Susan for the
+pricking in church, to let the matter drop; which he accordingly had
+done.
+
+Yeobright overcame his repugnance, for Susan had at least borne his
+mother no ill-will. He asked kindly for the boy; but her manner did not
+improve.
+
+“I wish to see him,” continued Yeobright, with some hesitation, “to ask
+him if he remembers anything more of his walk with my mother than what
+he has previously told.”
+
+She regarded him in a peculiar and criticizing manner. To anybody but a
+half-blind man it would have said, “You want another of the knocks
+which have already laid you so low.”
+
+She called the boy downstairs, asked Clym to sit down on a stool, and
+continued, “Now, Johnny, tell Mr. Yeobright anything you can call to
+mind.”
+
+“You have not forgotten how you walked with the poor lady on that hot
+day?” said Clym.
+
+“No,” said the boy.
+
+“And what she said to you?”
+
+The boy repeated the exact words he had used on entering the hut.
+Yeobright rested his elbow on the table and shaded his face with his
+hand; and the mother looked as if she wondered how a man could want
+more of what had stung him so deeply.
+
+“She was going to Alderworth when you first met her?”
+
+“No; she was coming away.”
+
+“That can’t be.”
+
+“Yes; she walked along with me. I was coming away, too.”
+
+“Then where did you first see her?”
+
+“At your house.”
+
+“Attend, and speak the truth!” said Clym sternly.
+
+“Yes, sir; at your house was where I seed her first.”
+
+Clym started up, and Susan smiled in an expectant way which did not
+embellish her face; it seemed to mean, “Something sinister is coming!”
+
+“What did she do at my house?”
+
+“She went and sat under the trees at the Devil’s Bellows.”
+
+“Good God! this is all news to me!”
+
+“You never told me this before?” said Susan.
+
+“No, Mother; because I didn’t like to tell ’ee I had been so far. I was
+picking blackhearts, and went further than I meant.”
+
+“What did she do then?” said Yeobright.
+
+“Looked at a man who came up and went into your house.”
+
+“That was myself—a furze-cutter, with brambles in his hand.”
+
+“No; ’twas not you. ’Twas a gentleman. You had gone in afore.”
+
+“Who was he?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Now tell me what happened next.”
+
+“The poor lady went and knocked at your door, and the lady with black
+hair looked out of the side window at her.”
+
+The boy’s mother turned to Clym and said, “This is something you didn’t
+expect?”
+
+Yeobright took no more notice of her than if he had been of stone. “Go
+on, go on,” he said hoarsely to the boy.
+
+“And when she saw the young lady look out of the window the old lady
+knocked again; and when nobody came she took up the furze-hook and
+looked at it, and put it down again, and then she looked at the
+faggot-bonds; and then she went away, and walked across to me, and
+blowed her breath very hard, like this. We walked on together, she and
+I, and I talked to her and she talked to me a bit, but not much,
+because she couldn’t blow her breath.”
+
+“O!” murmured Clym, in a low tone, and bowed his head. “Let’s have
+more,” he said.
+
+“She couldn’t talk much, and she couldn’t walk; and her face was, O so
+queer!”
+
+“How was her face?”
+
+“Like yours is now.”
+
+The woman looked at Yeobright, and beheld him colourless, in a cold
+sweat. “Isn’t there meaning in it?” she said stealthily. “What do you
+think of her now?”
+
+“Silence!” said Clym fiercely. And, turning to the boy, “And then you
+left her to die?”
+
+“No,” said the woman, quickly and angrily. “He did not leave her to
+die! She sent him away. Whoever says he forsook her says what’s not
+true.”
+
+“Trouble no more about that,” answered Clym, with a quivering mouth.
+“What he did is a trifle in comparison with what he saw. Door kept
+shut, did you say? Kept shut, she looking out of window? Good heart of
+God!—what does it mean?”
+
+The child shrank away from the gaze of his questioner.
+
+“He said so,” answered the mother, “and Johnny’s a God-fearing boy and
+tells no lies.”
+
+“‘Cast off by my son!’ No, by my best life, dear mother, it is not so!
+But by your son’s, your son’s—May all murderesses get the torment they
+deserve!”
+
+With these words Yeobright went forth from the little dwelling. The
+pupils of his eyes, fixed steadfastly on blankness, were vaguely lit
+with an icy shine; his mouth had passed into the phase more or less
+imaginatively rendered in studies of Oedipus. The strangest deeds were
+possible to his mood. But they were not possible to his situation.
+Instead of there being before him the pale face of Eustacia, and a
+masculine shape unknown, there was only the imperturbable countenance
+of the heath, which, having defied the cataclysmal onsets of centuries,
+reduced to insignificance by its seamed and antique features the
+wildest turmoil of a single man.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning
+
+
+A consciousness of a vast impassivity in all which lay around him took
+possession even of Yeobright in his wild walk towards Alderworth. He
+had once before felt in his own person this overpowering of the fervid
+by the inanimate; but then it had tended to enervate a passion far
+sweeter than that which at present pervaded him. It was once when he
+stood parting from Eustacia in the moist still levels beyond the hills.
+
+But dismissing all this he went onward home, and came to the front of
+his house. The blinds of Eustacia’s bedroom were still closely drawn,
+for she was no early riser. All the life visible was in the shape of a
+solitary thrush cracking a small snail upon the door-stone for his
+breakfast, and his tapping seemed a loud noise in the general silence
+which prevailed; but on going to the door Clym found it unfastened, the
+young girl who attended upon Eustacia being astir in the back part of
+the premises. Yeobright entered and went straight to his wife’s room.
+
+The noise of his arrival must have aroused her, for when he opened the
+door she was standing before the looking glass in her nightdress, the
+ends of her hair gathered into one hand, with which she was coiling the
+whole mass round her head, previous to beginning toilette operations.
+She was not a woman given to speaking first at a meeting, and she
+allowed Clym to walk across in silence, without turning her head. He
+came behind her, and she saw his face in the glass. It was ashy,
+haggard, and terrible. Instead of starting towards him in sorrowful
+surprise, as even Eustacia, undemonstrative wife as she was, would have
+done in days before she burdened herself with a secret, she remained
+motionless, looking at him in the glass. And while she looked the
+carmine flush with which warmth and sound sleep had suffused her cheeks
+and neck dissolved from view, and the deathlike pallor in his face flew
+across into hers. He was close enough to see this, and the sight
+instigated his tongue.
+
+“You know what is the matter,” he said huskily. “I see it in your
+face.”
+
+Her hand relinquished the rope of hair and dropped to her side, and the
+pile of tresses, no longer supported, fell from the crown of her head
+about her shoulders and over the white nightgown. She made no reply.
+
+“Speak to me,” said Yeobright peremptorily.
+
+The blanching process did not cease in her, and her lips now became as
+white as her face. She turned to him and said, “Yes, Clym, I’ll speak
+to you. Why do you return so early? Can I do anything for you?”
+
+“Yes, you can listen to me. It seems that my wife is not very well?”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Your face, my dear; your face. Or perhaps it is the pale morning light
+which takes your colour away? Now I am going to reveal a secret to you.
+Ha-ha!”
+
+“O, that is ghastly!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“Your laugh.”
+
+“There’s reason for ghastliness. Eustacia, you have held my happiness
+in the hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it down!”
+
+She started back from the dressing-table, retreated a few steps from
+him, and looked him in the face. “Ah! you think to frighten me,” she
+said, with a slight laugh. “Is it worth while? I am undefended, and
+alone.”
+
+“How extraordinary!”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“As there is ample time I will tell you, though you know well enough. I
+mean that it is extraordinary that you should be alone in my absence.
+Tell me, now, where is he who was with you on the afternoon of the
+thirty-first of August? Under the bed? Up the chimney?”
+
+A shudder overcame her and shook the light fabric of her nightdress
+throughout. “I do not remember dates so exactly,” she said. “I cannot
+recollect that anybody was with me besides yourself.”
+
+“The day I mean,” said Yeobright, his voice growing louder and harsher,
+“was the day you shut the door against my mother and killed her. O, it
+is too much—too bad!” He leant over the footpiece of the bedstead for a
+few moments, with his back towards her; then rising again—“Tell me,
+tell me! tell me—do you hear?” he cried, rushing up to her and seizing
+her by the loose folds of her sleeve.
+
+The superstratum of timidity which often overlies those who are daring
+and defiant at heart had been passed through, and the mettlesome
+substance of the woman was reached. The red blood inundated her face,
+previously so pale.
+
+“What are you going to do?” she said in a low voice, regarding him with
+a proud smile. “You will not alarm me by holding on so; but it would be
+a pity to tear my sleeve.”
+
+Instead of letting go he drew her closer to him. “Tell me the
+particulars of—my mother’s death,” he said in a hard, panting whisper;
+“or—I’ll—I’ll—”
+
+“Clym,” she answered slowly, “do you think you dare do anything to me
+that I dare not bear? But before you strike me listen. You will get
+nothing from me by a blow, even though it should kill me, as it
+probably will. But perhaps you do not wish me to speak—killing may be
+all you mean?”
+
+“Kill you! Do you expect it?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“No less degree of rage against me will match your previous grief for
+her.”
+
+“Phew—I shall not kill you,” he said contemptuously, as if under a
+sudden change of purpose. “I did think of it; but—I shall not. That
+would be making a martyr of you, and sending you to where she is; and I
+would keep you away from her till the universe come to an end, if I
+could.”
+
+“I almost wish you would kill me,” said she with gloomy bitterness. “It
+is with no strong desire, I assure you, that I play the part I have
+lately played on earth. You are no blessing, my husband.”
+
+“You shut the door—you looked out of the window upon her—you had a man
+in the house with you—you sent her away to die. The inhumanity—the
+treachery—I will not touch you—stand away from me—and confess every
+word!”
+
+“Never! I’ll hold my tongue like the very death that I don’t mind
+meeting, even though I can clear myself of half you believe by
+speaking. Yes. I will! Who of any dignity would take the trouble to
+clear cobwebs from a wild man’s mind after such language as this? No;
+let him go on, and think his narrow thoughts, and run his head into the
+mire. I have other cares.”
+
+“’Tis too much—but I must spare you.”
+
+“Poor charity.”
+
+“By my wretched soul you sting me, Eustacia! I can keep it up, and
+hotly too. Now, then, madam, tell me his name!”
+
+“Never, I am resolved.”
+
+“How often does he write to you? Where does he put his letters—when
+does he meet you? Ah, his letters! Do you tell me his name?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Then I’ll find it myself.” His eyes had fallen upon a small desk that
+stood near, on which she was accustomed to write her letters. He went
+to it. It was locked.
+
+“Unlock this!”
+
+“You have no right to say it. That’s mine.”
+
+Without another word he seized the desk and dashed it to the floor. The
+hinge burst open, and a number of letters tumbled out.
+
+“Stay!” said Eustacia, stepping before him with more excitement than
+she had hitherto shown.
+
+“Come, come! stand away! I must see them.”
+
+She looked at the letters as they lay, checked her feeling and moved
+indifferently aside; when he gathered them up, and examined them.
+
+By no stretch of meaning could any but a harmless construction be
+placed upon a single one of the letters themselves. The solitary
+exception was an empty envelope directed to her, and the handwriting
+was Wildeve’s. Yeobright held it up. Eustacia was doggedly silent.
+
+“Can you read, madam? Look at this envelope. Doubtless we shall find
+more soon, and what was inside them. I shall no doubt be gratified by
+learning in good time what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a
+certain trade my lady is.”
+
+“Do you say it to me—do you?” she gasped.
+
+He searched further, but found nothing more. “What was in this letter?”
+he said.
+
+“Ask the writer. Am I your hound that you should talk to me in this
+way?”
+
+“Do you brave me? do you stand me out, mistress? Answer. Don’t look at
+me with those eyes if you would bewitch me again! Sooner than that I
+die. You refuse to answer?”
+
+“I wouldn’t tell you after this, if I were as innocent as the sweetest
+babe in heaven!”
+
+“Which you are not.”
+
+“Certainly I am not absolutely,” she replied. “I have not done what you
+suppose; but if to have done no harm at all is the only innocence
+recognized, I am beyond forgiveness. But I require no help from your
+conscience.”
+
+“You can resist, and resist again! Instead of hating you I could, I
+think, mourn for and pity you, if you were contrite, and would confess
+all. Forgive you I never can. I don’t speak of your lover—I will give
+you the benefit of the doubt in that matter, for it only affects me
+personally. But the other—had you half-killed _me_, had it been that
+you wilfully took the sight away from these feeble eyes of mine, I
+could have forgiven you. But _that’s_ too much for nature!”
+
+“Say no more. I will do without your pity. But I would have saved you
+from uttering what you will regret.”
+
+“I am going away now. I shall leave you.”
+
+“You need not go, as I am going myself. You will keep just as far away
+from me by staying here.”
+
+“Call her to mind—think of her—what goodness there was in her—it showed
+in every line of her face! Most women, even when but slightly annoyed,
+show a flicker of evil in some curl of the mouth or some corner of the
+cheek; but as for her, never in her angriest moments was there anything
+malicious in her look. She was angered quickly, but she forgave just as
+readily, and underneath her pride there was the meekness of a child.
+What came of it?—what cared you? You hated her just as she was learning
+to love you. O! couldn’t you see what was best for you, but must bring
+a curse upon me, and agony and death upon her, by doing that cruel
+deed! What was the fellow’s name who was keeping you company and
+causing you to add cruelty to her to your wrong to me? Was it Wildeve?
+Was it poor Thomasin’s husband? Heaven, what wickedness! Lost your
+voice, have you? It is natural after detection of that most noble
+trick.... Eustacia, didn’t any tender thought of your own mother lead
+you to think of being gentle to mine at such a time of weariness? Did
+not one grain of pity enter your heart as she turned away? Think what a
+vast opportunity was then lost of beginning a forgiving and honest
+course. Why did not you kick him out, and let her in, and say I’ll be
+an honest wife and a noble woman from this hour? Had I told you to go
+and quench eternally our last flickering chance of happiness here you
+could have done no worse. Well, she’s asleep now; and have you a
+hundred gallants, neither they nor you can insult her any more.”
+
+“You exaggerate fearfully,” she said in a faint, weary voice; “but I
+cannot enter into my defence—it is not worth doing. You are nothing to
+me in future, and the past side of the story may as well remain untold.
+I have lost all through you, but I have not complained. Your blunders
+and misfortunes may have been a sorrow to you, but they have been a
+wrong to me. All persons of refinement have been scared away from me
+since I sank into the mire of marriage. Is this your cherishing—to put
+me into a hut like this, and keep me like the wife of a hind? You
+deceived me—not by words, but by appearances, which are less seen
+through than words. But the place will serve as well as any other—as
+somewhere to pass from—into my grave.” Her words were smothered in her
+throat, and her head drooped down.
+
+“I don’t know what you mean by that. Am I the cause of your sin?”
+(Eustacia made a trembling motion towards him.) “What, you can begin to
+shed tears and offer me your hand? Good God! can you? No, not I. I’ll
+not commit the fault of taking that.” (The hand she had offered dropped
+nervelessly, but the tears continued flowing.) “Well, yes, I’ll take
+it, if only for the sake of my own foolish kisses that were wasted
+there before I knew what I cherished. How bewitched I was! How could
+there be any good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?”
+
+“O, O, O!” she cried, breaking down at last; and, shaking with sobs
+which choked her, she sank upon her knees. “O, will you have done! O,
+you are too relentless—there’s a limit to the cruelty of savages! I
+have held out long—but you crush me down. I beg for mercy—I cannot bear
+this any longer—it is inhuman to go further with this! If I had—killed
+your—mother with my own hand—I should not deserve such a scourging to
+the bone as this. O, O! God have mercy upon a miserable woman!... You
+have beaten me in this game—I beg you to stay your hand in pity!... I
+confess that I—wilfully did not undo the door the first time she
+knocked—but—I should have unfastened it the second—if I had not thought
+you had gone to do it yourself. When I found you had not I opened it,
+but she was gone. That’s the extent of my crime—towards _her_. Best
+natures commit bad faults sometimes, don’t they?—I think they do. Now I
+will leave you—for ever and ever!”
+
+“Tell all, and I _will_ pity you. Was the man in the house with you
+Wildeve?”
+
+“I cannot tell,” she said desperately through her sobbing. “Don’t
+insist further—I cannot tell. I am going from this house. We cannot
+both stay here.”
+
+“You need not go—I will go. You can stay here.”
+
+“No, I will dress, and then I will go.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Where I came from, or _else_where.”
+
+She hastily dressed herself, Yeobright moodily walking up and down the
+room the whole of the time. At last all her things were on. Her little
+hands quivered so violently as she held them to her chin to fasten her
+bonnet that she could not tie the strings, and after a few moments she
+relinquished the attempt. Seeing this he moved forward and said, “Let
+me tie them.”
+
+She assented in silence, and lifted her chin. For once at least in her
+life she was totally oblivious of the charm of her attitude. But he was
+not, and he turned his eyes aside, that he might not be tempted to
+softness.
+
+The strings were tied; she turned from him. “Do you still prefer going
+away yourself to my leaving you?” he inquired again.
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Very well—let it be. And when you will confess to the man I may pity
+you.”
+
+She flung her shawl about her and went downstairs, leaving him standing
+in the room.
+
+Eustacia had not long been gone when there came a knock at the door of
+the bedroom; and Yeobright said, “Well?”
+
+It was the servant; and she replied, “Somebody from Mrs. Wildeve’s have
+called to tell ’ee that the mis’ess and the baby are getting on
+wonderful well, and the baby’s name is to be Eustacia Clementine.” And
+the girl retired.
+
+“What a mockery!” said Clym. “This unhappy marriage of mine to be
+perpetuated in that child’s name!”
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One
+
+
+Eustacia’s journey was at first as vague in direction as that of
+thistledown on the wind. She did not know what to do. She wished it had
+been night instead of morning, that she might at least have borne her
+misery without the possibility of being seen. Tracing mile after mile
+along between the dying ferns and the wet white spiders’ webs, she at
+length turned her steps towards her grandfather’s house. She found the
+front door closed and locked. Mechanically she went round to the end
+where the stable was, and on looking in at the stable door she saw
+Charley standing within.
+
+“Captain Vye is not at home?” she said.
+
+“No, ma’am,” said the lad in a flutter of feeling; “he’s gone to
+Weatherbury, and won’t be home till night. And the servant is gone home
+for a holiday. So the house is locked up.”
+
+Eustacia’s face was not visible to Charley as she stood at the doorway,
+her back being to the sky, and the stable but indifferently lighted;
+but the wildness of her manner arrested his attention. She turned and
+walked away across the enclosure to the gate, and was hidden by the
+bank.
+
+When she had disappeared Charley, with misgiving in his eyes, slowly
+came from the stable door, and going to another point in the bank he
+looked over. Eustacia was leaning against it on the outside, her face
+covered with her hands, and her head pressing the dewy heather which
+bearded the bank’s outer side. She appeared to be utterly indifferent
+to the circumstance that her bonnet, hair, and garments were becoming
+wet and disarranged by the moisture of her cold, harsh pillow. Clearly
+something was wrong.
+
+Charley had always regarded Eustacia as Eustacia had regarded Clym when
+she first beheld him—as a romantic and sweet vision, scarcely
+incarnate. He had been so shut off from her by the dignity of her look
+and the pride of her speech, except at that one blissful interval when
+he was allowed to hold her hand, that he had hardly deemed her a woman,
+wingless and earthly, subject to household conditions and domestic
+jars. The inner details of her life he had only conjectured. She had
+been a lovely wonder, predestined to an orbit in which the whole of his
+own was but a point; and this sight of her leaning like a helpless,
+despairing creature against a wild wet bank filled him with an amazed
+horror. He could no longer remain where he was. Leaping over, he came
+up, touched her with his finger, and said tenderly, “You are poorly,
+ma’am. What can I do?”
+
+Eustacia started up, and said, “Ah, Charley—you have followed me. You
+did not think when I left home in the summer that I should come back
+like this!”
+
+“I did not, dear ma’am. Can I help you now?”
+
+“I am afraid not. I wish I could get into the house. I feel
+giddy—that’s all.”
+
+“Lean on my arm, ma’am, till we get to the porch, and I will try to
+open the door.”
+
+He supported her to the porch, and there depositing her on a seat
+hastened to the back, climbed to a window by the help of a ladder, and
+descending inside opened the door. Next he assisted her into the room,
+where there was an old-fashioned horsehair settee as large as a donkey
+wagon. She lay down here, and Charley covered her with a cloak he found
+in the hall.
+
+“Shall I get you something to eat and drink?” he said.
+
+“If you please, Charley. But I suppose there is no fire?”
+
+“I can light it, ma’am.”
+
+He vanished, and she heard a splitting of wood and a blowing of
+bellows; and presently he returned, saying, “I have lighted a fire in
+the kitchen, and now I’ll light one here.”
+
+He lit the fire, Eustacia dreamily observing him from her couch. When
+it was blazing up he said, “Shall I wheel you round in front of it,
+ma’am, as the morning is chilly?”
+
+“Yes, if you like.”
+
+“Shall I go and bring the victuals now?”
+
+“Yes, do,” she murmured languidly.
+
+When he had gone, and the dull sounds occasionally reached her ears of
+his movements in the kitchen, she forgot where she was, and had for a
+moment to consider by an effort what the sounds meant. After an
+interval which seemed short to her whose thoughts were elsewhere, he
+came in with a tray on which steamed tea and toast, though it was
+nearly lunch-time.
+
+“Place it on the table,” she said. “I shall be ready soon.”
+
+He did so, and retired to the door; when, however, he perceived that
+she did not move he came back a few steps.
+
+“Let me hold it to you, if you don’t wish to get up,” said Charley. He
+brought the tray to the front of the couch, where he knelt down,
+adding, “I will hold it for you.”
+
+Eustacia sat up and poured out a cup of tea. “You are very kind to me,
+Charley,” she murmured as she sipped.
+
+“Well, I ought to be,” said he diffidently, taking great trouble not to
+rest his eyes upon her, though this was their only natural position,
+Eustacia being immediately before him. “You have been kind to me.”
+
+“How have I?” said Eustacia.
+
+“You let me hold your hand when you were a maiden at home.”
+
+“Ah, so I did. Why did I do that? My mind is lost—it had to do with the
+mumming, had it not?”
+
+“Yes, you wanted to go in my place.”
+
+“I remember. I do indeed remember—too well!”
+
+She again became utterly downcast; and Charley, seeing that she was not
+going to eat or drink any more, took away the tray.
+
+Afterwards he occasionally came in to see if the fire was burning, to
+ask her if she wanted anything, to tell her that the wind had shifted
+from south to west, to ask her if she would like him to gather her some
+blackberries; to all which inquiries she replied in the negative or
+with indifference.
+
+She remained on the settee some time longer, when she aroused herself
+and went upstairs. The room in which she had formerly slept still
+remained much as she had left it, and the recollection that this forced
+upon her of her own greatly changed and infinitely worsened situation
+again set on her face the undetermined and formless misery which it had
+worn on her first arrival. She peeped into her grandfather’s room,
+through which the fresh autumn air was blowing from the open window.
+Her eye was arrested by what was a familiar sight enough, though it
+broke upon her now with a new significance.
+
+It was a brace of pistols, hanging near the head of her grandfather’s
+bed, which he always kept there loaded, as a precaution against
+possible burglars, the house being very lonely. Eustacia regarded them
+long, as if they were the page of a book in which she read a new and a
+strange matter. Quickly, like one afraid of herself, she returned
+downstairs and stood in deep thought.
+
+“If I could only do it!” she said. “It would be doing much good to
+myself and all connected with me, and no harm to a single one.”
+
+The idea seemed to gather force within her, and she remained in a fixed
+attitude nearly ten minutes, when a certain finality was expressed in
+her gaze, and no longer the blankness of indecision.
+
+She turned and went up the second time—softly and stealthily now—and
+entered her grandfather’s room, her eyes at once seeking the head of
+the bed. The pistols were gone.
+
+The instant quashing of her purpose by their absence affected her brain
+as a sudden vacuum affects the body—she nearly fainted. Who had done
+this? There was only one person on the premises besides herself.
+Eustacia involuntarily turned to the open window which overlooked the
+garden as far as the bank that bounded it. On the summit of the latter
+stood Charley, sufficiently elevated by its height to see into the
+room. His gaze was directed eagerly and solicitously upon her.
+
+She went downstairs to the door and beckoned to him.
+
+“You have taken them away?”
+
+“Yes, ma’am.”
+
+“Why did you do it?”
+
+“I saw you looking at them too long.”
+
+“What has that to do with it?”
+
+“You have been heart-broken all the morning, as if you did not want to
+live.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“And I could not bear to leave them in your way. There was meaning in
+your look at them.”
+
+“Where are they now?”
+
+“Locked up.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“In the stable.”
+
+“Give them to me.”
+
+“No, ma’am.”
+
+“You refuse?”
+
+“I do. I care too much for you to give ’em up.”
+
+She turned aside, her face for the first time softening from the stony
+immobility of the earlier day, and the corners of her mouth resuming
+something of that delicacy of cut which was always lost in her moments
+of despair. At last she confronted him again.
+
+“Why should I not die if I wish?” she said tremulously. “I have made a
+bad bargain with life, and I am weary of it—weary. And now you have
+hindered my escape. O, why did you, Charley! What makes death painful
+except the thought of others’ grief?—and that is absent in my case, for
+not a sigh would follow me!”
+
+“Ah, it is trouble that has done this! I wish in my very soul that he
+who brought it about might die and rot, even if ’tis transportation to
+say it!”
+
+“Charley, no more of that. What do you mean to do about this you have
+seen?”
+
+“Keep it close as night, if you promise not to think of it again.”
+
+“You need not fear. The moment has passed. I promise.” She then went
+away, entered the house, and lay down.
+
+Later in the afternoon her grandfather returned. He was about to
+question her categorically, but on looking at her he withheld his
+words.
+
+“Yes, it is too bad to talk of,” she slowly returned in answer to his
+glance. “Can my old room be got ready for me tonight, Grandfather? I
+shall want to occupy it again.”
+
+He did not ask what it all meant, or why she had left her husband, but
+ordered the room to be prepared.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
+
+
+Charley’s attentions to his former mistress were unbounded. The only
+solace to his own trouble lay in his attempts to relieve hers. Hour
+after hour he considered her wants; he thought of her presence there
+with a sort of gratitude, and, while uttering imprecations on the cause
+of her unhappiness, in some measure blessed the result. Perhaps she
+would always remain there, he thought, and then he would be as happy as
+he had been before. His dread was lest she should think fit to return
+to Alderworth, and in that dread his eyes, with all the inquisitiveness
+of affection, frequently sought her face when she was not observing
+him, as he would have watched the head of a stockdove to learn if it
+contemplated flight. Having once really succoured her, and possibly
+preserved her from the rashest of acts, he mentally assumed in addition
+a guardian’s responsibility for her welfare.
+
+For this reason he busily endeavoured to provide her with pleasant
+distractions, bringing home curious objects which he found in the
+heath, such as white trumpet-shaped mosses, redheaded lichens, stone
+arrowheads used by the old tribes on Egdon, and faceted crystals from
+the hollows of flints. These he deposited on the premises in such
+positions that she should see them as if by accident.
+
+A week passed, Eustacia never going out of the house. Then she walked
+into the enclosed plot and looked through her grandfather’s spyglass,
+as she had been in the habit of doing before her marriage. One day she
+saw, at a place where the highroad crossed the distant valley, a
+heavily laden wagon passing along. It was piled with household
+furniture. She looked again and again, and recognized it to be her own.
+In the evening her grandfather came indoors with a rumour that
+Yeobright had removed that day from Alderworth to the old house at
+Blooms-End.
+
+On another occasion when reconnoitring thus she beheld two female
+figures walking in the vale. The day was fine and clear; and the
+persons not being more than half a mile off she could see their every
+detail with the telescope. The woman walking in front carried a white
+bundle in her arms, from one end of which hung a long appendage of
+drapery; and when the walkers turned, so that the sun fell more
+directly upon them, Eustacia could see that the object was a baby. She
+called Charley, and asked him if he knew who they were, though she well
+guessed.
+
+“Mrs. Wildeve and the nurse-girl,” said Charley.
+
+“The nurse is carrying the baby?” said Eustacia.
+
+“No, ’tis Mrs. Wildeve carrying that,” he answered, “and the nurse
+walks behind carrying nothing.”
+
+The lad was in good spirits that day, for the Fifth of November had
+again come round, and he was planning yet another scheme to divert her
+from her too absorbing thoughts. For two successive years his mistress
+had seemed to take pleasure in lighting a bonfire on the bank
+overlooking the valley; but this year she had apparently quite
+forgotten the day and the customary deed. He was careful not to remind
+her, and went on with his secret preparations for a cheerful surprise,
+the more zealously that he had been absent last time and unable to
+assist. At every vacant minute he hastened to gather furze-stumps,
+thorn-tree roots, and other solid materials from the adjacent slopes,
+hiding them from cursory view.
+
+The evening came, and Eustacia was still seemingly unconscious of the
+anniversary. She had gone indoors after her survey through the glass,
+and had not been visible since. As soon as it was quite dark Charley
+began to build the bonfire, choosing precisely that spot on the bank
+which Eustacia had chosen at previous times.
+
+When all the surrounding bonfires had burst into existence Charley
+kindled his, and arranged its fuel so that it should not require
+tending for some time. He then went back to the house, and lingered
+round the door and windows till she should by some means or other learn
+of his achievement and come out to witness it. But the shutters were
+closed, the door remained shut, and no heed whatever seemed to be taken
+of his performance. Not liking to call her he went back and replenished
+the fire, continuing to do this for more than half an hour. It was not
+till his stock of fuel had greatly diminished that he went to the back
+door and sent in to beg that Mrs. Yeobright would open the
+window-shutters and see the sight outside.
+
+Eustacia, who had been sitting listlessly in the parlour, started up at
+the intelligence and flung open the shutters. Facing her on the bank
+blazed the fire, which at once sent a ruddy glare into the room where
+she was, and overpowered the candles.
+
+“Well done, Charley!” said Captain Vye from the chimney-corner. “But I
+hope it is not my wood that he’s burning.... Ah, it was this time last
+year that I met with that man Venn, bringing home Thomasin Yeobright—to
+be sure it was! Well, who would have thought that girl’s troubles would
+have ended so well? What a snipe you were in that matter, Eustacia! Has
+your husband written to you yet?”
+
+“No,” said Eustacia, looking vaguely through the window at the fire,
+which just then so much engaged her mind that she did not resent her
+grandfather’s blunt opinion. She could see Charley’s form on the bank,
+shovelling and stirring the fire; and there flashed upon her
+imagination some other form which that fire might call up.
+
+She left the room, put on her garden bonnet and cloak, and went out.
+Reaching the bank, she looked over with a wild curiosity and misgiving,
+when Charley said to her, with a pleased sense of himself, “I made it
+o’ purpose for you, ma’am.”
+
+“Thank you,” she said hastily. “But I wish you to put it out now.”
+
+“It will soon burn down,” said Charley, rather disappointed. “Is it not
+a pity to knock it out?”
+
+“I don’t know,” she musingly answered.
+
+They stood in silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames, till
+Charley, perceiving that she did not want to talk to him, moved
+reluctantly away.
+
+Eustacia remained within the bank looking at the fire, intending to go
+indoors, yet lingering still. Had she not by her situation been
+inclined to hold in indifference all things honoured of the gods and of
+men she would probably have come away. But her state was so hopeless
+that she could play with it. To have lost is less disturbing than to
+wonder if we may possibly have won; and Eustacia could now, like other
+people at such a stage, take a standing-point outside herself, observe
+herself as a disinterested spectator, and think what a sport for Heaven
+this woman Eustacia was.
+
+While she stood she heard a sound. It was the splash of a stone in the
+pond.
+
+Had Eustacia received the stone full in the bosom her heart could not
+have given a more decided thump. She had thought of the possibility of
+such a signal in answer to that which had been unwittingly given by
+Charley; but she had not expected it yet. How prompt Wildeve was! Yet
+how could he think her capable of deliberately wishing to renew their
+assignations now? An impulse to leave the spot, a desire to stay,
+struggled within her; and the desire held its own. More than that it
+did not do, for she refrained even from ascending the bank and looking
+over. She remained motionless, not disturbing a muscle of her face or
+raising her eyes; for were she to turn up her face the fire on the bank
+would shine upon it, and Wildeve might be looking down.
+
+There was a second splash into the pond.
+
+Why did he stay so long without advancing and looking over? Curiosity
+had its way—she ascended one or two of the earth-steps in the bank and
+glanced out.
+
+Wildeve was before her. He had come forward after throwing the last
+pebble, and the fire now shone into each of their faces from the bank
+stretching breast-high between them.
+
+“I did not light it!” cried Eustacia quickly. “It was lit without my
+knowledge. Don’t, don’t come over to me!”
+
+“Why have you been living here all these days without telling me? You
+have left your home. I fear I am something to blame in this?”
+
+“I did not let in his mother; that’s how it is!”
+
+“You do not deserve what you have got, Eustacia; you are in great
+misery; I see it in your eyes, your mouth, and all over you. My poor,
+poor girl!” He stepped over the bank. “You are beyond everything
+unhappy!”
+
+“No, no; not exactly—”
+
+“It has been pushed too far—it is killing you—I do think it!”
+
+Her usually quiet breathing had grown quicker with his words. “I—I—”
+she began, and then burst into quivering sobs, shaken to the very heart
+by the unexpected voice of pity—a sentiment whose existence in relation
+to herself she had almost forgotten.
+
+This outbreak of weeping took Eustacia herself so much by surprise that
+she could not leave off, and she turned aside from him in some shame,
+though turning hid nothing from him. She sobbed on desperately; then
+the outpour lessened, and she became quieter. Wildeve had resisted the
+impulse to clasp her, and stood without speaking.
+
+“Are you not ashamed of me, who used never to be a crying animal?” she
+asked in a weak whisper as she wiped her eyes. “Why didn’t you go away?
+I wish you had not seen quite all that; it reveals too much by half.”
+
+“You might have wished it, because it makes me as sad as you,” he said
+with emotion and deference. “As for revealing—the word is impossible
+between us two.”
+
+“I did not send for you—don’t forget it, Damon; I am in pain, but I did
+not send for you! As a wife, at least, I’ve been straight.”
+
+“Never mind—I came. O, Eustacia, forgive me for the harm I have done
+you in these two past years! I see more and more that I have been your
+ruin.”
+
+“Not you. This place I live in.”
+
+“Ah, your generosity may naturally make you say that. But I am the
+culprit. I should either have done more or nothing at all.”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“I ought never to have hunted you out, or, having done it, I ought to
+have persisted in retaining you. But of course I have no right to talk
+of that now. I will only ask this—can I do anything for you? Is there
+anything on the face of the earth that a man can do to make you happier
+than you are at present? If there is, I will do it. You may command me,
+Eustacia, to the limit of my influence; and don’t forget that I am
+richer now. Surely something can be done to save you from this! Such a
+rare plant in such a wild place it grieves me to see. Do you want
+anything bought? Do you want to go anywhere? Do you want to escape the
+place altogether? Only say it, and I’ll do anything to put an end to
+those tears, which but for me would never have been at all.”
+
+“We are each married to another person,” she said faintly; “and
+assistance from you would have an evil sound—after—after—”
+
+“Well, there’s no preventing slanderers from having their fill at any
+time; but you need not be afraid. Whatever I may feel I promise you on
+my word of honour never to speak to you about—or act upon—until you say
+I may. I know my duty to Thomasin quite as well as I know my duty to
+you as a woman unfairly treated. What shall I assist you in?”
+
+“In getting away from here.”
+
+“Where do you wish to go to?”
+
+“I have a place in my mind. If you could help me as far as Budmouth I
+can do all the rest. Steamers sail from there across the Channel, and
+so I can get to Paris, where I want to be. Yes,” she pleaded earnestly,
+“help me to get to Budmouth harbour without my grandfather’s or my
+husband’s knowledge, and I can do all the rest.”
+
+“Will it be safe to leave you there alone?”
+
+“Yes, yes. I know Budmouth well.”
+
+“Shall I go with you? I am rich now.”
+
+She was silent.
+
+“Say yes, sweet!”
+
+She was silent still.
+
+“Well, let me know when you wish to go. We shall be at our present
+house till December; after that we remove to Casterbridge. Command me
+in anything till that time.”
+
+“I will think of this,” she said hurriedly. “Whether I can honestly
+make use of you as a friend, or must close with you as a lover—that is
+what I must ask myself. If I wish to go and decide to accept your
+company I will signal to you some evening at eight o’clock punctually,
+and this will mean that you are to be ready with a horse and trap at
+twelve o’clock the same night to drive me to Budmouth harbour in time
+for the morning boat.”
+
+“I will look out every night at eight, and no signal shall escape me.”
+
+“Now please go away. If I decide on this escape I can only meet you
+once more unless—I cannot go without you. Go—I cannot bear it longer.
+Go—go!”
+
+Wildeve slowly went up the steps and descended into the darkness on the
+other side; and as he walked he glanced back, till the bank blotted out
+her form from his further view.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter
+
+
+Yeobright was at this time at Blooms-End, hoping that Eustacia would
+return to him. The removal of furniture had been accomplished only that
+day, though Clym had lived in the old house for more than a week. He
+had spent the time in working about the premises, sweeping leaves from
+the garden paths, cutting dead stalks from the flower beds, and nailing
+up creepers which had been displaced by the autumn winds. He took no
+particular pleasure in these deeds, but they formed a screen between
+himself and despair. Moreover, it had become a religion with him to
+preserve in good condition all that had lapsed from his mother’s hands
+to his own.
+
+During these operations he was constantly on the watch for Eustacia.
+That there should be no mistake about her knowing where to find him he
+had ordered a notice board to be affixed to the garden gate at
+Alderworth, signifying in white letters whither he had removed. When a
+leaf floated to the earth he turned his head, thinking it might be her
+foot-fall. A bird searching for worms in the mould of the flower-beds
+sounded like her hand on the latch of the gate; and at dusk, when soft,
+strange ventriloquisms came from holes in the ground, hollow stalks,
+curled dead leaves, and other crannies wherein breezes, worms, and
+insects can work their will, he fancied that they were Eustacia,
+standing without and breathing wishes of reconciliation.
+
+Up to this hour he had persevered in his resolve not to invite her
+back. At the same time the severity with which he had treated her
+lulled the sharpness of his regret for his mother, and awoke some of
+his old solicitude for his mother’s supplanter. Harsh feelings produce
+harsh usage, and this by reaction quenches the sentiments that gave it
+birth. The more he reflected the more he softened. But to look upon his
+wife as innocence in distress was impossible, though he could ask
+himself whether he had given her quite time enough—if he had not come a
+little too suddenly upon her on that sombre morning.
+
+Now that the first flush of his anger had paled he was disinclined to
+ascribe to her more than an indiscreet friendship with Wildeve, for
+there had not appeared in her manner the signs of dishonour. And this
+once admitted, an absolutely dark interpretation of her act towards his
+mother was no longer forced upon him.
+
+On the evening of the fifth November his thoughts of Eustacia were
+intense. Echoes from those past times when they had exchanged tender
+words all the day long came like the diffused murmur of a seashore left
+miles behind. “Surely,” he said, “she might have brought herself to
+communicate with me before now, and confess honestly what Wildeve was
+to her.”
+
+Instead of remaining at home that night he determined to go and see
+Thomasin and her husband. If he found opportunity he would allude to
+the cause of the separation between Eustacia and himself, keeping
+silence, however, on the fact that there was a third person in his
+house when his mother was turned away. If it proved that Wildeve was
+innocently there he would doubtless openly mention it. If he were there
+with unjust intentions Wildeve, being a man of quick feeling, might
+possibly say something to reveal the extent to which Eustacia was
+compromised.
+
+But on reaching his cousin’s house he found that only Thomasin was at
+home, Wildeve being at that time on his way towards the bonfire
+innocently lit by Charley at Mistover. Thomasin then, as always, was
+glad to see Clym, and took him to inspect the sleeping baby, carefully
+screening the candlelight from the infant’s eyes with her hand.
+
+“Tamsin, have you heard that Eustacia is not with me now?” he said when
+they had sat down again.
+
+“No,” said Thomasin, alarmed.
+
+“And not that I have left Alderworth?”
+
+“No. I never hear tidings from Alderworth unless you bring them. What
+is the matter?”
+
+Clym in a disturbed voice related to her his visit to Susan Nunsuch’s
+boy, the revelation he had made, and what had resulted from his
+charging Eustacia with having wilfully and heartlessly done the deed.
+He suppressed all mention of Wildeve’s presence with her.
+
+“All this, and I not knowing it!” murmured Thomasin in an awestruck
+tone, “Terrible! What could have made her—O, Eustacia! And when you
+found it out you went in hot haste to her? Were you too cruel?—or is
+she really so wicked as she seems?”
+
+“Can a man be too cruel to his mother’s enemy?”
+
+“I can fancy so.”
+
+“Very well, then—I’ll admit that he can. But now what is to be done?”
+
+“Make it up again—if a quarrel so deadly can ever be made up. I almost
+wish you had not told me. But do try to be reconciled. There are ways,
+after all, if you both wish to.”
+
+“I don’t know that we do both wish to make it up,” said Clym. “If she
+had wished it, would she not have sent to me by this time?”
+
+“You seem to wish to, and yet you have not sent to her.”
+
+“True; but I have been tossed to and fro in doubt if I ought, after
+such strong provocation. To see me now, Thomasin, gives you no idea of
+what I have been; of what depths I have descended to in these few last
+days. O, it was a bitter shame to shut out my mother like that! Can I
+ever forget it, or even agree to see her again?”
+
+“She might not have known that anything serious would come of it, and
+perhaps she did not mean to keep Aunt out altogether.”
+
+“She says herself that she did not. But the fact remains that keep her
+out she did.”
+
+“Believe her sorry, and send for her.”
+
+“How if she will not come?”
+
+“It will prove her guilty, by showing that it is her habit to nourish
+enmity. But I do not think that for a moment.”
+
+“I will do this. I will wait for a day or two longer—not longer than
+two days certainly; and if she does not send to me in that time I will
+indeed send to her. I thought to have seen Wildeve here tonight. Is he
+from home?”
+
+Thomasin blushed a little. “No,” she said. “He is merely gone out for a
+walk.”
+
+“Why didn’t he take you with him? The evening is fine. You want fresh
+air as well as he.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t care for going anywhere; besides, there is baby.”
+
+“Yes, yes. Well, I have been thinking whether I should not consult your
+husband about this as well as you,” said Clym steadily.
+
+“I fancy I would not,” she quickly answered. “It can do no good.”
+
+Her cousin looked her in the face. No doubt Thomasin was ignorant that
+her husband had any share in the events of that tragic afternoon; but
+her countenance seemed to signify that she concealed some suspicion or
+thought of the reputed tender relations between Wildeve and Eustacia in
+days gone by.
+
+Clym, however, could make nothing of it, and he rose to depart, more in
+doubt than when he came.
+
+“You will write to her in a day or two?” said the young woman
+earnestly. “I do so hope the wretched separation may come to an end.”
+
+“I will,” said Clym; “I don’t rejoice in my present state at all.”
+
+And he left her and climbed over the hill to Blooms-End. Before going
+to bed he sat down and wrote the following letter:—
+
+MY DEAR EUSTACIA,—I must obey my heart without consulting my reason too
+closely. Will you come back to me? Do so, and the past shall never be
+mentioned. I was too severe; but O, Eustacia, the provocation! You
+don’t know, you never will know, what those words of anger cost me
+which you drew down upon yourself. All that an honest man can promise
+you I promise now, which is that from me you shall never suffer
+anything on this score again. After all the vows we have made,
+Eustacia, I think we had better pass the remainder of our lives in
+trying to keep them. Come to me, then, even if you reproach me. I have
+thought of your sufferings that morning on which I parted from you; I
+know they were genuine, and they are as much as you ought to bear. Our
+love must still continue. Such hearts as ours would never have been
+given us but to be concerned with each other. I could not ask you back
+at first, Eustacia, for I was unable to persuade myself that he who was
+with you was not there as a lover. But if you will come and explain
+distracting appearances I do not question that you can show your
+honesty to me. Why have you not come before? Do you think I will not
+listen to you? Surely not, when you remember the kisses and vows we
+exchanged under the summer moon. Return then, and you shall be warmly
+welcomed. I can no longer think of you to your prejudice—I am but too
+much absorbed in justifying you.—Your husband as ever,
+
+
+CLYM.
+
+
+“There,” he said, as he laid it in his desk, “that’s a good thing done.
+If she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to her.”
+
+Meanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat sighing uneasily.
+Fidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to conceal all
+suspicion that Wildeve’s interest in Eustacia had not ended with his
+marriage. But she knew nothing positive; and though Clym was her
+well-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still.
+
+When, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk to Mistover,
+Thomasin said, “Damon, where have you been? I was getting quite
+frightened, and thought you had fallen into the river. I dislike being
+in the house by myself.”
+
+“Frightened?” he said, touching her cheek as if she were some domestic
+animal. “Why, I thought nothing could frighten you. It is that you are
+getting proud, I am sure, and don’t like living here since we have
+risen above our business. Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting a
+new house; but I couldn’t have set about it sooner, unless our ten
+thousand pounds had been a hundred thousand, when we could have
+afforded to despise caution.”
+
+“No—I don’t mind waiting—I would rather stay here twelve months longer
+than run any risk with baby. But I don’t like your vanishing so in the
+evenings. There’s something on your mind—I know there is, Damon. You go
+about so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it were somebody’s gaol
+instead of a nice wild place to walk in.”
+
+He looked towards her with pitying surprise. “What, do you like Egdon
+Heath?” he said.
+
+“I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face.”
+
+“Pooh, my dear. You don’t know what you like.”
+
+“I am sure I do. There’s only one thing unpleasant about Egdon.”
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+“You never take me with you when you walk there. Why do you wander so
+much in it yourself if you so dislike it?”
+
+The inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting, and he sat
+down before replying. “I don’t think you often see me there. Give an
+instance.”
+
+“I will,” she answered triumphantly. “When you went out this evening I
+thought that as baby was asleep I would see where you were going to so
+mysteriously without telling me. So I ran out and followed behind you.
+You stopped at the place where the road forks, looked round at the
+bonfires, and then said, ‘Damn it, I’ll go!’ And you went quickly up
+the left-hand road. Then I stood and watched you.”
+
+Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, “Well, what
+wonderful discovery did you make?”
+
+“There—now you are angry, and we won’t talk of this any more.” She went
+across to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his face.
+
+“Nonsense!” he said, “that’s how you always back out. We will go on
+with it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly want
+to know.”
+
+“Don’t be like that, Damon!” she murmured. “I didn’t see anything. You
+vanished out of sight, and then I looked round at the bonfires and came
+in.”
+
+“Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you
+trying to find out something bad about me?”
+
+“Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn’t
+have done it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you.”
+
+“What _do_ you mean?” he impatiently asked.
+
+“They say—they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and it
+puts into my mind what I have heard about—”
+
+Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. “Now,” he said,
+flourishing his hand in the air, “just out with it, madam! I demand to
+know what remarks you have heard.”
+
+“Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia—nothing more
+than that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be
+angry!”
+
+He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. “Well,” he said,
+“there is nothing new in that, and of course I don’t mean to be rough
+towards you, so you need not cry. Now, don’t let us speak of the
+subject any more.”
+
+And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason for not
+mentioning Clym’s visit to her that evening, and his story.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+The Night of the Sixth of November
+
+
+Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that
+something should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event
+that could really change her position was the appearance of Clym. The
+glory which had encircled him as her lover was departed now; yet some
+good simple quality of his would occasionally return to her memory and
+stir a momentary throb of hope that he would again present himself
+before her. But calmly considered it was not likely that such a
+severance as now existed would ever close up—she would have to live on
+as a painful object, isolated, and out of place. She had used to think
+of the heath alone as an uncongenial spot to be in; she felt it now of
+the whole world.
+
+Towards evening on the sixth her determination to go away again
+revived. About four o’clock she packed up anew the few small articles
+she had brought in her flight from Alderworth, and also some belonging
+to her which had been left here; the whole formed a bundle not too
+large to be carried in her hand for a distance of a mile or two. The
+scene without grew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied downwards from
+the sky like vast hammocks slung across it, and with the increase of
+night a stormy wind arose; but as yet there was no rain.
+
+Eustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more to do, and she
+wandered to and fro on the hill, not far from the house she was soon to
+leave. In these desultory ramblings she passed the cottage of Susan
+Nunsuch, a little lower down than her grandfather’s. The door was ajar,
+and a riband of bright firelight fell over the ground without. As
+Eustacia crossed the firebeams she appeared for an instant as distinct
+as a figure in a phantasmagoria—a creature of light surrounded by an
+area of darkness; the moment passed, and she was absorbed in night
+again.
+
+A woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and recognized her
+in that momentary irradiation. This was Susan herself, occupied in
+preparing a posset for her little boy, who, often ailing, was now
+seriously unwell. Susan dropped the spoon, shook her fist at the
+vanished figure, and then proceeded with her work in a musing, absent
+way.
+
+At eight o’clock, the hour at which Eustacia had promised to signal
+Wildeve if ever she signalled at all, she looked around the premises to
+learn if the coast was clear, went to the furze-rick, and pulled thence
+a long-stemmed bough of that fuel. This she carried to the corner of
+the bank, and, glancing behind to see if the shutters were all closed,
+she struck a light, and kindled the furze. When it was thoroughly
+ablaze Eustacia took it by the stem and waved it in the air above her
+head till it had burned itself out.
+
+She was gratified, if gratification were possible to such a mood, by
+seeing a similar light in the vicinity of Wildeve’s residence a minute
+or two later. Having agreed to keep watch at this hour every night, in
+case she should require assistance, this promptness proved how strictly
+he had held to his word. Four hours after the present time, that is, at
+midnight, he was to be ready to drive her to Budmouth, as prearranged.
+
+Eustacia returned to the house. Supper having been got over she retired
+early, and sat in her bedroom waiting for the time to go by. The night
+being dark and threatening, Captain Vye had not strolled out to gossip
+in any cottage or to call at the inn, as was sometimes his custom on
+these long autumn nights; and he sat sipping grog alone downstairs.
+About ten o’clock there was a knock at the door. When the servant
+opened it the rays of the candle fell upon the form of Fairway.
+
+“I was a-forced to go to Lower Mistover tonight,” he said, “and Mr.
+Yeobright asked me to leave this here on my way; but, faith, I put it
+in the lining of my hat, and thought no more about it till I got back
+and was hasping my gate before going to bed. So I have run back with it
+at once.”
+
+He handed in a letter and went his way. The girl brought it to the
+captain, who found that it was directed to Eustacia. He turned it over
+and over, and fancied that the writing was her husband’s, though he
+could not be sure. However, he decided to let her have it at once if
+possible, and took it upstairs for that purpose; but on reaching the
+door of her room and looking in at the keyhole he found there was no
+light within, the fact being that Eustacia, without undressing, had
+flung herself upon the bed, to rest and gather a little strength for
+her coming journey. Her grandfather concluded from what he saw that he
+ought not to disturb her; and descending again to the parlour he placed
+the letter on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning.
+
+At eleven o’clock he went to bed himself, smoked for some time in his
+bedroom, put out his light at half-past eleven, and then, as was his
+invariable custom, pulled up the blind before getting into bed, that he
+might see which way the wind blew on opening his eyes in the morning,
+his bedroom window commanding a view of the flagstaff and vane. Just as
+he had lain down he was surprised to observe the white pole of the
+staff flash into existence like a streak of phosphorus drawn downwards
+across the shade of night without. Only one explanation met this—a
+light had been suddenly thrown upon the pole from the direction of the
+house. As everybody had retired to rest the old man felt it necessary
+to get out of bed, open the window softly, and look to the right and
+left. Eustacia’s bedroom was lighted up, and it was the shine from her
+window which had lighted the pole. Wondering what had aroused her, he
+remained undecided at the window, and was thinking of fetching the
+letter to slip it under her door, when he heard a slight brushing of
+garments on the partition dividing his room from the passage.
+
+The captain concluded that Eustacia, feeling wakeful, had gone for a
+book, and would have dismissed the matter as unimportant if he had not
+also heard her distinctly weeping as she passed.
+
+“She is thinking of that husband of hers,” he said to himself. “Ah, the
+silly goose! she had no business to marry him. I wonder if that letter
+is really his?”
+
+He arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door, and said,
+“Eustacia!” There was no answer. “Eustacia!” he repeated louder, “there
+is a letter on the mantelpiece for you.”
+
+But no response was made to this statement save an imaginary one from
+the wind, which seemed to gnaw at the corners of the house, and the
+stroke of a few drops of rain upon the windows.
+
+He went on to the landing, and stood waiting nearly five minutes. Still
+she did not return. He went back for a light, and prepared to follow
+her; but first he looked into her bedroom. There, on the outside of the
+quilt, was the impression of her form, showing that the bed had not
+been opened; and, what was more significant, she had not taken her
+candlestick downstairs. He was now thoroughly alarmed; and hastily
+putting on his clothes he descended to the front door, which he himself
+had bolted and locked. It was now unfastened. There was no longer any
+doubt that Eustacia had left the house at this midnight hour; and
+whither could she have gone? To follow her was almost impossible. Had
+the dwelling stood in an ordinary road, two persons setting out, one in
+each direction, might have made sure of overtaking her; but it was a
+hopeless task to seek for anybody on a heath in the dark, the
+practicable directions for flight across it from any point being as
+numerous as the meridians radiating from the pole. Perplexed what to
+do, he looked into the parlour, and was vexed to find that the letter
+still lay there untouched.
+
+At half-past eleven, finding that the house was silent, Eustacia had
+lighted her candle, put on some warm outer wrappings, taken her bag in
+her hand, and, extinguishing the light again, descended the staircase.
+When she got into the outer air she found that it had begun to rain,
+and as she stood pausing at the door it increased, threatening to come
+on heavily. But having committed herself to this line of action there
+was no retreating for bad weather. Even the receipt of Clym’s letter
+would not have stopped her now. The gloom of the night was funereal;
+all nature seemed clothed in crape. The spiky points of the fir trees
+behind the house rose into the sky like the turrets and pinnacles of an
+abbey. Nothing below the horizon was visible save a light which was
+still burning in the cottage of Susan Nunsuch.
+
+Eustacia opened her umbrella and went out from the enclosure by the
+steps over the bank, after which she was beyond all danger of being
+perceived. Skirting the pool, she followed the path towards Rainbarrow,
+occasionally stumbling over twisted furze roots, tufts of rushes, or
+oozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at this season lay scattered about
+the heath like the rotten liver and lungs of some colossal animal. The
+moon and stars were closed up by cloud and rain to the degree of
+extinction. It was a night which led the traveller’s thoughts
+instinctively to dwell on nocturnal scenes of disaster in the
+chronicles of the world, on all that is terrible and dark in history
+and legend—the last plague of Egypt, the destruction of Sennacherib’s
+host, the agony in Gethsemane.
+
+Eustacia at length reached Rainbarrow, and stood still there to think.
+Never was harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind
+and the chaos of the world without. A sudden recollection had flashed
+on her this moment—she had not money enough for undertaking a long
+journey. Amid the fluctuating sentiments of the day her unpractical
+mind had not dwelt on the necessity of being well-provided, and now
+that she thoroughly realized the conditions she sighed bitterly and
+ceased to stand erect, gradually crouching down under the umbrella as
+if she were drawn into the Barrow by a hand from beneath. Could it be
+that she was to remain a captive still? Money—she had never felt its
+value before. Even to efface herself from the country means were
+required. To ask Wildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him to
+accompany her was impossible to a woman with a shadow of pride left in
+her; to fly as his mistress—and she knew that he loved her—was of the
+nature of humiliation.
+
+Anyone who had stood by now would have pitied her, not so much on
+account of her exposure to weather, and isolation from all of humanity
+except the mouldered remains inside the tumulus; but for that other
+form of misery which was denoted by the slightly rocking movement that
+her feelings imparted to her person. Extreme unhappiness weighed
+visibly upon her. Between the drippings of the rain from her umbrella
+to her mantle, from her mantle to the heather, from the heather to the
+earth, very similar sounds could be heard coming from her lips; and the
+tearfulness of the outer scene was repeated upon her face. The wings of
+her soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all about her; and
+even had she seen herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth,
+entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port, she would have
+been but little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant were other things.
+She uttered words aloud. When a woman in such a situation, neither old,
+deaf, crazed, nor whimsical, takes upon herself to sob and soliloquize
+aloud there is something grievous the matter.
+
+“Can I go, can I go?” she moaned. “He’s not _great_ enough for me to
+give myself to—he does not suffice for my desire!... If he had been a
+Saul or a Bonaparte—ah! But to break my marriage vow for him—it is too
+poor a luxury!... And I have no money to go alone! And if I could, what
+comfort to me? I must drag on next year, as I have dragged on this
+year, and the year after that as before. How I have tried and tried to
+be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me!... I do not
+deserve my lot!” she cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. “O, the
+cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of
+much; but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond
+my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me,
+who have done no harm to Heaven at all!”
+
+The distant light which Eustacia had cursorily observed in leaving the
+house came, as she had divined, from the cottage window of Susan
+Nunsuch. What Eustacia did not divine was the occupation of the woman
+within at that moment. Susan’s sight of her passing figure earlier in
+the evening, not five minutes after the sick boy’s exclamation,
+“Mother, I do feel so bad!” persuaded the matron that an evil influence
+was certainly exercised by Eustacia’s propinquity.
+
+On this account Susan did not go to bed as soon as the evening’s work
+was over, as she would have done at ordinary times. To counteract the
+malign spell which she imagined poor Eustacia to be working, the boy’s
+mother busied herself with a ghastly invention of superstition,
+calculated to bring powerlessness, atrophy, and annihilation on any
+human being against whom it was directed. It was a practice well known
+on Egdon at that date, and one that is not quite extinct at the present
+day.
+
+She passed with her candle into an inner room, where, among other
+utensils, were two large brown pans, containing together perhaps a
+hundredweight of liquid honey, the produce of the bees during the
+foregoing summer. On a shelf over the pans was a smooth and solid
+yellow mass of a hemispherical form, consisting of beeswax from the
+same take of honey. Susan took down the lump, and cutting off several
+thin slices, heaped them in an iron ladle, with which she returned to
+the living-room, and placed the vessel in the hot ashes of the
+fireplace. As soon as the wax had softened to the plasticity of dough
+she kneaded the pieces together. And now her face became more intent.
+She began moulding the wax; and it was evident from her manner of
+manipulation that she was endeavouring to give it some preconceived
+form. The form was human.
+
+By warming and kneading, cutting and twisting, dismembering and
+re-joining the incipient image she had in about a quarter of an hour
+produced a shape which tolerably well resembled a woman, and was about
+six inches high. She laid it on the table to get cold and hard.
+Meanwhile she took the candle and went upstairs to where the little boy
+was lying.
+
+“Did you notice, my dear, what Mrs. Eustacia wore this afternoon
+besides the dark dress?”
+
+“A red ribbon round her neck.”
+
+“Anything else?”
+
+“No—except sandal-shoes.”
+
+“A red ribbon and sandal-shoes,” she said to herself.
+
+Mrs. Nunsuch went and searched till she found a fragment of the
+narrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs and tied round the neck
+of the image. Then fetching ink and a quilt from the rickety bureau by
+the window, she blackened the feet of the image to the extent
+presumably covered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot marked
+cross-lines in the shape taken by the sandalstrings of those days.
+Finally she tied a bit of black thread round the upper part of the
+head, in faint resemblance to a snood worn for confining the hair.
+
+Susan held the object at arm’s length and contemplated it with a
+satisfaction in which there was no smile. To anybody acquainted with
+the inhabitants of Egdon Heath the image would have suggested Eustacia
+Yeobright.
+
+From her workbasket in the window-seat the woman took a paper of pins,
+of the old long and yellow sort, whose heads were disposed to come off
+at their first usage. These she began to thrust into the image in all
+directions, with apparently excruciating energy. Probably as many as
+fifty were thus inserted, some into the head of the wax model, some
+into the shoulders, some into the trunk, some upwards through the soles
+of the feet, till the figure was completely permeated with pins.
+
+She turned to the fire. It had been of turf; and though the high heap
+of ashes which turf fires produce was somewhat dark and dead on the
+outside, upon raking it abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass
+showed a glow of red heat. She took a few pieces of fresh turf from the
+chimney-corner and built them together over the glow, upon which the
+fire brightened. Seizing with the tongs the image that she had made of
+Eustacia, she held it in the heat, and watched it as it began to waste
+slowly away. And while she stood thus engaged there came from between
+her lips a murmur of words.
+
+It was a strange jargon—the Lord’s Prayer repeated backwards—the
+incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed assistance
+against an enemy. Susan uttered the lugubrious discourse three times
+slowly, and when it was completed the image had considerably
+diminished. As the wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from
+the spot, and curling its tongue round the figure ate still further
+into its substance. A pin occasionally dropped with the wax, and the
+embers heated it red as it lay.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
+
+
+While the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing, and the fair woman
+herself was standing on Rainbarrow, her soul in an abyss of desolation
+seldom plumbed by one so young, Yeobright sat lonely at Blooms-End. He
+had fulfilled his word to Thomasin by sending off Fairway with the
+letter to his wife, and now waited with increased impatience for some
+sound or signal of her return. Were Eustacia still at Mistover the very
+least he expected was that she would send him back a reply tonight by
+the same hand; though, to leave all to her inclination, he had
+cautioned Fairway not to ask for an answer. If one were handed to him
+he was to bring it immediately; if not, he was to go straight home
+without troubling to come round to Blooms-End again that night.
+
+But secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope. Eustacia might possibly
+decline to use her pen—it was rather her way to work silently—and
+surprise him by appearing at his door. How fully her mind was made up
+to do otherwise he did not know.
+
+To Clym’s regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening
+advanced. The wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house, and
+filliped the eavesdroppings like peas against the panes. He walked
+restlessly about the untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises in
+windows and doors by jamming splinters of wood into the casements and
+crevices, and pressing together the leadwork of the quarries where it
+had become loosened from the glass. It was one of those nights when
+cracks in the walls of old churches widen, when ancient stains on the
+ceilings of decayed manor houses are renewed and enlarged from the size
+of a man’s hand to an area of many feet. The little gate in the palings
+before his dwelling continually opened and clicked together again, but
+when he looked out eagerly nobody was there; it was as if invisible
+shapes of the dead were passing in on their way to visit him.
+
+Between ten and eleven o’clock, finding that neither Fairway nor
+anybody else came to him, he retired to rest, and despite his anxieties
+soon fell asleep. His sleep, however, was not very sound, by reason of
+the expectancy he had given way to, and he was easily awakened by a
+knocking which began at the door about an hour after. Clym arose and
+looked out of the window. Rain was still falling heavily, the whole
+expanse of heath before him emitting a subdued hiss under the downpour.
+It was too dark to see anything at all.
+
+“Who’s there?” he cried.
+
+Light footsteps shifted their position in the porch, and he could just
+distinguish in a plaintive female voice the words, “O Clym, come down
+and let me in!”
+
+He flushed hot with agitation. “Surely it is Eustacia!” he murmured. If
+so, she had indeed come to him unawares.
+
+He hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. On his flinging
+open the door the rays of the candle fell upon a woman closely wrapped
+up, who at once came forward.
+
+“Thomasin!” he exclaimed in an indescribable tone of disappointment.
+“It is Thomasin, and on such a night as this! O, where is Eustacia?”
+
+Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting.
+
+“Eustacia? I don’t know, Clym; but I can think,” she said with much
+perturbation. “Let me come in and rest—I will explain this. There is a
+great trouble brewing—my husband and Eustacia!”
+
+“What, what?”
+
+“I think my husband is going to leave me or do something dreadful—I
+don’t know what—Clym, will you go and see? I have nobody to help me but
+you; Eustacia has not yet come home?”
+
+“No.”
+
+She went on breathlessly: “Then they are going to run off together! He
+came indoors tonight about eight o’clock and said in an off-hand way,
+‘Tamsie, I have just found that I must go a journey.’ ‘When?’ I said.
+‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘Where?’ I asked him. ‘I cannot tell you at
+present,’ he said; ‘I shall be back again tomorrow.’ He then went and
+busied himself in looking up his things, and took no notice of me at
+all. I expected to see him start, but he did not, and then it came to
+be ten o’clock, when he said, ‘You had better go to bed.’ I didn’t know
+what to do, and I went to bed. I believe he thought I fell asleep, for
+half an hour after that he came up and unlocked the oak chest we keep
+money in when we have much in the house and took out a roll of
+something which I believe was banknotes, though I was not aware that he
+had ’em there. These he must have got from the bank when he went there
+the other day. What does he want banknotes for, if he is only going off
+for a day? When he had gone down I thought of Eustacia, and how he had
+met her the night before—I know he did meet her, Clym, for I followed
+him part of the way; but I did not like to tell you when you called,
+and so make you think ill of him, as I did not think it was so serious.
+Then I could not stay in bed; I got up and dressed myself, and when I
+heard him out in the stable I thought I would come and tell you. So I
+came downstairs without any noise and slipped out.”
+
+“Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?”
+
+“No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade him not to go?
+He takes no notice of what I say, and puts me off with the story of his
+going on a journey, and will be home tomorrow, and all that; but I
+don’t believe it. I think you could influence him.”
+
+“I’ll go,” said Clym. “O, Eustacia!”
+
+Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time
+seated herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the
+kernel to the husks—dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough
+weather. Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to begin
+crying as she said, “I brought baby, for I was afraid what might happen
+to her. I suppose it will be her death, but I couldn’t leave her with
+Rachel!”
+
+Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the
+embers, which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the
+bellows.
+
+“Dry yourself,” he said. “I’ll go and get some more wood.”
+
+“No, no—don’t stay for that. I’ll make up the fire. Will you go at
+once—please will you?”
+
+Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. While he was gone
+another rapping came to the door. This time there was no delusion that
+it might be Eustacia’s—the footsteps just preceding it had been heavy
+and slow. Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note
+in answer, descended again and opened the door.
+
+“Captain Vye?” he said to a dripping figure.
+
+“Is my granddaughter here?” said the captain.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then where is she?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“But you ought to know—you are her husband.”
+
+“Only in name apparently,” said Clym with rising excitement. “I believe
+she means to elope tonight with Wildeve. I am just going to look to
+it.”
+
+“Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago. Who’s
+sitting there?”
+
+“My cousin Thomasin.”
+
+The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. “I only hope it is no
+worse than an elopement,” he said.
+
+“Worse? What’s worse than the worst a wife can do?”
+
+“Well, I have been told a strange tale. Before starting in search of
+her I called up Charley, my stable lad. I missed my pistols the other
+day.”
+
+“Pistols?”
+
+“He said at the time that he took them down to clean. He has now owned
+that he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at them;
+and she afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking her
+life, but bound him to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a
+thing again. I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado enough to use
+one of them; but it shows what has been lurking in her mind; and people
+who think of that sort of thing once think of it again.”
+
+“Where are the pistols?”
+
+“Safely locked up. O no, she won’t touch them again. But there are more
+ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole. What did you
+quarrel about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this? You must
+have treated her badly indeed. Well, I was always against the marriage,
+and I was right.”
+
+“Are you going with me?” said Yeobright, paying no attention to the
+captain’s latter remark. “If so I can tell you what we quarrelled about
+as we walk along.”
+
+“Where to?”
+
+“To Wildeve’s—that was her destination, depend upon it.”
+
+Thomasin here broke in, still weeping: “He said he was only going on a
+sudden short journey; but if so why did he want so much money? O, Clym,
+what do you think will happen? I am afraid that you, my poor baby, will
+soon have no father left to you!”
+
+“I am off now,” said Yeobright, stepping into the porch.
+
+“I would fain go with ’ee,” said the old man doubtfully. “But I begin
+to be afraid that my legs will hardly carry me there such a night as
+this. I am not so young as I was. If they are interrupted in their
+flight she will be sure to come back to me, and I ought to be at the
+house to receive her. But be it as ’twill I can’t walk to the Quiet
+Woman, and that’s an end on’t. I’ll go straight home.”
+
+“It will perhaps be best,” said Clym. “Thomasin, dry yourself, and be
+as comfortable as you can.”
+
+With this he closed the door upon her, and left the house in company
+with Captain Vye, who parted from him outside the gate, taking the
+middle path, which led to Mistover. Clym crossed by the right-hand
+track towards the inn.
+
+Thomasin, being left alone, took off some of her wet garments, carried
+the baby upstairs to Clym’s bed, and then came down to the sitting-room
+again, where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire
+soon flared up the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort
+that was doubled by contrast with the drumming of the storm without,
+which snapped at the windowpanes and breathed into the chimney strange
+low utterances that seemed to be the prologue to some tragedy.
+
+But the least part of Thomasin was in the house, for her heart being at
+ease about the little girl upstairs she was mentally following Clym on
+his journey. Having indulged in this imaginary peregrination for some
+considerable interval, she became impressed with a sense of the
+intolerable slowness of time. But she sat on. The moment then came when
+she could scarcely sit longer, and it was like a satire on her patience
+to remember that Clym could hardly have reached the inn as yet. At last
+she went to the baby’s bedside. The child was sleeping soundly; but her
+imagination of possibly disastrous events at her home, the predominance
+within her of the unseen over the seen, agitated her beyond endurance.
+She could not refrain from going down and opening the door. The rain
+still continued, the candlelight falling upon the nearest drops and
+making glistening darts of them as they descended across the throng of
+invisible ones behind. To plunge into that medium was to plunge into
+water slightly diluted with air. But the difficulty of returning to her
+house at this moment made her all the more desirous of doing
+so—anything was better than suspense. “I have come here well enough,”
+she said, “and why shouldn’t I go back again? It is a mistake for me to
+be away.”
+
+She hastily fetched the infant, wrapped it up, cloaked herself as
+before, and shoveling the ashes over the fire, to prevent accidents,
+went into the open air. Pausing first to put the door key in its old
+place behind the shutter, she resolutely turned her face to the
+confronting pile of firmamental darkness beyond the palings, and
+stepped into its midst. But Thomasin’s imagination being so actively
+engaged elsewhere, the night and the weather had for her no terror
+beyond that of their actual discomfort and difficulty.
+
+She was soon ascending Blooms-End valley and traversing the undulations
+on the side of the hill. The noise of the wind over the heath was
+shrill, and as if it whistled for joy at finding a night so congenial
+as this. Sometimes the path led her to hollows between thickets of tall
+and dripping bracken, dead, though not yet prostrate, which enclosed
+her like a pool. When they were more than usually tall she lifted the
+baby to the top of her head, that it might be out of the reach of their
+drenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind was brisk and
+sustained, the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent, so
+that it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness of the point at
+which it left the bosoms of the clouds. Here self-defence was
+impossible, and individual drops stuck into her like the arrows into
+Saint Sebastian. She was enabled to avoid puddles by the nebulous
+paleness which signified their presence, though beside anything less
+dark than the heath they themselves would have appeared as blackness.
+
+Yet in spite of all this Thomasin was not sorry that she had started.
+To her there were not, as to Eustacia, demons in the air, and malice in
+every bush and bough. The drops which lashed her face were not
+scorpions, but prosy rain; Egdon in the mass was no monster whatever,
+but impersonal open ground. Her fears of the place were rational, her
+dislikes of its worst moods reasonable. At this time it was in her view
+a windy, wet place, in which a person might experience much discomfort,
+lose the path without care, and possibly catch cold.
+
+If the path is well known the difficulty at such times of keeping
+therein is not altogether great, from its familiar feel to the feet;
+but once lost it is irrecoverable. Owing to her baby, who somewhat
+impeded Thomasin’s view forward and distracted her mind, she did at
+last lose the track. This mishap occurred when she was descending an
+open slope about two-thirds home. Instead of attempting, by wandering
+hither and thither, the hopeless task of finding such a mere thread,
+she went straight on, trusting for guidance to her general knowledge of
+the contours, which was scarcely surpassed by Clym’s or by that of the
+heath-croppers themselves.
+
+At length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to discern through the
+rain a faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form
+of an open door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon
+aware of the nature of the door by its height above the ground.
+
+“Why, it is Diggory Venn’s van, surely!” she said.
+
+A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn’s
+chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at
+once that she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat. The question
+arose in her mind whether or not she should ask him to guide her into
+the path. In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would
+appeal to him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing before his
+eyes at this place and season. But when, in pursuance of this resolve,
+Thomasin reached the van and looked in she found it to be untenanted;
+though there was no doubt that it was the reddleman’s. The fire was
+burning in the stove, the lantern hung from the nail. Round the doorway
+the floor was merely sprinkled with rain, and not saturated, which told
+her that the door had not long been opened.
+
+While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep
+advancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the
+well-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams
+falling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.
+
+“I thought you went down the slope,” he said, without noticing her
+face. “How do you come back here again?”
+
+“Diggory?” said Thomasin faintly.
+
+“Who are you?” said Venn, still unperceiving. “And why were you crying
+so just now?”
+
+“O, Diggory! don’t you know me?” said she. “But of course you don’t,
+wrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been crying here,
+and I have not been here before.”
+
+Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her
+form.
+
+“Mrs. Wildeve!” he exclaimed, starting. “What a time for us to meet!
+And the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such
+a night as this?”
+
+She could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he
+hopped into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.
+
+“What is it?” he continued when they stood within.
+
+“I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry
+to get home. Please show me as quickly as you can! It is so silly of me
+not to know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the
+path. Show me quickly, Diggory, please.”
+
+“Yes, of course. I will go with ’ee. But you came to me before this,
+Mrs. Wildeve?”
+
+“I only came this minute.”
+
+“That’s strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago,
+with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a
+woman’s clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up, for I
+don’t sleep heavy, and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying
+from the same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and just
+as far as the light would reach I saw a woman; she turned her head when
+the light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill. I hung up the
+lantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and dog her a few
+steps, but I could see nothing of her any more. That was where I had
+been when you came up; and when I saw you I thought you were the same
+one.”
+
+“Perhaps it was one of the heathfolk going home?”
+
+“No, it couldn’t be. ’Tis too late. The noise of her gown over the
+he’th was of a whistling sort that nothing but silk will make.”
+
+“It wasn’t I, then. My dress is not silk, you see.... Are we anywhere
+in a line between Mistover and the inn?”
+
+“Well, yes; not far out.”
+
+“Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!”
+
+She jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked
+the lantern and leaped down after her. “I’ll take the baby, ma’am,” he
+said. “You must be tired out by the weight.”
+
+Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn’s
+hands. “Don’t squeeze her, Diggory,” she said, “or hurt her little arm;
+and keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain may not
+drop in her face.”
+
+“I will,” said Venn earnestly. “As if I could hurt anything belonging
+to you!”
+
+“I only meant accidentally,” said Thomasin.
+
+“The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet,” said the reddleman
+when, in closing the door of his cart to padlock it, he noticed on the
+floor a ring of water drops where her cloak had hung from her.
+
+Thomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid the larger
+bushes, stopping occasionally and covering the lantern, while he looked
+over his shoulder to gain some idea of the position of Rainbarrow above
+them, which it was necessary to keep directly behind their backs to
+preserve a proper course.
+
+“You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?”
+
+“Quite sure. May I ask how old he is, ma’am?”
+
+“He!” said Thomasin reproachfully. “Anybody can see better than that in
+a moment. She is nearly two months old. How far is it now to the inn?”
+
+“A little over a quarter of a mile.”
+
+“Will you walk a little faster?”
+
+“I was afraid you could not keep up.”
+
+“I am very anxious to get there. Ah, there is a light from the window!”
+
+“’Tis not from the window. That’s a gig-lamp, to the best of my
+belief.”
+
+“O!” said Thomasin in despair. “I wish I had been there sooner—give me
+the baby, Diggory—you can go back now.”
+
+“I must go all the way,” said Venn. “There is a quag between us and
+that light, and you will walk into it up to your neck unless I take you
+round.”
+
+“But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag in front of that.”
+
+“No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards.”
+
+“Never mind,” said Thomasin hurriedly. “Go towards the light, and not
+towards the inn.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and, after a pause,
+“I wish you would tell me what this great trouble is. I think you have
+proved that I can be trusted.”
+
+“There are some things that cannot be—cannot be told to—” And then her
+heart rose into her throat, and she could say no more.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
+
+
+Having seen Eustacia’s signal from the hill at eight o’clock, Wildeve
+immediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,
+accompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informing
+Thomasin that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient to
+rouse her suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the few
+articles he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest, whence
+he took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes, which had been advanced to
+him on the property he was so soon to have in possession, to defray
+expenses incidental to the removal.
+
+He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that the
+horse, gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive.
+Nearly half an hour was spent thus, and on returning to the house
+Wildeve had no thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He had
+told the stable lad not to stay up, leading the boy to understand that
+his departure would be at three or four in the morning; for this,
+though an exceptional hour, was less strange than midnight, the time
+actually agreed on, the packet from Budmouth sailing between one and
+two.
+
+At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. By no
+effort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he had
+experienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hoped
+there was that in his situation which money could cure. He had
+persuaded himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle wife
+by settling on her the half of his property, and with chivalrous
+devotion towards another and greater woman by sharing her fate, was
+possible. And though he meant to adhere to Eustacia’s instructions to
+the letter, to deposit her where she wished and to leave her, should
+that be her will, the spell that she had cast over him intensified, and
+his heart was beating fast in the anticipated futility of such commands
+in the face of a mutual wish that they should throw in their lot
+together.
+
+He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures,
+maxims, and hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he again went softly
+to the stable, harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence, taking
+the horse by the head, he led him with the covered car out of the yard
+to a spot by the roadside some quarter of a mile below the inn.
+
+Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a high
+bank that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface of the road
+where lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones scudded and
+clicked together before the wind, which, leaving them in heaps, plunged
+into the heath and boomed across the bushes into darkness. Only one
+sound rose above this din of weather, and that was the roaring of a
+ten-hatch weir to the southward, from a river in the meads which formed
+the boundary of the heath in this direction.
+
+He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that the
+midnight hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen in his
+mind if Eustacia would venture down the hill in such weather; yet
+knowing her nature he felt that she might. “Poor thing! ’tis like her
+ill-luck,” he murmured.
+
+At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his
+surprise it was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he
+had driven up the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted
+because of the enormous length of the route in proportion to that of
+the pedestrian’s path down the open hillside, and the consequent
+increase of labour for the horse.
+
+At this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps being
+in a different direction the comer was not visible. The step paused,
+then came on again.
+
+“Eustacia?” said Wildeve.
+
+The person came forward, and the light fell upon the form of Clym,
+glistening with wet, whom Wildeve immediately recognized; but Wildeve,
+who stood behind the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.
+
+He stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could have
+anything to do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight of
+Yeobright at once banished Wildeve’s sober feelings, who saw him again
+as the deadly rival from whom Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards.
+Hence Wildeve did not speak, in the hope that Clym would pass by
+without particular inquiry.
+
+While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audible
+above the storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable—it was the fall
+of a body into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently at a point
+near the weir.
+
+Both started. “Good God! can it be she?” said Clym.
+
+“Why should it be she?” said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that he
+had hitherto screened himself.
+
+“Ah!—that’s you, you traitor, is it?” cried Yeobright. “Why should it
+be she? Because last week she would have put an end to her life if she
+had been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of the lamps
+and come with me.”
+
+Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on; Wildeve did not
+wait to unfasten the other, but followed at once along the meadow track
+to the weir, a little in the rear of Clym.
+
+Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet in
+diameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raised
+and lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of
+the pool were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away the
+bank; but the force of the stream in winter was sometimes such as to
+undermine the retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole. Clym
+reached the hatches, the framework of which was shaken to its
+foundations by the velocity of the current. Nothing but the froth of
+the waves could be discerned in the pool below. He got upon the plank
+bridge over the race, and holding to the rail, that the wind might not
+blow him off, crossed to the other side of the river. There he leant
+over the wall and lowered the lamp, only to behold the vortex formed at
+the curl of the returning current.
+
+Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light from
+Yeobright’s lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across the weir
+pool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of the currents
+from the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckered mirror a dark
+body was slowly borne by one of the backward currents.
+
+“O, my darling!” exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and, without
+showing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat, he
+leaped into the boiling caldron.
+
+Yeobright could now also discern the floating body, though but
+indistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve’s plunge that there was life
+to be saved he was about to leap after. Bethinking himself of a wiser
+plan, he placed the lamp against a post to make it stand upright, and
+running round to the lower part of the pool, where there was no wall,
+he sprang in and boldly waded upwards towards the deeper portion. Here
+he was taken off his legs, and in swimming was carried round into the
+centre of the basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling.
+
+While these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin had
+been toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the direction of
+the light. They had not been near enough to the river to hear the
+plunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage lamp, and watched its
+motion into the mead. As soon as they reached the car and horse Venn
+guessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the
+course of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and came
+to the weir alone.
+
+The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the water,
+and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Being
+encumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
+
+“Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve,” he said hastily. “Run home with
+her, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who may
+be living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir.”
+
+Thomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car the
+horse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, as
+if conscious of misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was.
+She nearly fainted, and would have been unable to proceed another step
+but that the necessity of preserving the little girl from harm nerved
+her to an amazing self-control. In this agony of suspense she entered
+the house, put the baby in a place of safety, woke the lad and the
+female domestic, and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage.
+
+Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that the
+small upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. He found one of these
+lying upon the grass, and taking it under one arm, and with his lantern
+in his hand, entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym had done. As
+soon as he began to be in deep water he flung himself across the hatch;
+thus supported he was able to keep afloat as long as he chose, holding
+the lantern aloft with his disengaged hand. Propelled by his feet, he
+steered round and round the pool, ascending each time by one of the
+back streams and descending in the middle of the current.
+
+At first he could see nothing. Then amidst the glistening of the
+whirlpools and the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman’s
+bonnet floating alone. His search was now under the left wall, when
+something came to the surface almost close beside him. It was not, as
+he had expected, a woman, but a man. The reddleman put the ring of the
+lantern between his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar, and,
+holding on to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out into the
+strongest race, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and himself
+were carried down the stream. As soon as Venn found his feet dragging
+over the pebbles of the shallower part below he secured his footing and
+waded towards the brink. There, where the water stood at about the
+height of his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag
+forth the man. This was a matter of great difficulty, and he found as
+the reason that the legs of the unfortunate stranger were tightly
+embraced by the arms of another man, who had hitherto been entirely
+beneath the surface.
+
+At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards him,
+and two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above. They ran
+to where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out the apparently drowned
+persons, separating them, and laying them out upon the grass. Venn
+turned the light upon their faces. The one who had been uppermost was
+Yeobright; he who had been completely submerged was Wildeve.
+
+“Now we must search the hole again,” said Venn. “A woman is in there
+somewhere. Get a pole.”
+
+One of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail. The
+reddleman and the two others then entered the water together from below
+as before, and with their united force probed the pool forwards to
+where it sloped down to its central depth. Venn was not mistaken in
+supposing that any person who had sunk for the last time would be
+washed down to this point, for when they had examined to about halfway
+across something impeded their thrust.
+
+“Pull it forward,” said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole till
+it was close to their feet.
+
+Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wet
+drapery enclosing a woman’s cold form, which was all that remained of
+the desperate Eustacia.
+
+When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief,
+bending over the two unconscious ones who already lay there. The horse
+and cart were brought to the nearest point in the road, and it was the
+work of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle. Venn led
+on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm, and the two men
+followed, till they reached the inn.
+
+The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastily
+dressed herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left to
+snore on in peace at the back of the house. The insensible forms of
+Eustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the
+carpet, with their feet to the fire, when such restorative processes as
+could be thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being in the
+meantime sent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a whiff of life
+in either of the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief had been
+thrust off awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle of hartshorn to
+Clym’s nostrils, having tried it in vain upon the other two. He sighed.
+
+“Clym’s alive!” she exclaimed.
+
+He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt to
+revive her husband by the same means; but Wildeve gave no sign. There
+was too much reason to think that he and Eustacia both were for ever
+beyond the reach of stimulating perfumes. Their exertions did not relax
+till the doctor arrived, when one by one, the senseless three were
+taken upstairs and put into warm beds.
+
+Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and went to
+the door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophe that had
+befallen the family in which he took so great an interest. Thomasin
+surely would be broken down by the sudden and overwhelming nature of
+this event. No firm and sensible Mrs. Yeobright lived now to support
+the gentle girl through the ordeal; and, whatever an unimpassioned
+spectator might think of her loss of such a husband as Wildeve, there
+could be no doubt that for the moment she was distracted and horrified
+by the blow. As for himself, not being privileged to go to her and
+comfort her, he saw no reason for waiting longer in a house where he
+remained only as a stranger.
+
+He returned across the heath to his van. The fire was not yet out, and
+everything remained as he had left it. Venn now bethought himself of
+his clothes, which were saturated with water to the weight of lead. He
+changed them, spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep. But
+it was more than he could do to rest here while excited by a vivid
+imagination of the turmoil they were in at the house he had quitted,
+and, blaming himself for coming away, he dressed in another suit,
+locked up the door, and again hastened across to the inn. Rain was
+still falling heavily when he entered the kitchen. A bright fire was
+shining from the hearth, and two women were bustling about, one of whom
+was Olly Dowden.
+
+“Well, how is it going on now?” said Venn in a whisper.
+
+“Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright and Mr. Wildeve are dead
+and cold. The doctor says they were quite gone before they were out of
+the water.”
+
+“Ah! I thought as much when I hauled ’em up. And Mrs. Wildeve?”
+
+“She is as well as can be expected. The doctor had her put between
+blankets, for she was almost as wet as they that had been in the river,
+poor young thing. You don’t seem very dry, reddleman.”
+
+“Oh, ’tis not much. I have changed my things. This is only a little
+dampness I’ve got coming through the rain again.”
+
+“Stand by the fire. Mis’ess says you be to have whatever you want, and
+she was sorry when she was told that you’d gone away.”
+
+Venn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames in an
+absent mood. The steam came from his leggings and ascended the chimney
+with the smoke, while he thought of those who were upstairs. Two were
+corpses, one had barely escaped the jaws of death, another was sick and
+a widow. The last occasion on which he had lingered by that fireplace
+was when the raffle was in progress; when Wildeve was alive and well;
+Thomasin active and smiling in the next room; Yeobright and Eustacia
+just made husband and wife, and Mrs. Yeobright living at Blooms-End. It
+had seemed at that time that the then position of affairs was good for
+at least twenty years to come. Yet, of all the circle, he himself was
+the only one whose situation had not materially changed.
+
+While he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. It was the nurse,
+who brought in her hand a rolled mass of wet paper. The woman was so
+engrossed with her occupation that she hardly saw Venn. She took from a
+cupboard some pieces of twine, which she strained across the fireplace,
+tying the end of each piece to the firedog, previously pulled forward
+for the purpose, and, unrolling the wet papers, she began pinning them
+one by one to the strings in a manner of clothes on a line.
+
+“What be they?” said Venn.
+
+“Poor master’s banknotes,” she answered. “They were found in his pocket
+when they undressed him.”
+
+“Then he was not coming back again for some time?” said Venn.
+
+“That we shall never know,” said she.
+
+Venn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested him lay under
+this roof. As nobody in the house had any more sleep that night, except
+the two who slept for ever, there was no reason why he should not
+remain. So he retired into the niche of the fireplace where he had used
+to sit, and there he continued, watching the steam from the double row
+of banknotes as they waved backwards and forwards in the draught of the
+chimney till their flaccidity was changed to dry crispness throughout.
+Then the woman came and unpinned them, and, folding them together,
+carried the handful upstairs. Presently the doctor appeared from above
+with the look of a man who could do no more, and, pulling on his
+gloves, went out of the house, the trotting of his horse soon dying
+away upon the road.
+
+At four o’clock there was a gentle knock at the door. It was from
+Charley, who had been sent by Captain Vye to inquire if anything had
+been heard of Eustacia. The girl who admitted him looked in his face as
+if she did not know what answer to return, and showed him in to where
+Venn was seated, saying to the reddleman, “Will you tell him, please?”
+
+Venn told. Charley’s only utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound. He
+stood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, “I shall see her
+once more?”
+
+“I dare say you may see her,” said Diggory gravely. “But hadn’t you
+better run and tell Captain Vye?”
+
+“Yes, yes. Only I do hope I shall see her just once again.”
+
+“You shall,” said a low voice behind; and starting round they beheld by
+the dim light, a thin, pallid, almost spectral form, wrapped in a
+blanket, and looking like Lazarus coming from the tomb.
+
+It was Yeobright. Neither Venn nor Charley spoke, and Clym continued,
+“You shall see her. There will be time enough to tell the captain when
+it gets daylight. You would like to see her too—would you not, Diggory?
+She looks very beautiful now.”
+
+Venn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley he followed Clym
+to the foot of the staircase, where he took off his boots; Charley did
+the same. They followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, where there
+was a candle burning, which Yeobright took in his hand, and with it led
+the way into an adjoining room. Here he went to the bedside and folded
+back the sheet.
+
+They stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay there still
+in death, eclipsed all her living phases. Pallor did not include all
+the quality of her complexion, which seemed more than whiteness; it was
+almost light. The expression of her finely carved mouth was pleasant,
+as if a sense of dignity had just compelled her to leave off speaking.
+Eternal rigidity had seized upon it in a momentary transition between
+fervour and resignation. Her black hair was looser now than either of
+them had ever seen it before, and surrounded her brow like a forest.
+The stateliness of look which had been almost too marked for a dweller
+in a country domicile had at last found an artistically happy
+background.
+
+Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. “Now
+come here,” he said.
+
+They went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed,
+lay another figure—Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face than in
+Eustacia’s, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, and the
+least sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him now that he
+was born for a higher destiny than this. The only sign upon him of his
+recent struggle for life was in his fingertips, which were worn and
+sacrificed in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on the face of the
+weir-wall.
+
+Yeobright’s manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllables
+since his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was only
+when they had left the room and stood upon the landing that the true
+state of his mind was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile,
+inclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay, “She is
+the second woman I have killed this year. I was a great cause of my
+mother’s death, and I am the chief cause of hers.”
+
+“How?” said Venn.
+
+“I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not invite
+her back till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drowned
+myself. It would have been a charity to the living had the river
+overwhelmed me and borne her up. But I cannot die. Those who ought to
+have lived lie dead; and here am I alive!”
+
+“But you can’t charge yourself with crimes in that way,” said Venn.
+“You may as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by the
+child, for without the parents the child would never have been begot.”
+
+“Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don’t know all the
+circumstances. If it had pleased God to put an end to me it would have
+been a good thing for all. But I am getting used to the horror of my
+existence. They say that a time comes when men laugh at misery through
+long acquaintance with it. Surely that time will soon come to me!”
+
+“Your aim has always been good,” said Venn. “Why should you say such
+desperate things?”
+
+“No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my great
+regret is that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!”
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SIXTH—AFTERCOURSES
+
+
+
+
+I.
+The Inevitable Movement Onward
+
+
+The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout
+Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known
+incidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and
+modified, till the original reality bore but a slight resemblance to
+the counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues. Yet, upon the
+whole, neither the man nor the woman lost dignity by sudden death.
+Misfortune had struck them gracefully, cutting off their erratic
+histories with a catastrophic dash, instead of, as with many,
+attenuating each life to an uninteresting meagreness, through long
+years of wrinkles, neglect, and decay.
+
+On those most nearly concerned the effect was somewhat different.
+Strangers who had heard of many such cases now merely heard of one
+more; but immediately where a blow falls no previous imaginings amount
+to appreciable preparation for it. The very suddenness of her
+bereavement dulled, to some extent, Thomasin’s feelings; yet
+irrationally enough, a consciousness that the husband she had lost
+ought to have been a better man did not lessen her mourning at all. On
+the contrary, this fact seemed at first to set off the dead husband in
+his young wife’s eyes, and to be the necessary cloud to the rainbow.
+
+But the horrors of the unknown had passed. Vague misgivings about her
+future as a deserted wife were at an end. The worst had once been
+matter of trembling conjecture; it was now matter of reason only, a
+limited badness. Her chief interest, the little Eustacia, still
+remained. There was humility in her grief, no defiance in her attitude;
+and when this is the case a shaken spirit is apt to be stilled.
+
+Could Thomasin’s mournfulness now and Eustacia’s serenity during life
+have been reduced to common measure, they would have touched the same
+mark nearly. But Thomasin’s former brightness made shadow of that which
+in a sombre atmosphere was light itself.
+
+The spring came and calmed her; the summer came and soothed her; the
+autumn arrived, and she began to be comforted, for her little girl was
+strong and happy, growing in size and knowledge every day. Outward
+events flattered Thomasin not a little. Wildeve had died intestate, and
+she and the child were his only relatives. When administration had been
+granted, all the debts paid, and the residue of her husband’s uncle’s
+property had come into her hands, it was found that the sum waiting to
+be invested for her own and the child’s benefit was little less than
+ten thousand pounds.
+
+Where should she live? The obvious place was Blooms-End. The old rooms,
+it is true, were not much higher than the between-decks of a frigate,
+necessitating a sinking in the floor under the new clock-case she
+brought from the inn, and the removal of the handsome brass knobs on
+its head, before there was height for it to stand; but, such as the
+rooms were, there were plenty of them, and the place was endeared to
+her by every early recollection. Clym very gladly admitted her as a
+tenant, confining his own existence to two rooms at the top of the back
+staircase, where he lived on quietly, shut off from Thomasin and the
+three servants she had thought fit to indulge in now that she was a
+mistress of money, going his own ways, and thinking his own thoughts.
+
+His sorrows had made some change in his outward appearance; and yet the
+alteration was chiefly within. It might have been said that he had a
+wrinkled mind. He had no enemies, and he could get nobody to reproach
+him, which was why he so bitterly reproached himself.
+
+He did sometimes think he had been ill-used by fortune, so far as to
+say that to be born is a palpable dilemma, and that instead of men
+aiming to advance in life with glory they should calculate how to
+retreat out of it without shame. But that he and his had been
+sarcastically and pitilessly handled in having such irons thrust into
+their souls he did not maintain long. It is usually so, except with the
+sternest of men. Human beings, in their generous endeavour to construct
+a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause, have always
+hesitated to conceive a dominant power of lower moral quality than
+their own; and, even while they sit down and weep by the waters of
+Babylon, invent excuses for the oppression which prompts their tears.
+
+Thus, though words of solace were vainly uttered in his presence, he
+found relief in a direction of his own choosing when left to himself.
+For a man of his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a
+year which he had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all
+worldly needs. Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the
+proportion of spendings to takings.
+
+He frequently walked the heath alone, when the past seized upon him
+with its shadowy hand, and held him there to listen to its tale. His
+imagination would then people the spot with its ancient
+inhabitants—forgotten Celtic tribes trod their tracks about him, and he
+could almost live among them, look in their faces, and see them
+standing beside the barrows which swelled around, untouched and perfect
+as at the time of their erection. Those of the dyed barbarians who had
+chosen the cultivable tracts were, in comparison with those who had
+left their marks here, as writers on paper beside writers on parchment.
+Their records had perished long ago by the plough, while the works of
+these remained. Yet they all had lived and died unconscious of the
+different fates awaiting their relics. It reminded him that unforeseen
+factors operate in the evolution of immortality.
+
+Winter again came round, with its winds, frosts, tame robins, and
+sparkling starlight. The year previous Thomasin had hardly been
+conscious of the season’s advance; this year she laid her heart open to
+external influences of every kind. The life of this sweet cousin, her
+baby, and her servants, came to Clym’s senses only in the form of
+sounds through a wood partition as he sat over books of exceptionally
+large type; but his ear became at last so accustomed to these slight
+noises from the other part of the house that he almost could witness
+the scenes they signified. A faint beat of half-seconds conjured up
+Thomasin rocking the cradle, a wavering hum meant that she was singing
+the baby to sleep, a crunching of sand as between millstones raised the
+picture of Humphrey’s, Fairway’s, or Sam’s heavy feet crossing the
+stone floor of the kitchen; a light boyish step, and a gay tune in a
+high key, betokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden break-off in
+the Grandfer’s utterances implied the application to his lips of a mug
+of small beer, a bustling and slamming of doors meant starting to go to
+market; for Thomasin, in spite of her added scope of gentility, led a
+ludicrously narrow life, to the end that she might save every possible
+pound for her little daughter.
+
+One summer day Clym was in the garden, immediately outside the parlour
+window, which was as usual open. He was looking at the pot-flowers on
+the sill; they had been revived and restored by Thomasin to the state
+in which his mother had left them. He heard a slight scream from
+Thomasin, who was sitting inside the room.
+
+“O, how you frightened me!” she said to someone who had entered. “I
+thought you were the ghost of yourself.”
+
+Clym was curious enough to advance a little further and look in at the
+window. To his astonishment there stood within the room Diggory Venn,
+no longer a reddleman, but exhibiting the strangely altered hues of an
+ordinary Christian countenance, white shirt-front, light flowered
+waistcoat, blue-spotted neckerchief, and bottle-green coat. Nothing in
+this appearance was at all singular but the fact of its great
+difference from what he had formerly been. Red, and all approach to
+red, was carefully excluded from every article of clothes upon him; for
+what is there that persons just out of harness dread so much as
+reminders of the trade which has enriched them?
+
+Yeobright went round to the door and entered.
+
+“I was so alarmed!” said Thomasin, smiling from one to the other. “I
+couldn’t believe that he had got white of his own accord! It seemed
+supernatural.”
+
+“I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas,” said Venn. “It was a
+profitable trade, and I found that by that time I had made enough to
+take the dairy of fifty cows that my father had in his lifetime. I
+always thought of getting to that place again if I changed at all, and
+now I am there.”
+
+“How did you manage to become white, Diggory?” Thomasin asked.
+
+“I turned so by degrees, ma’am.”
+
+“You look much better than ever you did before.”
+
+Venn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how inadvertently she had
+spoken to a man who might possibly have tender feelings for her still,
+blushed a little. Clym saw nothing of this, and added good-humouredly—
+
+“What shall we have to frighten Thomasin’s baby with, now you have
+become a human being again?”
+
+“Sit down, Diggory,” said Thomasin, “and stay to tea.”
+
+Venn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen, when Thomasin said
+with pleasant pertness as she went on with some sewing, “Of course you
+must sit down here. And where does your fifty-cow dairy lie, Mr. Venn?”
+
+“At Stickleford—about two miles to the right of Alderworth, ma’am,
+where the meads begin. I have thought that if Mr. Yeobright would like
+to pay me a visit sometimes he shouldn’t stay away for want of asking.
+I’ll not bide to tea this afternoon, thank’ee, for I’ve got something
+on hand that must be settled. ’Tis Maypole-day tomorrow, and the
+Shadwater folk have clubbed with a few of your neighbours here to have
+a pole just outside your palings in the heath, as it is a nice green
+place.” Venn waved his elbow towards the patch in front of the house.
+“I have been talking to Fairway about it,” he continued, “and I said to
+him that before we put up the pole it would be as well to ask Mrs.
+Wildeve.”
+
+“I can say nothing against it,” she answered. “Our property does not
+reach an inch further than the white palings.”
+
+“But you might not like to see a lot of folk going crazy round a stick,
+under your very nose?”
+
+“I shall have no objection at all.”
+
+Venn soon after went away, and in the evening Yeobright strolled as far
+as Fairway’s cottage. It was a lovely May sunset, and the birch trees
+which grew on this margin of the vast Egdon wilderness had put on their
+new leaves, delicate as butterflies’ wings, and diaphanous as amber.
+Beside Fairway’s dwelling was an open space recessed from the road, and
+here were now collected all the young people from within a radius of a
+couple of miles. The pole lay with one end supported on a trestle, and
+women were engaged in wreathing it from the top downwards with
+wild-flowers. The instincts of merry England lingered on here with
+exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has
+attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon.
+Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still—in
+these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties,
+fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten,
+seem in some way or other to have survived mediæval doctrine.
+
+Yeobright did not interrupt the preparations, and went home again. The
+next morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom
+window, there stood the Maypole in the middle of the green, its top
+cutting into the sky. It had sprung up in the night, or rather early
+morning, like Jack’s bean-stalk. She opened the casement to get a
+better view of the garlands and posies that adorned it. The sweet
+perfume of the flowers had already spread into the surrounding air,
+which, being free from every taint, conducted to her lips a full
+measure of the fragrance received from the spire of blossom in its
+midst. At the top of the pole were crossed hoops decked with small
+flowers; beneath these came a milk-white zone of Maybloom; then a zone
+of bluebells, then of cowslips, then of lilacs, then of ragged-robins,
+daffodils, and so on, till the lowest stage was reached. Thomasin
+noticed all these, and was delighted that the May revel was to be so
+near.
+
+When afternoon came people began to gather on the green, and Yeobright
+was interested enough to look out upon them from the open window of his
+room. Soon after this Thomasin walked out from the door immediately
+below and turned her eyes up to her cousin’s face. She was dressed more
+gaily than Yeobright had ever seen her dressed since the time of
+Wildeve’s death, eighteen months before; since the day of her marriage
+even she had not exhibited herself to such advantage.
+
+“How pretty you look today, Thomasin!” he said. “Is it because of the
+Maypole?”
+
+“Not altogether.” And then she blushed and dropped her eyes, which he
+did not specially observe, though her manner seemed to him to be rather
+peculiar, considering that she was only addressing himself. Could it be
+possible that she had put on her summer clothes to please him?
+
+He recalled her conduct towards him throughout the last few weeks, when
+they had often been working together in the garden, just as they had
+formerly done when they were boy and girl under his mother’s eye. What
+if her interest in him were not so entirely that of a relative as it
+had formerly been? To Yeobright any possibility of this sort was a
+serious matter; and he almost felt troubled at the thought of it. Every
+pulse of loverlike feeling which had not been stilled during Eustacia’s
+lifetime had gone into the grave with her. His passion for her had
+occurred too far on in his manhood to leave fuel enough on hand for
+another fire of that sort, as may happen with more boyish loves. Even
+supposing him capable of loving again, that love would be a plant of
+slow and laboured growth, and in the end only small and sickly, like an
+autumn-hatched bird.
+
+He was so distressed by this new complexity that when the enthusiastic
+brass band arrived and struck up, which it did about five o’clock, with
+apparently wind enough among its members to blow down his house, he
+withdrew from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden, through
+the gate in the hedge, and away out of sight. He could not bear to
+remain in the presence of enjoyment today, though he had tried hard.
+
+Nothing was seen of him for four hours. When he came back by the same
+path it was dusk, and the dews were coating every green thing. The
+boisterous music had ceased; but, entering the premises as he did from
+behind, he could not see if the May party had all gone till he had
+passed through Thomasin’s division of the house to the front door.
+Thomasin was standing within the porch alone.
+
+She looked at him reproachfully. “You went away just when it began,
+Clym,” she said.
+
+“Yes. I felt I could not join in. You went out with them, of course?”
+
+“No, I did not.”
+
+“You appeared to be dressed on purpose.”
+
+“Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there. One is
+there now.”
+
+Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the
+paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy
+figure, sauntering idly up and down. “Who is it?” he said.
+
+“Mr. Venn,” said Thomasin.
+
+“You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. He has been very
+kind to you first and last.”
+
+“I will now,” she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through the
+wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.
+
+“It is Mr. Venn, I think?” she inquired.
+
+Venn started as if he had not seen her—artful man that he was—and said,
+“Yes.”
+
+“Will you come in?”
+
+“I am afraid that I—”
+
+“I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had the very best of the
+girls for your partners. Is it that you won’t come in because you wish
+to stand here, and think over the past hours of enjoyment?”
+
+“Well, that’s partly it,” said Mr. Venn, with ostentatious sentiment.
+“But the main reason why I am biding here like this is that I want to
+wait till the moon rises.”
+
+“To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?”
+
+“No. To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens.”
+
+Thomasin was speechless with surprise. That a man who had to walk some
+four or five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason
+pointed to only one conclusion—the man must be amazingly interested in
+that glove’s owner.
+
+“Were you dancing with her, Diggory?” she asked, in a voice which
+revealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her
+by this disclosure.
+
+“No,” he sighed.
+
+“And you will not come in, then?”
+
+“Not tonight, thank you, ma’am.”
+
+“Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person’s glove, Mr.
+Venn?”
+
+“O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. The moon will rise
+in a few minutes.”
+
+Thomasin went back to the porch. “Is he coming in?” said Clym, who had
+been waiting where she had left him.
+
+“He would rather not tonight,” she said, and then passed by him into
+the house; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms.
+
+When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just
+listening by the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she
+went to the window, gently lifted the corner of the white curtain, and
+looked out. Venn was still there. She watched the growth of the faint
+radiance appearing in the sky by the eastern hill, till presently the
+edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley with light.
+Diggory’s form was now distinct on the green; he was moving about in a
+bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the precious missing
+article, walking in zigzags right and left till he should have passed
+over every foot of the ground.
+
+“How very ridiculous!” Thomasin murmured to herself, in a tone which
+was intended to be satirical. “To think that a man should be so silly
+as to go mooning about like that for a girl’s glove! A respectable
+dairyman, too, and a man of money as he is now. What a pity!”
+
+At last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood up and raised it
+to his lips. Then placing it in his breastpocket—the nearest receptacle
+to a man’s heart permitted by modern raiment—he ascended the valley in
+a mathematically direct line towards his distant home in the meadows.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road
+
+
+Clym saw little of Thomasin for several days after this; and when they
+met she was more silent than usual. At length he asked her what she was
+thinking of so intently.
+
+“I am thoroughly perplexed,” she said candidly. “I cannot for my life
+think who it is that Diggory Venn is so much in love with. None of the
+girls at the Maypole were good enough for him, and yet she must have
+been there.”
+
+Clym tried to imagine Venn’s choice for a moment; but ceasing to be
+interested in the question he went on again with his gardening.
+
+No clearing up of the mystery was granted her for some time. But one
+afternoon Thomasin was upstairs getting ready for a walk, when she had
+occasion to come to the landing and call “Rachel.” Rachel was a girl
+about thirteen, who carried the baby out for airings; and she came
+upstairs at the call.
+
+“Have you seen one of my last new gloves about the house, Rachel?”
+inquired Thomasin. “It is the fellow to this one.”
+
+Rachel did not reply.
+
+“Why don’t you answer?” said her mistress.
+
+“I think it is lost, ma’am.”
+
+“Lost? Who lost it? I have never worn them but once.”
+
+Rachel appeared as one dreadfully troubled, and at last began to cry.
+“Please, ma’am, on the day of the Maypole I had none to wear, and I
+seed yours on the table, and I thought I would borrow ’em. I did not
+mean to hurt ’em at all, but one of them got lost. Somebody gave me
+some money to buy another pair for you, but I have not been able to go
+anywhere to get ’em.”
+
+“Who’s somebody?”
+
+“Mr. Venn.”
+
+“Did he know it was my glove?”
+
+“Yes. I told him.”
+
+Thomasin was so surprised by the explanation that she quite forgot to
+lecture the girl, who glided silently away. Thomasin did not move
+further than to turn her eyes upon the grass-plat where the Maypole had
+stood. She remained thinking, then said to herself that she would not
+go out that afternoon, but would work hard at the baby’s unfinished
+lovely plaid frock, cut on the cross in the newest fashion. How she
+managed to work hard, and yet do no more than she had done at the end
+of two hours, would have been a mystery to anyone not aware that the
+recent incident was of a kind likely to divert her industry from a
+manual to a mental channel.
+
+Next day she went her ways as usual, and continued her custom of
+walking in the heath with no other companion than little Eustacia, now
+of the age when it is a matter of doubt with such characters whether
+they are intended to walk through the world on their hands or on their
+feet; so that they get into painful complications by trying both. It
+was very pleasant to Thomasin, when she had carried the child to some
+lonely place, to give her a little private practice on the green turf
+and shepherd’s-thyme, which formed a soft mat to fall headlong upon
+them when equilibrium was lost.
+
+Once, when engaged in this system of training, and stooping to remove
+bits of stick, fern-stalks, and other such fragments from the child’s
+path, that the journey might not be brought to an untimely end by some
+insuperable barrier a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by
+discovering that a man on horseback was almost close beside her, the
+soft natural carpet having muffled the horse’s tread. The rider, who
+was Venn, waved his hat in the air and bowed gallantly.
+
+“Diggory, give me my glove,” said Thomasin, whose manner it was under
+any circumstances to plunge into the midst of a subject which engrossed
+her.
+
+Venn immediately dismounted, put his hand in his breastpocket, and
+handed the glove.
+
+“Thank you. It was very good of you to take care of it.”
+
+“It is very good of you to say so.”
+
+“O no. I was quite glad to find you had it. Everybody gets so
+indifferent that I was surprised to know you thought of me.”
+
+“If you had remembered what I was once you wouldn’t have been
+surprised.”
+
+“Ah, no,” she said quickly. “But men of your character are mostly so
+independent.”
+
+“What is my character?” he asked.
+
+“I don’t exactly know,” said Thomasin simply, “except it is to cover up
+your feelings under a practical manner, and only to show them when you
+are alone.”
+
+“Ah, how do you know that?” said Venn strategically.
+
+“Because,” said she, stopping to put the little girl, who had managed
+to get herself upside down, right end up again, “because I do.”
+
+“You mustn’t judge by folks in general,” said Venn. “Still I don’t know
+much what feelings are nowadays. I have got so mixed up with business
+of one sort and t’other that my soft sentiments are gone off in vapour
+like. Yes, I am given up body and soul to the making of money. Money is
+all my dream.”
+
+“O Diggory, how wicked!” said Thomasin reproachfully, and looking at
+him in exact balance between taking his words seriously and judging
+them as said to tease her.
+
+“Yes, ’tis rather a rum course,” said Venn, in the bland tone of one
+comfortably resigned to sins he could no longer overcome.
+
+“You, who used to be so nice!”
+
+“Well, that’s an argument I rather like, because what a man has once
+been he may be again.” Thomasin blushed. “Except that it is rather
+harder now,” Venn continued.
+
+“Why?” she asked.
+
+“Because you be richer than you were at that time.”
+
+“O no—not much. I have made it nearly all over to the baby, as it was
+my duty to do, except just enough to live on.”
+
+“I am rather glad of that,” said Venn softly, and regarding her from
+the corner of his eye, “for it makes it easier for us to be friendly.”
+
+Thomasin blushed again, and, when a few more words had been said of a
+not unpleasing kind, Venn mounted his horse and rode on.
+
+This conversation had passed in a hollow of the heath near the old
+Roman road, a place much frequented by Thomasin. And it might have been
+observed that she did not in future walk that way less often from
+having met Venn there now. Whether or not Venn abstained from riding
+thither because he had met Thomasin in the same place might easily have
+been guessed from her proceedings about two months later in the same
+year.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin
+
+
+Throughout this period Yeobright had more or less pondered on his duty
+to his cousin Thomasin. He could not help feeling that it would be a
+pitiful waste of sweet material if the tender-natured thing should be
+doomed from this early stage of her life onwards to dribble away her
+winsome qualities on lonely gorse and fern. But he felt this as an
+economist merely, and not as a lover. His passion for Eustacia had been
+a sort of conserve of his whole life, and he had nothing more of that
+supreme quality left to bestow. So far the obvious thing was not to
+entertain any idea of marriage with Thomasin, even to oblige her.
+
+But this was not all. Years ago there had been in his mother’s mind a
+great fancy about Thomasin and himself. It had not positively amounted
+to a desire, but it had always been a favourite dream. That they should
+be man and wife in good time, if the happiness of neither were
+endangered thereby, was the fancy in question. So that what course save
+one was there now left for any son who reverenced his mother’s memory
+as Yeobright did? It is an unfortunate fact that any particular whim of
+parents, which might have been dispersed by half an hour’s conversation
+during their lives, becomes sublimated by their deaths into a fiat the
+most absolute, with such results to conscientious children as those
+parents, had they lived, would have been the first to decry.
+
+Had only Yeobright’s own future been involved he would have proposed to
+Thomasin with a ready heart. He had nothing to lose by carrying out a
+dead mother’s hope. But he dreaded to contemplate Thomasin wedded to
+the mere corpse of a lover that he now felt himself to be. He had but
+three activities alive in him. One was his almost daily walk to the
+little graveyard wherein his mother lay; another, his just as frequent
+visits by night to the more distant enclosure which numbered his
+Eustacia among its dead; the third was self-preparation for a vocation
+which alone seemed likely to satisfy his cravings—that of an itinerant
+preacher of the eleventh commandment. It was difficult to believe that
+Thomasin would be cheered by a husband with such tendencies as these.
+
+Yet he resolved to ask her, and let her decide for herself. It was even
+with a pleasant sense of doing his duty that he went downstairs to her
+one evening for this purpose, when the sun was printing on the valley
+the same long shadow of the housetop that he had seen lying there times
+out of number while his mother lived.
+
+Thomasin was not in her room, and he found her in the front garden. “I
+have long been wanting, Thomasin,” he began, “to say something about a
+matter that concerns both our futures.”
+
+“And you are going to say it now?” she remarked quickly, colouring as
+she met his gaze. “Do stop a minute, Clym, and let me speak first, for
+oddly enough, I have been wanting to say something to you.”
+
+“By all means say on, Tamsie.”
+
+“I suppose nobody can overhear us?” she went on, casting her eyes
+around and lowering her voice. “Well, first you will promise me
+this—that you won’t be angry and call me anything harsh if you disagree
+with what I propose?”
+
+Yeobright promised, and she continued: “What I want is your advice, for
+you are my relation—I mean, a sort of guardian to me—aren’t you, Clym?”
+
+“Well, yes, I suppose I am; a sort of guardian. In fact, I am, of
+course,” he said, altogether perplexed as to her drift.
+
+“I am thinking of marrying,” she then observed blandly. “But I shall
+not marry unless you assure me that you approve of such a step. Why
+don’t you speak?”
+
+“I was taken rather by surprise. But, nevertheless, I am very glad to
+hear such news. I shall approve, of course, dear Tamsie. Who can it be?
+I am quite at a loss to guess. No I am not—’tis the old doctor!—not
+that I mean to call him old, for he is not very old after all. Ah—I
+noticed when he attended you last time!”
+
+“No, no,” she said hastily. “’Tis Mr. Venn.”
+
+Clym’s face suddenly became grave.
+
+“There, now, you don’t like him, and I wish I hadn’t mentioned him!”
+she exclaimed almost petulantly. “And I shouldn’t have done it, either,
+only he keeps on bothering me so till I don’t know what to do!”
+
+Clym looked at the heath. “I like Venn well enough,” he answered at
+last. “He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is
+clever too, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But
+really, Thomasin, he is not quite—”
+
+“Gentleman enough for me? That is just what I feel. I am sorry now that
+I asked you, and I won’t think any more of him. At the same time I must
+marry him if I marry anybody—that I _will_ say!”
+
+“I don’t see that,” said Clym, carefully concealing every clue to his
+own interrupted intention, which she plainly had not guessed. “You
+might marry a professional man, or somebody of that sort, by going into
+the town to live and forming acquaintances there.”
+
+“I am not fit for town life—so very rural and silly as I always have
+been. Do not you yourself notice my countrified ways?”
+
+“Well, when I came home from Paris I did, a little; but I don’t now.”
+
+“That’s because you have got countrified too. O, I couldn’t live in a
+street for the world! Egdon is a ridiculous old place; but I have got
+used to it, and I couldn’t be happy anywhere else at all.”
+
+“Neither could I,” said Clym.
+
+“Then how could you say that I should marry some town man? I am sure,
+say what you will, that I must marry Diggory, if I marry at all. He has
+been kinder to me than anybody else, and has helped me in many ways
+that I don’t know of!” Thomasin almost pouted now.
+
+“Yes, he has,” said Clym in a neutral tone. “Well, I wish with all my
+heart that I could say, marry him. But I cannot forget what my mother
+thought on that matter, and it goes rather against me not to respect
+her opinion. There is too much reason why we should do the little we
+can to respect it now.”
+
+“Very well, then,” sighed Thomasin. “I will say no more.”
+
+“But you are not bound to obey my wishes. I merely say what I think.”
+
+“O no—I don’t want to be rebellious in that way,” she said sadly. “I
+had no business to think of him—I ought to have thought of my family.
+What dreadfully bad impulses there are in me!” Her lips trembled, and
+she turned away to hide a tear.
+
+Clym, though vexed at what seemed her unaccountable taste, was in a
+measure relieved to find that at any rate the marriage question in
+relation to himself was shelved. Through several succeeding days he saw
+her at different times from the window of his room moping
+disconsolately about the garden. He was half angry with her for
+choosing Venn; then he was grieved at having put himself in the way of
+Venn’s happiness, who was, after all, as honest and persevering a young
+fellow as any on Egdon, since he had turned over a new leaf. In short,
+Clym did not know what to do.
+
+When next they met she said abruptly, “He is much more respectable now
+than he was then!”
+
+“Who? O yes—Diggory Venn.”
+
+“Aunt only objected because he was a reddleman.”
+
+“Well, Thomasin, perhaps I don’t know all the particulars of my
+mother’s wish. So you had better use your own discretion.”
+
+“You will always feel that I slighted your mother’s memory.”
+
+“No, I will not. I shall think you are convinced that, had she seen
+Diggory in his present position, she would have considered him a
+fitting husband for you. Now, that’s my real feeling. Don’t consult me
+any more, but do as you like, Thomasin. I shall be content.”
+
+It is to be supposed that Thomasin was convinced; for a few days after
+this, when Clym strayed into a part of the heath that he had not lately
+visited, Humphrey, who was at work there, said to him, “I am glad to
+see that Mrs. Wildeve and Venn have made it up again, seemingly.”
+
+“Have they?” said Clym abstractedly.
+
+“Yes; and he do contrive to stumble upon her whenever she walks out on
+fine days with the chiel. But, Mr. Yeobright, I can’t help feeling that
+your cousin ought to have married you. ’Tis a pity to make two
+chimleycorners where there need be only one. You could get her away
+from him now, ’tis my belief, if you were only to set about it.”
+
+“How can I have the conscience to marry after having driven two women
+to their deaths? Don’t think such a thing, Humphrey. After my
+experience I should consider it too much of a burlesque to go to church
+and take a wife. In the words of Job, ‘I have made a covenant with mine
+eyes; when then should I think upon a maid?’”
+
+“No, Mr. Clym, don’t fancy that about driving two women to their
+deaths. You shouldn’t say it.”
+
+“Well, we’ll leave that out,” said Yeobright. “But anyhow God has set a
+mark upon me which wouldn’t look well in a love-making scene. I have
+two ideas in my head, and no others. I am going to keep a night-school;
+and I am going to turn preacher. What have you got to say to that,
+Humphrey?”
+
+“I’ll come and hear ’ee with all my heart.”
+
+“Thanks. ’Tis all I wish.”
+
+As Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came down by the other path,
+and met him at the gate. “What do you think I have to tell you, Clym?”
+she said, looking archly over her shoulder at him.
+
+“I can guess,” he replied.
+
+She scrutinized his face. “Yes, you guess right. It is going to be
+after all. He thinks I may as well make up my mind, and I have got to
+think so too. It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you
+don’t object.”
+
+“Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you see your
+way clear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the
+treatment you received in days gone by.”*
+
+ [*] The writer may state here that the original conception of the
+ story did not design a marriage between Thomasin and Venn. He was to
+ have retained his isolated and weird character to the last, and to
+ have disappeared mysteriously from the heath, nobody knowing
+ whither—Thomasin remaining a widow. But certain circumstances of
+ serial publication led to a change of intent.
+    Readers can therefore choose between the endings, and those with an
+    austere artistic code can assume the more consistent conclusion to
+    be the true one.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His
+Vocation
+
+
+Anybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven o’clock on the
+morning fixed for the wedding would have found that, while Yeobright’s
+house was comparatively quiet, sounds denoting great activity came from
+the dwelling of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway. It was chiefly
+a noise of feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over the sanded
+floor within. One man only was visible outside, and he seemed to be
+later at an appointment than he had intended to be, for he hastened up
+to the door, lifted the latch, and walked in without ceremony.
+
+The scene within was not quite the customary one. Standing about the
+room was the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the Egdon
+coterie, there being present Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle,
+Humphrey, Christian, and one or two turf-cutters. It was a warm day,
+and the men were as a matter of course in their shirtsleeves, except
+Christian, who had always a nervous fear of parting with a scrap of his
+clothing when in anybody’s house but his own. Across the stout oak
+table in the middle of the room was thrown a mass of striped linen,
+which Grandfer Cantle held down on one side, and Humphrey on the other,
+while Fairway rubbed its surface with a yellow lump, his face being
+damp and creased with the effort of the labour.
+
+“Waxing a bed-tick, souls?” said the newcomer.
+
+“Yes, Sam,” said Grandfer Cantle, as a man too busy to waste words.
+“Shall I stretch this corner a shade tighter, Timothy?”
+
+Fairway replied, and the waxing went on with unabated vigour. “’Tis
+going to be a good bed, by the look o’t,” continued Sam, after an
+interval of silence. “Who may it be for?”
+
+“’Tis a present for the new folks that’s going to set up housekeeping,”
+said Christian, who stood helpless and overcome by the majesty of the
+proceedings.
+
+“Ah, to be sure; and a valuable one, ’a b’lieve.”
+
+“Beds be dear to fokes that don’t keep geese, bain’t they, Mister
+Fairway?” said Christian, as to an omniscient being.
+
+“Yes,” said the furze-dealer, standing up, giving his forehead a
+thorough mopping, and handing the beeswax to Humphrey, who succeeded at
+the rubbing forthwith. “Not that this couple be in want of one, but
+’twas well to show ’em a bit of friendliness at this great racketing
+vagary of their lives. I set up both my own daughters in one when they
+was married, and there have been feathers enough for another in the
+house the last twelve months. Now then, neighbours, I think we have
+laid on enough wax. Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right way
+outwards, and then I’ll begin to shake in the feathers.”
+
+When the bed was in proper trim Fairway and Christian brought forward
+vast paper bags, stuffed to the full, but light as balloons, and began
+to turn the contents of each into the receptacle just prepared. As bag
+after bag was emptied, airy tufts of down and feathers floated about
+the room in increasing quantity till, through a mishap of Christian’s,
+who shook the contents of one bag outside the tick, the atmosphere of
+the room became dense with gigantic flakes, which descended upon the
+workers like a windless snowstorm.
+
+“I never saw such a clumsy chap as you, Christian,” said Grandfer
+Cantle severely. “You might have been the son of a man that’s never
+been outside Blooms-End in his life for all the wit you have. Really
+all the soldiering and smartness in the world in the father seems to
+count for nothing in forming the nater of the son. As far as that chief
+Christian is concerned I might as well have stayed at home and seed
+nothing, like all the rest of ye here. Though, as far as myself is
+concerned, a dashing spirit has counted for sommat, to be sure!”
+
+“Don’t ye let me down so, Father; I feel no bigger than a ninepin after
+it. I’ve made but a bruckle hit, I’m afeard.”
+
+“Come, come. Never pitch yerself in such a low key as that, Christian;
+you should try more,” said Fairway.
+
+“Yes, you should try more,” echoed the Grandfer with insistence, as if
+he had been the first to make the suggestion. “In common conscience
+every man ought either to marry or go for a soldier. ’Tis a scandal to
+the nation to do neither one nor t’other. I did both, thank God!
+Neither to raise men nor to lay ’em low—that shows a poor do-nothing
+spirit indeed.”
+
+“I never had the nerve to stand fire,” faltered Christian. “But as to
+marrying, I own I’ve asked here and there, though without much fruit
+from it. Yes, there’s some house or other that might have had a man for
+a master—such as he is—that’s now ruled by a woman alone. Still it
+might have been awkward if I had found her; for, d’ye see, neighbours,
+there’d have been nobody left at home to keep down Father’s spirits to
+the decent pitch that becomes a old man.”
+
+“And you’ve your work cut out to do that, my son,” said Grandfer Cantle
+smartly. “I wish that the dread of infirmities was not so strong in
+me!—I’d start the very first thing tomorrow to see the world over
+again! But seventy-one, though nothing at home, is a high figure for a
+rover.... Ay, seventy-one, last Candlemasday. Gad, I’d sooner have it
+in guineas than in years!” And the old man sighed.
+
+“Don’t you be mournful, Grandfer,” said Fairway. “Empt some more
+feathers into the bed-tick, and keep up yer heart. Though rather lean
+in the stalks you be a green-leaved old man still. There’s time enough
+left to ye yet to fill whole chronicles.”
+
+“Begad, I’ll go to ’em, Timothy—to the married pair!” said Granfer
+Cantle in an encouraged voice, and starting round briskly. “I’ll go to
+’em tonight and sing a wedding song, hey? ’Tis like me to do so, you
+know; and they’d see it as such. My ‘Down in Cupid’s Gardens’ was well
+liked in four; still, I’ve got others as good, and even better. What do
+you say to my
+
+She cal′-led to′ her love′
+From the lat′-tice a-bove,
+′O come in′ from the fog-gy fog′-gy dew′.
+
+
+’Twould please ’em well at such a time! Really, now I come to think of
+it, I haven’t turned my tongue in my head to the shape of a real good
+song since Old Midsummer night, when we had the ‘Barley Mow’ at the
+Woman; and ’tis a pity to neglect your strong point where there’s few
+that have the compass for such things!”
+
+“So ’tis, so ’tis,” said Fairway. “Now gie the bed a shake down. We’ve
+put in seventy pounds of best feathers, and I think that’s as many as
+the tick will fairly hold. A bit and a drap wouldn’t be amiss now, I
+reckon. Christian, maul down the victuals from corner-cupboard if canst
+reach, man, and I’ll draw a drap o’ sommat to wet it with.”
+
+They sat down to a lunch in the midst of their work, feathers around,
+above, and below them; the original owners of which occasionally came
+to the open door and cackled begrudgingly at sight of such a quantity
+of their old clothes.
+
+“Upon my soul I shall be chokt,” said Fairway when, having extracted a
+feather from his mouth, he found several others floating on the mug as
+it was handed round.
+
+“I’ve swallered several; and one had a tolerable quill,” said Sam
+placidly from the corner.
+
+“Hullo—what’s that—wheels I hear coming?” Grandfer Cantle exclaimed,
+jumping up and hastening to the door. “Why, ’tis they back again—I
+didn’t expect ’em yet this half-hour. To be sure, how quick marrying
+can be done when you are in the mind for’t!”
+
+“O yes, it can soon be _done_,” said Fairway, as if something should be
+added to make the statement complete.
+
+He arose and followed the Grandfer, and the rest also went to the door.
+In a moment an open fly was driven past, in which sat Venn and Mrs.
+Venn, Yeobright, and a grand relative of Venn’s who had come from
+Budmouth for the occasion. The fly had been hired at the nearest town,
+regardless of distance and cost, there being nothing on Egdon Heath, in
+Venn’s opinion, dignified enough for such an event when such a woman as
+Thomasin was the bride; and the church was too remote for a walking
+bridal-party.
+
+As the fly passed the group which had run out from the homestead they
+shouted “Hurrah!” and waved their hands; feathers and down floating
+from their hair, their sleeves, and the folds of their garments at
+every motion, and Grandfer Cantle’s seals dancing merrily in the
+sunlight as he twirled himself about. The driver of the fly turned a
+supercilious gaze upon them; he even treated the wedded pair themselves
+with something like condescension; for in what other state than heathen
+could people, rich or poor, exist who were doomed to abide in such a
+world’s end as Egdon? Thomasin showed no such superiority to the group
+at the door, fluttering her hand as quickly as a bird’s wing towards
+them, and asking Diggory, with tears in her eyes, if they ought not to
+alight and speak to these kind neighbours. Venn, however, suggested
+that, as they were all coming to the house in the evening, this was
+hardly necessary.
+
+After this excitement the saluting party returned to their occupation,
+and the stuffing and sewing were soon afterwards finished, when Fairway
+harnessed a horse, wrapped up the cumbrous present, and drove off with
+it in the cart to Venn’s house at Stickleford.
+
+Yeobright, having filled the office at the wedding service which
+naturally fell to his hands, and afterwards returned to the house with
+the husband and wife, was indisposed to take part in the feasting and
+dancing that wound up the evening. Thomasin was disappointed.
+
+“I wish I could be there without dashing your spirits,” he said. “But I
+might be too much like the skull at the banquet.”
+
+“No, no.”
+
+“Well, dear, apart from that, if you would excuse me, I should be glad.
+I know it seems unkind; but, dear Thomasin, I fear I should not be
+happy in the company—there, that’s the truth of it. I shall always be
+coming to see you at your new home, you know, so that my absence now
+will not matter.”
+
+“Then I give in. Do whatever will be most comfortable to yourself.”
+
+Clym retired to his lodging at the housetop much relieved, and occupied
+himself during the afternoon in noting down the heads of a sermon, with
+which he intended to initiate all that really seemed practicable of the
+scheme that had originally brought him hither, and that he had so long
+kept in view under various modifications, and through evil and good
+report. He had tested and weighed his convictions again and again, and
+saw no reason to alter them, though he had considerably lessened his
+plan. His eyesight, by long humouring in his native air, had grown
+stronger, but not sufficiently strong to warrant his attempting his
+extensive educational project. Yet he did not repine—there was still
+more than enough of an unambitious sort to tax all his energies and
+occupy all his hours.
+
+Evening drew on, and sounds of life and movement in the lower part of
+the domicile became more pronounced, the gate in the palings clicking
+incessantly. The party was to be an early one, and all the guests were
+assembled long before it was dark. Yeobright went down the back
+staircase and into the heath by another path than that in front,
+intending to walk in the open air till the party was over, when he
+would return to wish Thomasin and her husband good-bye as they
+departed. His steps were insensibly bent towards Mistover by the path
+that he had followed on that terrible morning when he learnt the
+strange news from Susan’s boy.
+
+He did not turn aside to the cottage, but pushed on to an eminence,
+whence he could see over the whole quarter that had once been
+Eustacia’s home. While he stood observing the darkening scene somebody
+came up. Clym, seeing him but dimly, would have let him pass silently,
+had not the pedestrian, who was Charley, recognized the young man and
+spoken to him.
+
+“Charley, I have not seen you for a length of time,” said Yeobright.
+“Do you often walk this way?”
+
+“No,” the lad replied. “I don’t often come outside the bank.”
+
+“You were not at the Maypole.”
+
+“No,” said Charley, in the same listless tone. “I don’t care for that
+sort of thing now.”
+
+“You rather liked Miss Eustacia, didn’t you?” Yeobright gently asked.
+Eustacia had frequently told him of Charley’s romantic attachment.
+
+“Yes, very much. Ah, I wish—”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I wish, Mr. Yeobright, you could give me something to keep that once
+belonged to her—if you don’t mind.”
+
+“I shall be very happy to. It will give me very great pleasure,
+Charley. Let me think what I have of hers that you would like. But come
+with me to the house, and I’ll see.”
+
+They walked towards Blooms-End together. When they reached the front it
+was dark, and the shutters were closed, so that nothing of the interior
+could be seen.
+
+“Come round this way,” said Clym. “My entrance is at the back for the
+present.”
+
+The two went round and ascended the crooked stair in darkness till
+Clym’s sitting-room on the upper floor was reached, where he lit a
+candle, Charley entering gently behind. Yeobright searched his desk,
+and taking out a sheet of tissue-paper unfolded from it two or three
+undulating locks of raven hair, which fell over the paper like black
+streams. From these he selected one, wrapped it up, and gave it to the
+lad, whose eyes had filled with tears. He kissed the packet, put it in
+his pocket, and said in a voice of emotion, “O, Mr. Clym, how good you
+are to me!”
+
+“I will go a little way with you,” said Clym. And amid the noise of
+merriment from below they descended. Their path to the front led them
+close to a little side window, whence the rays of candles streamed
+across the shrubs. The window, being screened from general observation
+by the bushes, had been left unblinded, so that a person in this
+private nook could see all that was going on within the room which
+contained the wedding guests, except in so far as vision was hindered
+by the green antiquity of the panes.
+
+“Charley, what are they doing?” said Clym. “My sight is weaker again
+tonight, and the glass of this window is not good.”
+
+Charley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred with moisture,
+and stepped closer to the casement. “Mr. Venn is asking Christian
+Cantle to sing,” he replied, “and Christian is moving about in his
+chair as if he were much frightened at the question, and his father has
+struck up a stave instead of him.”
+
+“Yes, I can hear the old man’s voice,” said Clym. “So there’s to be no
+dancing, I suppose. And is Thomasin in the room? I see something moving
+in front of the candles that resembles her shape, I think.”
+
+“Yes. She do seem happy. She is red in the face, and laughing at
+something Fairway has said to her. O my!”
+
+“What noise was that?” said Clym.
+
+“Mr. Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against the beam in
+gieing a skip as he passed under. Mrs. Venn has run up quite frightened
+and now she’s put her hand to his head to feel if there’s a lump. And
+now they be all laughing again as if nothing had happened.”
+
+“Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?” Clym asked.
+
+“No, not a bit in the world. Now they are all holding up their glasses
+and drinking somebody’s health.”
+
+“I wonder if it is mine?”
+
+“No, ’tis Mr. and Mrs. Venn’s, because he is making a hearty sort of
+speech. There—now Mrs. Venn has got up, and is going away to put on her
+things, I think.”
+
+“Well, they haven’t concerned themselves about me, and it is quite
+right they should not. It is all as it should be, and Thomasin at least
+is happy. We will not stay any longer now, as they will soon be coming
+out to go home.”
+
+He accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home, and, returning
+alone to the house a quarter of an hour later, found Venn and Thomasin
+ready to start, all the guests having departed in his absence. The
+wedded pair took their seats in the four-wheeled dogcart which Venn’s
+head milker and handy man had driven from Stickleford to fetch them in;
+little Eustacia and the nurse were packed securely upon the open flap
+behind; and the milker, on an ancient overstepping pony, whose shoes
+clashed like cymbals at every tread, rode in the rear, in the manner of
+a body-servant of the last century.
+
+“Now we leave you in absolute possession of your own house again,” said
+Thomasin as she bent down to wish her cousin good night. “It will be
+rather lonely for you, Clym, after the hubbub we have been making.”
+
+“O, that’s no inconvenience,” said Clym, smiling rather sadly. And then
+the party drove off and vanished in the night shades, and Yeobright
+entered the house. The ticking of the clock was the only sound that
+greeted him, for not a soul remained; Christian, who acted as cook,
+valet, and gardener to Clym, sleeping at his father’s house. Yeobright
+sat down in one of the vacant chairs, and remained in thought a long
+time. His mother’s old chair was opposite; it had been sat in that
+evening by those who had scarcely remembered that it ever was hers. But
+to Clym she was almost a presence there, now as always. Whatever she
+was in other people’s memories, in his she was the sublime saint whose
+radiance even his tenderness for Eustacia could not obscure. But his
+heart was heavy, that Mother had _not_ crowned him in the day of his
+espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart. And events had
+borne out the accuracy of her judgment, and proved the devotedness of
+her care. He should have heeded her for Eustacia’s sake even more than
+for his own. “It was all my fault,” he whispered. “O, my mother, my
+mother! would to God that I could live my life again, and endure for
+you what you endured for me!”
+
+On the Sunday after this wedding an unusual sight was to be seen on
+Rainbarrow. From a distance there simply appeared to be a motionless
+figure standing on the top of the tumulus, just as Eustacia had stood
+on that lonely summit some two years and a half before. But now it was
+fine warm weather, with only a summer breeze blowing, and early
+afternoon instead of dull twilight. Those who ascended to the immediate
+neighbourhood of the Barrow perceived that the erect form in the
+centre, piercing the sky, was not really alone. Round him upon the
+slopes of the Barrow a number of heathmen and women were reclining or
+sitting at their ease. They listened to the words of the man in their
+midst, who was preaching, while they abstractedly pulled heather,
+stripped ferns, or tossed pebbles down the slope. This was the first of
+a series of moral lectures or Sermons on the Mount, which were to be
+delivered from the same place every Sunday afternoon as long as the
+fine weather lasted.
+
+The commanding elevation of Rainbarrow had been chosen for two reasons:
+first, that it occupied a central position among the remote cottages
+around; secondly, that the preacher thereon could be seen from all
+adjacent points as soon as he arrived at his post, the view of him
+being thus a convenient signal to those stragglers who wished to draw
+near. The speaker was bareheaded, and the breeze at each waft gently
+lifted and lowered his hair, somewhat too thin for a man of his years,
+these still numbering less than thirty-three. He wore a shade over his
+eyes, and his face was pensive and lined; but, though these bodily
+features were marked with decay there was no defect in the tones of his
+voice, which were rich, musical, and stirring. He stated that his
+discourses to people were to be sometimes secular, and sometimes
+religious, but never dogmatic; and that his texts would be taken from
+all kinds of books. This afternoon the words were as follows:—
+
+“‘And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat
+down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king’s mother;
+and she sat on his right hand. Then she said, I desire one small
+petition of thee; I pray thee say me not nay. And the king said unto
+her, Ask, on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay.’”
+
+Yeobright had, in fact, found his vocation in the career of an
+itinerant open-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable
+subjects; and from this day he laboured incessantly in that office,
+speaking not only in simple language on Rainbarrow and in the hamlets
+round, but in a more cultivated strain elsewhere—from the steps and
+porticoes of town halls, from market-crosses, from conduits, on
+esplanades and on wharves, from the parapets of bridges, in barns and
+outhouses, and all other such places in the neighbouring Wessex towns
+and villages. He left alone creeds and systems of philosophy, finding
+enough and more than enough to occupy his tongue in the opinions and
+actions common to all good men. Some believed him, and some believed
+not; some said that his words were commonplace, others complained of
+his want of theological doctrine; while others again remarked that it
+was well enough for a man to take to preaching who could not see to do
+anything else. But everywhere he was kindly received, for the story of
+his life had become generally known.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 122-0.txt or 122-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+    https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/122/
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
+United States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
+  you are located before using this eBook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that:
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without
+widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
diff --git a/old/122-0.zip b/old/122-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1454cbd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/122-0.zip
diff --git a/old/122-h.zip b/old/122-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b03c6ca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/122-h.zip
diff --git a/old/122-h/122-h.htm b/old/122-h/122-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..19b8d34
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/122-h/122-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,23842 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy</title>
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+<style type="text/css">
+
+body { margin-left: 20%;
+       margin-right: 20%;
+       text-align: justify; }
+
+h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight:
+normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;}
+
+h1 {font-size: 300%;
+    margin-top: 0.6em;
+    margin-bottom: 0.6em;
+    letter-spacing: 0.12em;
+    word-spacing: 0.2em;
+    text-indent: 0em;}
+h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;}
+h4 {font-size: 120%;}
+h5 {font-size: 110%;}
+
+.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */
+
+hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+
+div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;}
+
+p {text-indent: 1em;
+   margin-top: 0.25em;
+   margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+
+.p2 {margin-top: 2em;}
+
+p.poem {text-indent: 0%;
+        margin-left: 10%;
+        font-size: 90%;
+        margin-top: 1em;
+        margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.letter {text-indent: 0%;
+          margin-left: 10%;
+          margin-right: 10%;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.noindent {text-indent: 0% }
+
+p.right {text-align: right;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+         margin-top: 1em;
+         margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.footnote {font-size: 90%;
+           text-indent: 0%;
+           margin-left: 10%;
+           margin-right: 10%;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; }
+
+div.fig { display:block;
+          margin:0 auto;
+          text-align:center;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em;}
+
+a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:hover {color:red}
+
+</style>
+
+</head>
+
+<body>
+
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Return of the Native</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Hardy</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April, 1994 [eBook #122]<br />
+[Most recently updated: January 21, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: John Hamm and David Widger</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE ***</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:55%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>The Return of the Native</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by Thomas Hardy</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#pref01">PREFACE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#book01">BOOK FIRST&mdash;THE THREE WOMEN</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">I. A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">II. Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">III. The Custom of the Country</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. The Halt on the Turnpike Road</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">V. Perplexity among Honest People</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. The Figure against the Sky</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. Queen of Night</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">X. A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#book02">BOOK SECOND&mdash;THE ARRIVAL</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">I. Tidings of the Comer</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">II. The People at Blooms-End Make Ready</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">III. How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">IV. Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">V. Through the Moonlight</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">VI. The Two Stand Face to Face</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">VII. A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">VIII. Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#book03">BOOK THIRD&mdash;THE FASCINATION</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">I. &ldquo;My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">II. The New Course Causes Disappointment</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">III. The First Act in a Timeworn Drama</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">IV. An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">V. Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">VI. Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">VII. The Morning and the Evening of a Day</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap27">VIII. A New Force Disturbs the Current</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#book04">BOOK FOURTH&mdash;THE CLOSED DOOR</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap28">I. The Rencounter by the Pool</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap29">II. He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap30">III. She Goes Out to Battle against Depression</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap31">IV. Rough Coercion Is Employed</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap32">V. The Journey across the Heath</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap33">VI. A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap34">VII. The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap35">VIII. Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#book05">BOOK FIFTH&mdash;THE DISCOVERY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap36">I. &ldquo;Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap37">II. A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap38">III. Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap39">IV. The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap40">V. An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap41">VI. Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap42">VII. The Night of the Sixth of November</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap43">VIII. Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap44">IX. Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#book06">BOOK SIXTH&mdash;AFTERCOURSES</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap45">I. The Inevitable Movement Onward</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap46">II. Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap47">III. The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap48">IV. Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His Vocation</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p class="letter">
+    &ldquo;To sorrow<br />
+    I bade good morrow,<br />
+And thought to leave her far away behind;<br />
+    But cheerly, cheerly,<br />
+    She loves me dearly;<br />
+She is so constant to me, and so kind.<br />
+    I would deceive her,<br />
+    And so leave her,<br />
+But ah! she is so constant and so kind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="pref01"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>
+The date at which the following events are assumed to have occurred may be set
+down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old watering place herein called
+&ldquo;Budmouth&rdquo; still retained sufficient afterglow from its Georgian
+gaiety and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to the romantic and
+imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under the general name of &ldquo;Egdon Heath,&rdquo; which has been given to
+the sombre scene of the story, are united or typified heaths of various real
+names, to the number of at least a dozen; these being virtually one in
+character and aspect, though their original unity, or partial unity, is now
+somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and slices brought under the plough with
+varying degrees of success, or planted to woodland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract whose
+southwestern quarter is here described, may be the heath of that traditionary
+King of Wessex&mdash;Lear.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+T.H.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+<i>July</i>, 1895.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="book01"></a>BOOK FIRST&mdash;THE THREE WOMEN</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I.<br />
+A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression</h2>
+
+<p>
+A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the
+vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by
+moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was
+as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the darkest
+vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such
+contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night which had
+taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a
+great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky. Looking
+upwards, a furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work; looking
+down, he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home. The distant rims
+of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than
+a division in matter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half
+an hour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon,
+anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity
+of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into darkness
+the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be
+said to understand the heath who had not been there at such a time. It could
+best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and
+explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn; then,
+and only then, did it tell its true tale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation
+of night, and when night showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate
+together could be perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch of
+rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy,
+the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it. And so
+the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed together in a
+black fraternization towards which each advanced halfway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank
+brooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen. Every night
+its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it had waited thus, unmoved,
+during so many centuries, through the crises of so many things, that it could
+only be imagined to await one last crisis&mdash;the final overthrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who loved it with an
+aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity. Smiling champaigns of flowers and
+fruit hardly do this, for they are permanently harmonious only with an
+existence of better reputation as to its issues than the present. Twilight
+combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a thing majestic without
+severity, impressive without showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand in
+its simplicity. The qualifications which frequently invest the façade of a
+prison with far more dignity than is found in the façade of a palace double its
+size lent to this heath a sublimity in which spots renowned for beauty of the
+accepted kind are utterly wanting. Fair prospects wed happily with fair times;
+but alas, if times be not fair! Men have oftener suffered from, the mockery of
+a place too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of surroundings
+oversadly tinged. Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler and scarcer instinct, to
+a more recently learnt emotion, than that which responds to the sort of beauty
+called charming and fair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this orthodox beauty is not
+approaching its last quarter. The new Vale of Tempe may be a gaunt waste in
+Thule; human souls may find themselves in closer and closer harmony with
+external things wearing a sombreness distasteful to our race when it was young.
+The time seems near, if it has not actually arrived, when the chastened
+sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a mountain will be all of nature that is
+absolutely in keeping with the moods of the more thinking among mankind. And
+ultimately, to the commonest tourist, spots like Iceland may become what the
+vineyards and myrtle gardens of South Europe are to him now; and Heidelberg and
+Baden be passed unheeded as he hastens from the Alps to the sand dunes of
+Scheveningen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The most thoroughgoing ascetic could feel that he had a natural right to wander
+on Egdon&mdash;he was keeping within the line of legitimate indulgence when he
+laid himself open to influences such as these. Colours and beauties so far
+subdued were, at least, the birthright of all. Only in summer days of highest
+feather did its mood touch the level of gaiety. Intensity was more usually
+reached by way of the solemn than by way of the brilliant, and such a sort of
+intensity was often arrived at during winter darkness, tempests, and mists.
+Then Egdon was aroused to reciprocity; for the storm was its lover, and the
+wind its friend. Then it became the home of strange phantoms; and it was found
+to be the hitherto unrecognized original of those wild regions of obscurity
+which are vaguely felt to be compassing us about in midnight dreams of flight
+and disaster, and are never thought of after the dream till revived by scenes
+like this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man&rsquo;s
+nature&mdash;neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace,
+unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal
+singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some
+persons who have long lived apart, solitude seemed to look out of its
+countenance. It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in Domesday. Its condition
+is recorded therein as that of heathy, furzy, briary
+wilderness&mdash;&ldquo;Bruaria.&rdquo; Then follows the length and breadth in
+leagues; and, though some uncertainty exists as to the exact extent of this
+ancient lineal measure, it appears from the figures that the area of Egdon down
+to the present day has but little diminished. &ldquo;Turbaria
+Bruaria&rdquo;&mdash;the right of cutting heath-turf&mdash;occurs in charters
+relating to the district. &ldquo;Overgrown with heth and mosse,&rdquo; says
+Leland of the same dark sweep of country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here at least were intelligible facts regarding landscape&mdash;far-reaching
+proofs productive of genuine satisfaction. The untameable, Ishmaelitish thing
+that Egdon now was it always had been. Civilization was its enemy; and ever
+since the beginning of vegetation its soil had worn the same antique brown
+dress, the natural and invariable garment of the particular formation. In its
+venerable one coat lay a certain vein of satire on human vanity in clothes. A
+person on a heath in raiment of modern cut and colours has more or less an
+anomalous look. We seem to want the oldest and simplest human clothing where
+the clothing of the earth is so primitive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To recline on a stump of thorn in the central valley of Egdon, between
+afternoon and night, as now, where the eye could reach nothing of the world
+outside the summits and shoulders of heathland which filled the whole
+circumference of its glance, and to know that everything around and underneath
+had been from prehistoric times as unaltered as the stars overhead, gave
+ballast to the mind adrift on change, and harassed by the irrepressible New.
+The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence which the sea cannot claim.
+Who can say of a particular sea that it is old? Distilled by the sun, kneaded
+by the moon, it is renewed in a year, in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed,
+the fields changed, the rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon
+remained. Those surfaces were neither so steep as to be destructible by
+weather, nor so flat as to be the victims of floods and deposits. With the
+exception of an aged highway, and a still more aged barrow presently to be
+referred to&mdash;themselves almost crystallized to natural products by long
+continuance&mdash;even the trifling irregularities were not caused by pickaxe,
+plough, or spade, but remained as the very finger-touches of the last
+geological change.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The above-mentioned highway traversed the lower levels of the heath, from one
+horizon to another. In many portions of its course it overlaid an old vicinal
+way, which branched from the great Western road of the Romans, the Via
+Iceniana, or Ikenild Street, hard by. On the evening under consideration it
+would have been noticed that, though the gloom had increased sufficiently to
+confuse the minor features of the heath, the white surface of the road remained
+almost as clear as ever.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II.<br />
+Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble</h2>
+
+<p>
+Along the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a mountain, bowed in
+the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He wore a glazed hat, an ancient
+boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons bearing an anchor upon their face. In
+his hand was a silver-headed walking stick, which he used as a veritable third
+leg, perseveringly dotting the ground with its point at every few inches&rsquo;
+interval. One would have said that he had been, in his day, a naval officer of
+some sort or other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before him stretched the long, laborious road, dry, empty, and white. It was
+quite open to the heath on each side, and bisected that vast dark surface like
+the parting-line on a head of black hair, diminishing and bending away on the
+furthest horizon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man frequently stretched his eyes ahead to gaze over the tract that he
+had yet to traverse. At length he discerned, a long distance in front of him, a
+moving spot, which appeared to be a vehicle, and it proved to be going the same
+way as that in which he himself was journeying. It was the single atom of life
+that the scene contained, and it only served to render the general loneliness
+more evident. Its rate of advance was slow, and the old man gained upon it
+sensibly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van, ordinary in shape, but
+singular in colour, this being a lurid red. The driver walked beside it; and,
+like his van, he was completely red. One dye of that tincture covered his
+clothes, the cap upon his head, his boots, his face, and his hands. He was not
+temporarily overlaid with the colour; it permeated him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man knew the meaning of this. The traveller with the cart was a
+reddleman&mdash;a person whose vocation it was to supply farmers with redding
+for their sheep. He was one of a class rapidly becoming extinct in Wessex,
+filling at present in the rural world the place which, during the last century,
+the dodo occupied in the world of animals. He is a curious, interesting, and
+nearly perished link between obsolete forms of life and those which generally
+prevail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his fellow-wayfarer, and
+wished him good evening. The reddleman turned his head, and replied in sad and
+occupied tones. He was young, and his face, if not exactly handsome, approached
+so near to handsome that nobody would have contradicted an assertion that it
+really was so in its natural colour. His eye, which glared so strangely through
+his stain, was in itself attractive&mdash;keen as that of a bird of prey, and
+blue as autumn mist. He had neither whisker nor moustache, which allowed the
+soft curves of the lower part of his face to be apparent. His lips were thin,
+and though, as it seemed, compressed by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at
+their corners now and then. He was clothed throughout in a tight-fitting suit
+of corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn, and well-chosen for its
+purpose, but deprived of its original colour by his trade. It showed to
+advantage the good shape of his figure. A certain well-to-do air about the man
+suggested that he was not poor for his degree. The natural query of an observer
+would have been, Why should such a promising being as this have hidden his
+prepossessing exterior by adopting that singular occupation?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After replying to the old man&rsquo;s greeting he showed no inclination to
+continue in talk, although they still walked side by side, for the elder
+traveller seemed to desire company. There were no sounds but that of the
+booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around them, the crackling
+wheels, the tread of the men, and the footsteps of the two shaggy ponies which
+drew the van. They were small, hardy animals, of a breed between Galloway and
+Exmoor, and were known as &ldquo;heath-croppers&rdquo; here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman occasionally left his
+companion&rsquo;s side, and, stepping behind the van, looked into its interior
+through a small window. The look was always anxious. He would then return to
+the old man, who made another remark about the state of the country and so on,
+to which the reddleman again abstractedly replied, and then again they would
+lapse into silence. The silence conveyed to neither any sense of awkwardness;
+in these lonely places wayfarers, after a first greeting, frequently plod on
+for miles without speech; contiguity amounts to a tacit conversation where,
+otherwise than in cities, such contiguity can be put an end to on the merest
+inclination, and where not to put an end to it is intercourse in itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Possibly these two might not have spoken again till their parting, had it not
+been for the reddleman&rsquo;s visits to his van. When he returned from his
+fifth time of looking in the old man said, &ldquo;You have something inside
+there besides your load?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Somebody who wants looking after?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not long after this a faint cry sounded from the interior. The reddleman
+hastened to the back, looked in, and came away again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have a child there, my man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, I have a woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The deuce you have! Why did she cry out?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, she has fallen asleep, and not being used to traveling, she&rsquo;s
+uneasy, and keeps dreaming.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A young woman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, a young woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That would have interested me forty years ago. Perhaps she&rsquo;s your
+wife?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My wife!&rdquo; said the other bitterly. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s above mating
+with such as I. But there&rsquo;s no reason why I should tell you about
+that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true. And there&rsquo;s no reason why you should not. What
+harm can I do to you or to her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman looked in the old man&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;Well, sir,&rdquo; he
+said at last, &ldquo;I knew her before today, though perhaps it would have been
+better if I had not. But she&rsquo;s nothing to me, and I am nothing to her;
+and she wouldn&rsquo;t have been in my van if any better carriage had been
+there to take her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where, may I ask?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At Anglebury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know the town well. What was she doing there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, not much&mdash;to gossip about. However, she&rsquo;s tired to death
+now, and not at all well, and that&rsquo;s what makes her so restless. She
+dropped off into a nap about an hour ago, and &rsquo;twill do her good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A nice-looking girl, no doubt?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You would say so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other traveller turned his eyes with interest towards the van window, and,
+without withdrawing them, said, &ldquo;I presume I might look in upon
+her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the reddleman abruptly. &ldquo;It is getting too dark
+for you to see much of her; and, more than that, I have no right to allow you.
+Thank God she sleeps so well, I hope she won&rsquo;t wake till she&rsquo;s
+home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is she? One of the neighbourhood?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis no matter who, excuse me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not that girl of Blooms-End, who has been talked about more or
+less lately? If so, I know her; and I can guess what has happened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis no matter.... Now, sir, I am sorry to say that we shall soon
+have to part company. My ponies are tired, and I have further to go, and I am
+going to rest them under this bank for an hour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The elder traveller nodded his head indifferently, and the reddleman turned his
+horses and van in upon the turf, saying, &ldquo;Good night.&rdquo; The old man
+replied, and proceeded on his way as before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman watched his form as it diminished to a speck on the road and
+became absorbed in the thickening films of night. He then took some hay from a
+truss which was slung up under the van, and, throwing a portion of it in front
+of the horses, made a pad of the rest, which he laid on the ground beside his
+vehicle. Upon this he sat down, leaning his back against the wheel. From the
+interior a low soft breathing came to his ear. It appeared to satisfy him, and
+he musingly surveyed the scene, as if considering the next step that he should
+take.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed, to be a duty in
+the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour, for there was that in the
+condition of the heath itself which resembled protracted and halting
+dubiousness. It was the quality of the repose appertaining to the scene. This
+was not the repose of actual stagnation, but the apparent repose of incredible
+slowness. A condition of healthy life so nearly resembling the torpor of death
+is a noticeable thing of its sort; to exhibit the inertness of the desert, and
+at the same time to be exercising powers akin to those of the meadow, and even
+of the forest, awakened in those who thought of it the attentiveness usually
+engendered by understatement and reserve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The scene before the reddleman&rsquo;s eyes was a gradual series of ascents
+from the level of the road backward into the heart of the heath. It embraced
+hillocks, pits, ridges, acclivities, one behind the other, till all was
+finished by a high hill cutting against the still light sky. The
+traveller&rsquo;s eye hovered about these things for a time, and finally
+settled upon one noteworthy object up there. It was a barrow. This bossy
+projection of earth above its natural level occupied the loftiest ground of the
+loneliest height that the heath contained. Although from the vale it appeared
+but as a wart on an Atlantean brow, its actual bulk was great. It formed the
+pole and axis of this heathery world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware that its summit,
+hitherto the highest object in the whole prospect round, was surmounted by
+something higher. It rose from the semiglobular mound like a spike from a
+helmet. The first instinct of an imaginative stranger might have been to
+suppose it the person of one of the Celts who built the barrow, so far had all
+of modern date withdrawn from the scene. It seemed a sort of last man among
+them, musing for a moment before dropping into eternal night with the rest of
+his race.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There the form stood, motionless as the hill beneath. Above the plain rose the
+hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow rose the figure.
+Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped elsewhere than on a celestial
+globe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did the figure give to the dark
+pile of hills that it seemed to be the only obvious justification of their
+outline. Without it, there was the dome without the lantern; with it the
+architectural demands of the mass were satisfied. The scene was strangely
+homogeneous, in that the vale, the upland, the barrow, and the figure above it
+amounted only to unity. Looking at this or that member of the group was not
+observing a complete thing, but a fraction of a thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The form was so much like an organic part of the entire motionless structure
+that to see it move would have impressed the mind as a strange phenomenon.
+Immobility being the chief characteristic of that whole which the person formed
+portion of, the discontinuance of immobility in any quarter suggested
+confusion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet that is what happened. The figure perceptibly gave up its fixity, shifted a
+step or two, and turned round. As if alarmed, it descended on the right side of
+the barrow, with the glide of a water-drop down a bud, and then vanished. The
+movement had been sufficient to show more clearly the characteristics of the
+figure, and that it was a woman&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reason of her sudden displacement now appeared. With her dropping out of
+sight on the right side, a newcomer, bearing a burden, protruded into the sky
+on the left side, ascended the tumulus, and deposited the burden on the top. A
+second followed, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, and ultimately the whole
+barrow was peopled with burdened figures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of silhouettes was
+that the woman had no relation to the forms who had taken her place, was
+sedulously avoiding these, and had come thither for another object than theirs.
+The imagination of the observer clung by preference to that vanished, solitary
+figure, as to something more interesting, more important, more likely to have a
+history worth knowing than these newcomers, and unconsciously regarded them as
+intruders. But they remained, and established themselves; and the lonely person
+who hitherto had been queen of the solitude did not at present seem likely to
+return.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III.<br />
+The Custom of the Country</h2>
+
+<p>
+Had a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity of the barrow, he would
+have learned that these persons were boys and men of the neighbouring hamlets.
+Each, as he ascended the barrow, had been heavily laden with furze faggots,
+carried upon the shoulder by means of a long stake sharpened at each end for
+impaling them easily&mdash;two in front and two behind. They came from a part
+of the heath a quarter of a mile to the rear, where furze almost exclusively
+prevailed as a product.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every individual was so involved in furze by his method of carrying the faggots
+that he appeared like a bush on legs till he had thrown them down. The party
+had marched in trail, like a travelling flock of sheep; that is to say, the
+strongest first, the weak and young behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze thirty feet in
+circumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus, which was known as
+Rainbarrow for many miles round. Some made themselves busy with matches, and in
+selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in loosening the bramble bonds
+which held the faggots together. Others, again, while this was in progress,
+lifted their eyes and swept the vast expanse of country commanded by their
+position, now lying nearly obliterated by shade. In the valleys of the heath
+nothing save its own wild face was visible at any time of day; but this spot
+commanded a horizon enclosing a tract of far extent, and in many cases lying
+beyond the heath country. None of its features could be seen now, but the whole
+made itself felt as a vague stretch of remoteness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the men and lads were building the pile, a change took place in the mass
+of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red suns and tufts of fire one by
+one began to arise, flecking the whole country round. They were the bonfires of
+other parishes and hamlets that were engaged in the same sort of commemoration.
+Some were distant, and stood in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale
+straw-like beams radiated around them in the shape of a fan. Some were large
+and near, glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. Some
+were Mænades, with winy faces and blown hair. These tinctured the silent bosom
+of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which seemed
+thenceforth to become scalding caldrons. Perhaps as many as thirty bonfires
+could be counted within the whole bounds of the district; and as the hour may
+be told on a clock-face when the figures themselves are invisible, so did the
+men recognize the locality of each fire by its angle and direction, though
+nothing of the scenery could be viewed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting all eyes
+that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to their own attempt in
+the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface of the human
+circle&mdash;now increased by other stragglers, male and female&mdash;with its
+own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark turf around with a lively
+luminousness, which softened off into obscurity where the barrow rounded
+downwards out of sight. It showed the barrow to be the segment of a globe, as
+perfect as on the day when it was thrown up, even the little ditch remaining
+from which the earth was dug. Not a plough had ever disturbed a grain of that
+stubborn soil. In the heath&rsquo;s barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility
+to the historian. There had been no obliteration, because there had been no
+tending.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some radiant upper story of
+the world, detached from and independent of the dark stretches below. The heath
+down there was now a vast abyss, and no longer a continuation of what they
+stood on; for their eyes, adapted to the blaze, could see nothing of the deeps
+beyond its influence. Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than
+usual from their faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp down the
+inclines to some distant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling these to
+replies of the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again. Then the whole
+black phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the brink by the
+sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered articulations of the wind in
+the hollows were as complaints and petitions from the &ldquo;souls of mighty
+worth&rdquo; suspended therein.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into past ages, and fetched
+therefrom an hour and deed which had before been familiar with this spot. The
+ashes of the original British pyre which blazed from that summit lay fresh and
+undisturbed in the barrow beneath their tread. The flames from funeral piles
+long ago kindled there had shone down upon the lowlands as these were shining
+now. Festival fires to Thor and Woden had followed on the same ground and duly
+had their day. Indeed, it is pretty well known that such blazes as this the
+heathmen were now enjoying are rather the lineal descendants from jumbled
+Druidical rites and Saxon ceremonies than the invention of popular feeling
+about Gunpowder Plot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man when, at
+the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature. It indicates a
+spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against that fiat that this recurrent
+season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery and death. Black chaos
+comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say, Let there be light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled upon the skin and clothes
+of the persons standing round caused their lineaments and general contours to
+be drawn with Dureresque vigour and dash. Yet the permanent moral expression of
+each face it was impossible to discover, for as the nimble flames towered,
+nodded, and swooped through the surrounding air, the blots of shade and flakes
+of light upon the countenances of the group changed shape and position
+endlessly. All was unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning.
+Shadowy eye-sockets, deep as those of a death&rsquo;s head, suddenly turned
+into pits of lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining; wrinkles
+were emphasized to ravines, or obliterated entirely by a changed ray. Nostrils
+were dark wells; sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings; things with no
+particular polish on them were glazed; bright objects, such as the tip of a
+furze-hook one of the men carried, were as glass; eyeballs glowed like little
+lanterns. Those whom Nature had depicted as merely quaint became grotesque, the
+grotesque became preternatural; for all was in extremity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like others been called to
+the heights by the rising flames, was not really the mere nose and chin that it
+appeared to be, but an appreciable quantity of human countenance. He stood
+complacently sunning himself in the heat. With a speaker, or stake, he tossed
+the outlying scraps of fuel into the conflagration, looking at the midst of the
+pile, occasionally lifting his eyes to measure the height of the flame, or to
+follow the great sparks which rose with it and sailed away into darkness. The
+beaming sight, and the penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a cumulative
+cheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight. With his stick in his hand he
+began to jig a private minuet, a bunch of copper seals shining and swinging
+like a pendulum from under his waistcoat: he also began to sing, in the voice
+of a bee up a flue&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;The king&#x2032; call&rsquo;d down&#x2032; his no-bles all&#x2032;,<br />
+By one&#x2032;, by two&#x2032;, by three&#x2032;;<br />
+Earl Mar&#x2032;-shal, I&rsquo;ll&#x2032; go shrive&#x2032;-the
+queen&#x2032;,<br />
+And thou&#x2032; shalt wend&#x2032; with me&#x2032;.<br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;A boon&#x2032;, a boon&#x2032;, quoth Earl&#x2032;
+Mar-shal&#x2032;,<br />
+And fell&#x2032; on his bend&#x2032;-ded knee&#x2032;,<br />
+That what&#x2032;-so-e&rsquo;er&#x2032; the queen&#x2032; shall
+say&#x2032;,<br />
+No harm&#x2032; there-of&#x2032; may be&#x2032;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Want of breath prevented a continuance of the song; and the breakdown attracted
+the attention of a firm-standing man of middle age, who kept each corner of his
+crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back into his cheek, as if to do away
+with any suspicion of mirthfulness which might erroneously have attached to
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard &rsquo;tis too much for
+the mouldy weasand of such a old man as you,&rdquo; he said to the wrinkled
+reveller. &ldquo;Dostn&rsquo;t wish th&rsquo; wast three sixes again, Grandfer,
+as you was when you first learnt to sing it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hey?&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his dance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dostn&rsquo;t wish wast young again, I say? There&rsquo;s a hole in thy
+poor bellows nowadays seemingly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But there&rsquo;s good art in me? If I couldn&rsquo;t make a little wind
+go a long ways I should seem no younger than the most aged man, should I,
+Timothy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet Woman
+Inn?&rdquo; the other inquired, pointing towards a dim light in the direction
+of the distant highway, but considerably apart from where the reddleman was at
+that moment resting. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the rights of the matter about
+&rsquo;em? You ought to know, being an understanding man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But a little rakish, hey? I own to it. Master Cantle is that, or
+he&rsquo;s nothing. Yet &rsquo;tis a gay fault, neighbour Fairway, that age
+will cure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard that they were coming home tonight. By this time they must have
+come. What besides?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The next thing is for us to go and wish &rsquo;em joy, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, no.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No? Now, I thought we must. I must, or &rsquo;twould be very unlike
+me&mdash;the first in every spree that&rsquo;s going!
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Do thou&#x2032; put on&#x2032; a fri&#x2032;-ar&rsquo;s
+coat&#x2032;,<br />
+And I&rsquo;ll&#x2032; put on&#x2032; a-no&#x2032;-ther,<br />
+And we&#x2032; will to&#x2032; Queen Ele&#x2032;anor go&#x2032;,<br />
+Like Fri&#x2032;ar and&#x2032; his bro&#x2032;ther.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I met Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright, the young bride&rsquo;s aunt, last night, and
+she told me that her son Clym was coming home a&rsquo; Christmas. Wonderful
+clever, &rsquo;a believe&mdash;ah, I should like to have all that&rsquo;s under
+that young man&rsquo;s hair. Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry
+way, and she said, &lsquo;O that what&rsquo;s shaped so venerable should talk
+like a fool!&rsquo;&mdash;that&rsquo;s what she said to me. I don&rsquo;t care
+for her, be jowned if I do, and so I told her. &lsquo;Be jowned if I care for
+&rsquo;ee,&rsquo; I said. I had her there&mdash;hey?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I rather think she had you,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly flagging.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t so bad as that with me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seemingly &rsquo;tis, however, is it because of the wedding that Clym is
+coming home a&rsquo; Christmas&mdash;to make a new arrangement because his
+mother is now left in the house alone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes&mdash;that&rsquo;s it. But, Timothy, hearken to me,&rdquo; said
+the Grandfer earnestly. &ldquo;Though known as such a joker, I be an
+understanding man if you catch me serious, and I am serious now. I can tell
+&rsquo;ee lots about the married couple. Yes, this morning at six o&rsquo;clock
+they went up the country to do the job, and neither vell nor mark have been
+seen of &rsquo;em since, though I reckon that this afternoon has brought
+&rsquo;em home again man and woman&mdash;wife, that is. Isn&rsquo;t it spoke
+like a man, Timothy, and wasn&rsquo;t Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright wrong about
+me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it will do. I didn&rsquo;t know the two had walked together since
+last fall, when her aunt forbad the banns. How long has this new set-to been in
+mangling then? Do you know, Humphrey?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, how long?&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise turning to
+Humphrey. &ldquo;I ask that question.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might have the man
+after all,&rdquo; replied Humphrey, without removing his eyes from the fire. He
+was a somewhat solemn young fellow, and carried the hook and leather gloves of
+a furze-cutter, his legs, by reason of that occupation, being sheathed in
+bulging leggings as stiff as the Philistine&rsquo;s greaves of brass.
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why they went away to be married, I count. You see, after
+kicking up such a nunny-watch and forbidding the banns &rsquo;twould have made
+Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright seem foolish-like to have a banging wedding in the same
+parish all as if she&rsquo;d never gainsaid it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly&mdash;seem foolish-like; and that&rsquo;s very bad for the poor
+things that be so, though I only guess as much, to be sure,&rdquo; said
+Grandfer Cantle, still strenuously preserving a sensible bearing and mien.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well, I was at church that day,&rdquo; said Fairway, &ldquo;which
+was a very curious thing to happen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If &rsquo;twasn&rsquo;t my name&rsquo;s Simple,&rdquo; said the Grandfer
+emphatically. &ldquo;I ha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t been there to-year; and now the
+winter is a-coming on I won&rsquo;t say I shall.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t been these three years,&rdquo; said Humphrey;
+&ldquo;for I&rsquo;m so dead sleepy of a Sunday; and &rsquo;tis so terrible far
+to get there; and when you do get there &rsquo;tis such a mortal poor chance
+that you&rsquo;ll be chose for up above, when so many bain&rsquo;t, that I bide
+at home and don&rsquo;t go at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I not only happened to be there,&rdquo; said Fairway, with a fresh
+collection of emphasis, &ldquo;but I was sitting in the same pew as
+Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright. And though you may not see it as such, it fairly made
+my blood run cold to hear her. Yes, it is a curious thing; but it made my blood
+run cold, for I was close at her elbow.&rdquo; The speaker looked round upon
+the bystanders, now drawing closer to hear him, with his lips gathered tighter
+than ever in the rigorousness of his descriptive moderation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a serious job to have things happen to &rsquo;ee
+there,&rdquo; said a woman behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Ye are to declare it,&rsquo; was the parson&rsquo;s words,&rdquo;
+Fairway continued. &ldquo;And then up stood a woman at my side&mdash;a-touching
+of me. &lsquo;Well, be damned if there isn&rsquo;t Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright
+a-standing up,&rsquo; I said to myself. Yes, neighbours, though I was in the
+temple of prayer that&rsquo;s what I said. &rsquo;Tis against my conscience to
+curse and swear in company, and I hope any woman here will overlook it. Still
+what I did say I did say, and &rsquo;twould be a lie if I didn&rsquo;t own
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So &rsquo;twould, neighbour Fairway.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Be damned if there isn&rsquo;t Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright a-standing
+up,&rsquo; I said,&rdquo; the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with
+the same passionless severity of face as before, which proved how entirely
+necessity and not gusto had to do with the iteration. &ldquo;And the next thing
+I heard was, &lsquo;I forbid the banns,&rsquo; from her. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll
+speak to you after the service,&rsquo; said the parson, in quite a homely
+way&mdash;yes, turning all at once into a common man no holier than you or I.
+Ah, her face was pale! Maybe you can call to mind that monument in Weatherbury
+church&mdash;the cross-legged soldier that have had his arm knocked away by the
+schoolchildren? Well, he would about have matched that woman&rsquo;s face, when
+she said, &lsquo;I forbid the banns.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into the fire, not
+because these deeds were urgent, but to give themselves time to weigh the moral
+of the story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure when I heard they&rsquo;d been forbid I felt as glad as
+if anybody had gied me sixpence,&rdquo; said an earnest voice&mdash;that of
+Olly Dowden, a woman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms. Her nature
+was to be civil to enemies as well as to friends, and grateful to all the world
+for letting her remain alive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now the maid have married him just the same,&rdquo; said Humphrey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After that Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright came round and was quite
+agreeable,&rdquo; Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that his
+words were no appendage to Humphrey&rsquo;s, but the result of independent
+reflection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Supposing they were ashamed, I don&rsquo;t see why they shouldn&rsquo;t
+have done it here-right,&rdquo; said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked
+like shoes whenever she stooped or turned. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis well to call the
+neighbours together and to hae a good racket once now and then; and it may as
+well be when there&rsquo;s a wedding as at tide-times. I don&rsquo;t care for
+close ways.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, now, you&rsquo;d hardly believe it, but I don&rsquo;t care for gay
+weddings,&rdquo; said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round.
+&ldquo;I hardly blame Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it
+quiet, if I must own it. A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by
+the hour; and they do a man&rsquo;s legs no good when he&rsquo;s over
+forty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True. Once at the woman&rsquo;s house you can hardly say nay to being
+one in a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself worth
+your victuals.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You be bound to dance at Christmas because &rsquo;tis the time o&rsquo;
+year; you must dance at weddings because &rsquo;tis the time o&rsquo; life. At
+christenings folk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if &rsquo;tis no further
+on than the first or second chiel. And this is not naming the songs
+you&rsquo;ve got to sing.... For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well
+as anything. You&rsquo;ve as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties,
+and even better. And it don&rsquo;t wear your legs to stumps in talking over a
+poor fellow&rsquo;s ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nine folks out of ten would own &rsquo;twas going too far to dance then,
+I suppose?&rdquo; suggested Grandfer Cantle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the
+mug have been round a few times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I can&rsquo;t understand a quiet ladylike little body like Tamsin
+Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way,&rdquo; said Susan Nunsuch,
+the wide woman, who preferred the original subject. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis worse
+than the poorest do. And I shouldn&rsquo;t have cared about the man, though
+some may say he&rsquo;s good-looking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To give him his due he&rsquo;s a clever, learned fellow in his
+way&mdash;a&rsquo;most as clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought
+up to better things than keeping the Quiet Woman. An
+engineer&mdash;that&rsquo;s what the man was, as we know; but he threw away his
+chance, and so &rsquo;a took a public house to live. His learning was no use to
+him at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very often the case,&rdquo; said Olly, the besom-maker. &ldquo;And yet
+how people do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn&rsquo;t
+use to make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names
+now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot&mdash;what
+do I say?&mdash;why, almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and elbows
+upon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True&mdash;&rsquo;tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought
+to,&rdquo; said Humphrey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called), in
+the year four,&rdquo; chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+know no more what the world was like than the commonest man among ye. And now,
+jown it all, I won&rsquo;t say what I bain&rsquo;t fit for, hey?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldst sign the book, no doubt,&rdquo; said Fairway, &ldquo;if wast
+young enough to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and Mis&rsquo;ess
+Tamsin, which is more than Humph there could do, for he follows his father in
+learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy
+father&rsquo;s mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name. He
+and your mother were the couple married just afore we were and there stood they
+father&rsquo;s cross with arms stretched out like a great banging scarecrow.
+What a terrible black cross that was&mdash;thy father&rsquo;s very likeness in
+en! To save my soul I couldn&rsquo;t help laughing when I zid en, though all
+the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the marrying, and what with the
+woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack Changley and a lot more chaps
+grinning at me through church window. But the next moment a strawmote would
+have knocked me down, for I called to mind that if thy father and mother had
+had high words once, they&rsquo;d been at it twenty times since they&rsquo;d
+been man and wife, and I zid myself as the next poor stunpoll to get into the
+same mess.... Ah&mdash;well, what a day &rsquo;twas!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few summers. A pretty
+maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to tear her smock for
+a man like that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The speaker, a peat- or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group, carried
+across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large dimensions used in
+that species of labour, and its well-whetted edge gleamed like a silver bow in
+the beams of the fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A hundred maidens would have had him if he&rsquo;d asked
+&rsquo;em,&rdquo; said the wide woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would
+marry?&rdquo; inquired Humphrey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never did,&rdquo; said the turf-cutter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; said another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, now, I did once,&rdquo; said Timothy Fairway, adding more firmness
+to one of his legs. &ldquo;I did know of such a man. But only once,
+mind.&rdquo; He gave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it were the duty
+of every person not to be mistaken through thickness of voice. &ldquo;Yes, I
+knew of such a man,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been like, Master
+Fairway?&rdquo; asked the turf-cutter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, &rsquo;a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man.
+What &rsquo;a was I don&rsquo;t say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he known in these parts?&rdquo; said Olly Dowden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hardly,&rdquo; said Timothy; &ldquo;but I name no name.... Come, keep
+the fire up there, youngsters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whatever is Christian Cantle&rsquo;s teeth a-chattering for?&rdquo; said
+a boy from amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze. &ldquo;Be
+ye a-cold, Christian?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, &ldquo;No, not at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn&rsquo;t know you were
+here,&rdquo; said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that quarter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a great
+quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes, advanced a step or two by his
+own will, and was pushed by the will of others half a dozen steps more. He was
+Grandfer Cantle&rsquo;s youngest son.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What be ye quaking for, Christian?&rdquo; said the turf-cutter kindly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m the man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The man no woman will marry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The deuce you be!&rdquo; said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to
+cover Christian&rsquo;s whole surface and a great deal more, Grandfer Cantle
+meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard,&rdquo; said Christian.
+&ldquo;D&rsquo;ye think &rsquo;twill hurt me? I shall always say I don&rsquo;t
+care, and swear to it, though I do care all the while.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, be damned if this isn&rsquo;t the queerest start ever I
+know&rsquo;d,&rdquo; said Mr. Fairway. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t mean you at all.
+There&rsquo;s another in the country, then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune,
+Christian?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas to be if &rsquo;twas, I suppose. I can&rsquo;t help it, can
+I?&rdquo; He turned upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by
+concentric lines like targets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, that&rsquo;s true. But &rsquo;tis a melancholy thing, and my blood
+ran cold when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had
+thought only one. &rsquo;Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How&rsquo;st know
+the women won&rsquo;t hae thee?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve asked &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what did
+the last one say to ye? Nothing that can&rsquo;t be got over, perhaps, after
+all?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
+fool,&rsquo; was the woman&rsquo;s words to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not encouraging, I own,&rdquo; said Fairway. &ldquo;&lsquo;Get out of my
+sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,&rsquo; is rather a
+hard way of saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so
+as to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy&rsquo;s head. How old
+be you, Christian?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a boy&mdash;not a boy. Still there&rsquo;s hope yet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s my age by baptism, because that&rsquo;s put down in the
+great book of the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but Mother told me
+I was born some time afore I was christened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But she couldn&rsquo;t tell when, to save her life, except that there
+was no moon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No moon&mdash;that&rsquo;s bad. Hey, neighbours, that&rsquo;s bad for
+him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, &rsquo;tis bad,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother know&rsquo;d &rsquo;twas no moon, for she asked another woman
+that had an almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the
+saying, &lsquo;No moon, no man,&rsquo; which made her afeard every man-child
+she had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no
+moon?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. &lsquo;No moon, no man.&rsquo; &rsquo;Tis one of the truest sayings
+ever spit out. The boy never comes to anything that&rsquo;s born at new moon. A
+bad job for thee, Christian, that you should have showed your nose then of all
+days in the month.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?&rdquo; said
+Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, &rsquo;a was not new,&rdquo; Mr. Fairway replied, with a
+disinterested gaze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;d sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of no
+moon,&rdquo; continued Christian, in the same shattered recitative.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis said I be only the rames of a man, and no good for my race at
+all; and I suppose that&rsquo;s the cause o&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; &ldquo;and
+yet his mother cried for scores of hours when &rsquo;a was a boy, for fear he
+should outgrow hisself and go for a soldier.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;s many just as bad as he.&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wethers must live their time as well as other sheep, poor soul.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So perhaps I shall rub on? Ought I to be afeared o&rsquo; nights, Master
+Fairway?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have to lie alone all your life; and &rsquo;tis not to
+married couples but to single sleepers that a ghost shows himself when &rsquo;a
+do come. One has been seen lately, too. A very strange one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;don&rsquo;t talk about it if &rsquo;tis agreeable of ye not to!
+&rsquo;Twill make my skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. But you
+will&mdash;ah, you will, I know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night
+o&rsquo;t! A very strange one? What sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye said,
+a very strange one, Timothy?&mdash;no, no&mdash;don&rsquo;t tell me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t half believe in spirits myself. But I think it ghostly
+enough&mdash;what I was told. &rsquo;Twas a little boy that zid it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was it like?&mdash;no, don&rsquo;t&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if it had been
+dipped in blood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand his body, and Humphrey
+said, &ldquo;Where has it been seen?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not exactly here; but in this same heth. But &rsquo;tisn&rsquo;t a thing
+to talk about. What do ye say,&rdquo; continued Fairway in brisker tones, and
+turning upon them as if the idea had not been Grandfer
+Cantle&rsquo;s&mdash;&ldquo;what do you say to giving the new man and wife a
+bit of a song tonight afore we go to bed&mdash;being their wedding-day? When
+folks are just married &rsquo;tis as well to look glad o&rsquo;t, since looking
+sorry won&rsquo;t unjoin &rsquo;em. I am no drinker, as we know, but when the
+womenfolk and youngsters have gone home we can drop down across to the Quiet
+Woman, and strike up a ballet in front of the married folks&rsquo; door.
+&rsquo;Twill please the young wife, and that&rsquo;s what I should like to do,
+for many&rsquo;s the skinful I&rsquo;ve had at her hands when she lived with
+her aunt at Blooms-End.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hey? And so we will!&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, turning so briskly
+that his copper seals swung extravagantly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m as dry as a kex
+with biding up here in the wind, and I haven&rsquo;t seen the colour of drink
+since nammet-time today. &rsquo;Tis said that the last brew at the Woman is
+very pretty drinking. And, neighbours, if we should be a little late in the
+finishing, why, tomorrow&rsquo;s Sunday, and we can sleep it off?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless for an old man,&rdquo;
+said the wide woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I take things careless; I do&mdash;too careless to please the women!
+Klk! I&rsquo;ll sing the &lsquo;Jovial Crew,&rsquo; or any other song, when a
+weak old man would cry his eyes out. Jown it; I am up for anything.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;The king&#x2032; look&rsquo;d o&#x2032;-ver his left&#x2032;
+shoul-der&#x2032;,<br />
+And a grim&#x2032; look look&#x2032;-ed hee&#x2032;,<br />
+Earl Mar&#x2032;-shal, he said&#x2032;, but for&#x2032; my oath&#x2032;<br />
+Or hang&#x2032;-ed thou&#x2032; shouldst bee&#x2032;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;ll do,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll give &rsquo;em a song, an&rsquo; it please the Lord.
+What&rsquo;s the good of Thomasin&rsquo;s cousin Clym a-coming home after the
+deed&rsquo;s done? He should have come afore, if so be he wanted to stop it,
+and marry her himself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps he&rsquo;s coming to bide with his mother a little time, as she
+must feel lonely now the maid&rsquo;s gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, &rsquo;tis very odd, but I never feel lonely&mdash;no, not at
+all,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle. &ldquo;I am as brave in the nighttime as
+a&rsquo; admiral!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for the fuel had not been
+of that substantial sort which can support a blaze long. Most of the other
+fires within the wide horizon were also dwindling weak. Attentive observation
+of their brightness, colour, and length of existence would have revealed the
+quality of the material burnt, and through that, to some extent the natural
+produce of the district in which each bonfire was situate. The clear, kingly
+effulgence that had characterized the majority expressed a heath and furze
+country like their own, which in one direction extended an unlimited number of
+miles; the rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the compass showed
+the lightest of fuel&mdash;straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste from arable
+land. The most enduring of all&mdash;steady unaltering eyes like
+Planets&mdash;signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots, and stout
+billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare, and though
+comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient blazes, now began to get
+the best of them by mere long continuance. The great ones had perished, but
+these remained. They occupied the remotest visible positions&mdash;sky-backed
+summits rising out of rich coppice and plantation districts to the north, where
+the soil was different, and heath foreign and strange.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the whole shining
+throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to that of the little window
+in the vale below. Its nearness was such that, notwithstanding its actual
+smallness, its glow infinitely transcended theirs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and when their own
+fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more; some even of the wood fires
+more recently lighted had reached their decline, but no change was perceptible
+here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, how near that fire is!&rdquo; said Fairway.
+&ldquo;Seemingly. I can see a fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and
+good must be said of that fire, surely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can throw a stone there,&rdquo; said the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so can I!&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, you can&rsquo;t, my sonnies. That fire is not much less than a
+mile off, for all that &rsquo;a seems so near.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis in the heath, but no furze,&rdquo; said the turf-cutter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis cleft-wood, that&rsquo;s what &rsquo;tis,&rdquo; said Timothy
+Fairway. &ldquo;Nothing would burn like that except clean timber. And
+&rsquo;tis on the knap afore the old captain&rsquo;s house at Mistover. Such a
+queer mortal as that man is! To have a little fire inside your own bank and
+ditch, that nobody else may enjoy it or come anigh it! And what a zany an old
+chap must be, to light a bonfire when there&rsquo;s no youngsters to
+please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n Vye has been for a long walk today, and is quite tired
+out,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, &ldquo;so &rsquo;tisn&rsquo;t likely to be
+he.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he would hardly afford good fuel like that,&rdquo; said the wide
+woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it must be his granddaughter,&rdquo; said Fairway. &ldquo;Not that
+a body of her age can want a fire much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and such
+things please her,&rdquo; said Susan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s a well-favoured maid enough,&rdquo; said Humphrey the
+furze-cutter, &ldquo;especially when she&rsquo;s got one of her dandy gowns
+on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; said Fairway. &ldquo;Well, let her bonfire
+burn an&rsquo;t will. Ours is well-nigh out by the look o&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How dark &rsquo;tis now the fire&rsquo;s gone down!&rdquo; said
+Christian Cantle, looking behind him with his hare eyes. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ye
+think we&rsquo;d better get home-along, neighbours? The heth isn&rsquo;t
+haunted, I know; but we&rsquo;d better get home.... Ah, what was that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only the wind,&rdquo; said the turf-cutter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by night
+except in towns. It should be by day in outstep, ill-accounted places like
+this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy, dear, you
+and I will have a jig&mdash;hey, my honey?&mdash;before &rsquo;tis quite too
+dark to see how well-favoured you be still, though so many summers have passed
+since your husband, a son of a witch, snapped you up from me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of which the
+beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron&rsquo;s broad form whisking
+off towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled. She was lifted bodily
+by Mr. Fairway&rsquo;s arm, which had been flung round her waist before she had
+become aware of his intention. The site of the fire was now merely a circle of
+ashes flecked with red embers and sparks, the furze having burnt completely
+away. Once within the circle he whirled her round and round in a dance. She was
+a woman noisily constructed; in addition to her enclosing framework of
+whalebone and lath, she wore pattens summer and winter, in wet weather and in
+dry, to preserve her boots from wear; and when Fairway began to jump about with
+her, the clicking of the pattens, the creaking of the stays, and her screams of
+surprise, formed a very audible concert.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Nunsuch, as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like
+drumsticks among the sparks. &ldquo;My ankles were all in a fever before, from
+walking through that prickly furze, and now you must make &rsquo;em worse with
+these vlankers!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter seized old Olly
+Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with her likewise. The young men
+were not slow to imitate the example of their elders, and seized the maids;
+Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in the form of a three-legged object among
+the rest; and in half a minute all that could be seen on Rainbarrow was a
+whirling of dark shapes amid a boiling confusion of sparks, which leapt around
+the dancers as high as their waists. The chief noises were women&rsquo;s shrill
+cries, men&rsquo;s laughter, Susan&rsquo;s stays and pattens, Olly
+Dowden&rsquo;s &ldquo;heu-heu-heu!&rdquo; and the strumming of the wind upon
+the furze-bushes, which formed a kind of tune to the demoniac measure they
+trod. Christian alone stood aloof, uneasily rocking himself as he murmured,
+&ldquo;They ought not to do it&mdash;how the vlankers do fly! &rsquo;tis
+tempting the Wicked one, &rsquo;tis.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was that?&rdquo; said one of the lads, stopping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;where?&rdquo; said Christian, hastily closing up to the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dancers all lessened their speed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it&mdash;down
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;&rsquo;tis behind me!&rdquo; Christian said. &ldquo;Matthew,
+Mark, Luke, and John, bless the bed that I lie on; four angels
+guard&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hold your tongue. What is it?&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hoi-i-i-i!&rdquo; cried a voice from the darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Halloo-o-o-o!&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there any cart track up across here to Mis&rsquo;ess
+Yeobright&rsquo;s, of Blooms-End?&rdquo; came to them in the same voice, as a
+long, slim indistinct figure approached the barrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as &rsquo;tis
+getting late?&rdquo; said Christian. &ldquo;Not run away from one another, you
+know; run close together, I mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze, so that we can
+see who the man is,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight raiment, and red from top
+to toe. &ldquo;Is there a track across here to Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright&rsquo;s
+house?&rdquo; he repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay&mdash;keep along the path down there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The track is
+rough, but if you&rsquo;ve got a light your horses may pick along wi&rsquo;
+care. Have ye brought your cart far up, neighbour reddleman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve left it in the bottom, about half a mile back, I stepped on
+in front to make sure of the way, as &rsquo;tis night-time, and I han&rsquo;t
+been here for so long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, well you can get up,&rdquo; said Fairway. &ldquo;What a turn it did
+give me when I saw him!&rdquo; he added to the whole group, the reddleman
+included. &ldquo;Lord&rsquo;s sake, I thought, whatever fiery mommet is this
+come to trouble us? No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain&rsquo;t
+bad-looking in the groundwork, though the finish is queer. My meaning is just
+to say how curious I felt. I half thought it &rsquo;twas the devil or the red
+ghost the boy told of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It gied me a turn likewise,&rdquo; said Susan Nunsuch, &ldquo;for I had
+a dream last night of a death&rsquo;s head.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ye talk o&rsquo;t no more,&rdquo; said Christian. &ldquo;If
+he had a handkerchief over his head he&rsquo;d look for all the world like the
+Devil in the picture of the Temptation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, thank you for telling me,&rdquo; said the young reddleman, smiling
+faintly. &ldquo;And good night t&rsquo;ye all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He withdrew from their sight down the barrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fancy I&rsquo;ve seen that young man&rsquo;s face before,&rdquo; said
+Humphrey. &ldquo;But where, or how, or what his name is, I don&rsquo;t
+know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when another person
+approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to be a well-known and
+respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing which can only be expressed
+by the word genteel. Her face, encompassed by the blackness of the receding
+heath, showed whitely, and without half-lights, like a cameo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of the type usually
+found where perspicacity is the chief quality enthroned within. At moments she
+seemed to be regarding issues from a Nebo denied to others around. She had
+something of an estranged mien; the solitude exhaled from the heath was
+concentrated in this face that had risen from it. The air with which she looked
+at the heathmen betokened a certain unconcern at their presence, or at what
+might be their opinions of her for walking in that lonely spot at such an hour,
+thus indirectly implying that in some respect or other they were not up to her
+level. The explanation lay in the fact that though her husband had been a small
+farmer she herself was a curate&rsquo;s daughter, who had once dreamt of doing
+better things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres
+along with them in their orbits; and the matron who entered now upon the scene
+could, and usually did, bring her own tone into a company. Her normal manner
+among the heathfolk had that reticence which results from the consciousness of
+superior communicative power. But the effect of coming into society and light
+after lonely wandering in darkness is a sociability in the comer above its
+usual pitch, expressed in the features even more than in words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, &rsquo;tis Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+&ldquo;Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright, not ten minutes ago a man was here asking for
+you&mdash;a reddleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did he want?&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t tell us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss to
+understand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home at Christmas,
+ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Sam, the turf-cutter. &ldquo;What a dog he used to be
+for bonfires!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I believe he is coming,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He must be a fine fellow by this time,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is a man now,&rdquo; she replied quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis very lonesome for &rsquo;ee in the heth tonight,
+mis&rsquo;ess,&rdquo; said Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto
+maintained. &ldquo;Mind you don&rsquo;t get lost. Egdon Heth is a bad place to
+get lost in, and the winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard
+&rsquo;em afore. Them that know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at
+times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that you, Christian?&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright. &ldquo;What made you
+hide away from me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas that I didn&rsquo;t know you in this light, mis&rsquo;ess;
+and being a man of the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that&rsquo;s
+all. Oftentimes if you could see how terrible down I get in my mind,
+&rsquo;twould make &rsquo;ee quite nervous for fear I should die by my
+hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t take after your father,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright,
+looking towards the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of originality,
+was dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others had done before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Grandfer,&rdquo; said Timothy Fairway, &ldquo;we are ashamed of ye.
+A reverent old patriarch man as you be&mdash;seventy if a day&mdash;to go
+hornpiping like that by yourself!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A harrowing old man, Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright,&rdquo; said Christian
+despondingly. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t live with him a week, so playward as he
+is, if I could get away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome
+Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle,&rdquo;
+said the besom-woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, and so it would,&rdquo; said the reveller checking himself
+repentantly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve such a bad memory, Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright, that
+I forget how I&rsquo;m looked up to by the rest of &rsquo;em. My spirits must
+be wonderful good, you&rsquo;ll say? But not always. &rsquo;Tis a weight upon a
+man to be looked up to as commander, and I often feel it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry to stop the talk,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright. &ldquo;But I
+must be leaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road, towards my
+niece&rsquo;s new home, who is returning tonight with her husband; and seeing
+the bonfire and hearing Olly&rsquo;s voice among the rest I came up here to
+learn what was going on. I should like her to walk with me, as her way is
+mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, sure, ma&rsquo;am, I&rsquo;m just thinking of moving,&rdquo; said
+Olly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you&rsquo;ll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye
+of,&rdquo; said Fairway. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s only gone back to get his van. We
+heard that your niece and her husband were coming straight home as soon as they
+were married, and we are going down there shortly, to give &rsquo;em a song
+o&rsquo; welcome.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you indeed,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you can go with
+long clothes; so we won&rsquo;t trouble you to wait.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well&mdash;are you ready, Olly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, ma&rsquo;am. And there&rsquo;s a light shining from your
+niece&rsquo;s window, see. It will help to keep us in the path.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley which Fairway had
+pointed out; and the two women descended the tumulus.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV.<br />
+The Halt on the Turnpike Road</h2>
+
+<p>
+Down, downward they went, and yet further down&mdash;their descent at each step
+seeming to outmeasure their advance. Their skirts were scratched noisily by the
+furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which, though dead and dry, stood
+erect as when alive, no sufficient winter weather having as yet arrived to beat
+them down. Their Tartarean situation might by some have been called an
+imprudent one for two unattended women. But these shaggy recesses were at all
+seasons a familiar surrounding to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the addition of
+darkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so Tamsin has married him at last,&rdquo; said Olly, when the
+incline had become so much less steep that their foot-steps no longer required
+undivided attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright answered slowly, &ldquo;Yes; at last.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How you will miss her&mdash;living with &rsquo;ee as a daughter, as she
+always have.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do miss her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely, was saved
+by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive. Questions that would have
+been resented in others she could ask with impunity. This accounted for Mrs.
+Yeobright&rsquo;s acquiescence in the revival of an evidently sore subject.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was quite strook to hear you&rsquo;d agreed to it, ma&rsquo;am, that I
+was,&rdquo; continued the besom-maker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were not more struck by it than I should have been last year this
+time, Olly. There are a good many sides to that wedding. I could not tell you
+all of them, even if I tried.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with your
+family. Keeping an inn&mdash;what is it? But &rsquo;a&rsquo;s clever,
+that&rsquo;s true, and they say he was an engineering gentleman once, but has
+come down by being too outwardly given.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw that, upon the whole, it would be better she should marry where
+she wished.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor little thing, her feelings got the better of her, no doubt.
+&rsquo;Tis nature. Well, they may call him what they will&mdash;he&rsquo;ve
+several acres of heth-ground broke up here, besides the public house, and the
+heth-croppers, and his manners be quite like a gentleman&rsquo;s. And
+what&rsquo;s done cannot be undone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It cannot,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright. &ldquo;See, here&rsquo;s the
+wagon-track at last. Now we shall get along better.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wedding subject was no further dwelt upon; and soon a faint diverging path
+was reached, where they parted company, Olly first begging her companion to
+remind Mr. Wildeve that he had not sent her sick husband the bottle of wine
+promised on the occasion of his marriage. The besom-maker turned to the left
+towards her own house, behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright followed
+the straight track, which further on joined the highway by the Quiet Woman Inn,
+whither she supposed her niece to have returned with Wildeve from their wedding
+at Anglebury that day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She first reached Wildeve&rsquo;s Patch, as it was called, a plot of land
+redeemed from the heath, and after long and laborious years brought into
+cultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilled died of the
+labour; the man who succeeded him in possession ruined himself in fertilizing
+it. Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, and received the honours due to those
+who had gone before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Mrs. Yeobright had drawn near to the inn, and was about to enter, she saw
+a horse and vehicle some two hundred yards beyond it, coming towards her, a man
+walking alongside with a lantern in his hand. It was soon evident that this was
+the reddleman who had inquired for her. Instead of entering the inn at once,
+she walked by it and towards the van.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The conveyance came close, and the man was about to pass her with little
+notice, when she turned to him and said, &ldquo;I think you have been inquiring
+for me? I am Mrs. Yeobright of Blooms-End.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman started, and held up his finger. He stopped the horses, and
+beckoned to her to withdraw with him a few yards aside, which she did,
+wondering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know me, ma&rsquo;am, I suppose?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Why, yes, I do! You are young
+Venn&mdash;your father was a dairyman somewhere here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and I knew your niece, Miss Tamsin, a little. I have something bad
+to tell you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About her&mdash;no! She has just come home, I believe, with her husband.
+They arranged to return this afternoon&mdash;to the inn beyond here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s not there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because she&rsquo;s here. She&rsquo;s in my van,&rdquo; he added slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What new trouble has come?&rdquo; murmured Mrs. Yeobright, putting her
+hand over her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t explain much, ma&rsquo;am. All I know is that, as I was
+going along the road this morning, about a mile out of Anglebury, I heard
+something trotting after me like a doe, and looking round there she was, white
+as death itself. &lsquo;Oh, Diggory Venn!&rsquo; she said, &lsquo;I thought
+&rsquo;twas you&mdash;will you help me? I am in trouble.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How did she know your Christian name?&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright
+doubtingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had met her as a lad before I went away in this trade. She asked then
+if she might ride, and then down she fell in a faint. I picked her up and put
+her in, and there she has been ever since. She has cried a good deal, but she
+has hardly spoke; all she has told me being that she was to have been married
+this morning. I tried to get her to eat something, but she couldn&rsquo;t; and
+at last she fell asleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me see her at once,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright, hastening towards
+the van.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman followed with the lantern, and, stepping up first, assisted Mrs.
+Yeobright to mount beside him. On the door being opened she perceived at the
+end of the van an extemporized couch, around which was hung apparently all the
+drapery that the reddleman possessed, to keep the occupant of the little couch
+from contact with the red materials of his trade. A young girl lay thereon,
+covered with a cloak. She was asleep, and the light of the lantern fell upon
+her features.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed, reposing in a nest of wavy
+chestnut hair. It was between pretty and beautiful. Though her eyes were
+closed, one could easily imagine the light necessarily shining in them as the
+culmination of the luminous workmanship around. The groundwork of the face was
+hopefulness; but over it now lay like a foreign substance a film of anxiety
+and grief. The grief had been there so shortly as to have abstracted nothing of
+the bloom, and had as yet but given a dignity to what it might eventually
+undermine. The scarlet of her lips had not had time to abate, and just now it
+appeared still more intense by the absence of the neighbouring and more
+transient colour of her cheek. The lips frequently parted, with a murmur of
+words. She seemed to belong rightly to a madrigal&mdash;to require viewing
+through rhyme and harmony.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One thing at least was obvious: she was not made to be looked at thus. The
+reddleman had appeared conscious of as much, and, while Mrs. Yeobright looked
+in upon her, he cast his eyes aside with a delicacy which well became him. The
+sleeper apparently thought so too, for the next moment she opened her own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lips then parted with something of anticipation, something more of doubt;
+and her several thoughts and fractions of thoughts, as signalled by the changes
+on her face, were exhibited by the light to the utmost nicety. An ingenuous,
+transparent life was disclosed, as if the flow of her existence could be seen
+passing within her. She understood the scene in a moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes, it is I, Aunt,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I know how frightened you
+are, and how you cannot believe it; but all the same, it is I who have come
+home like this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tamsin, Tamsin!&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright, stooping over the young
+woman and kissing her. &ldquo;O my dear girl!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin was now on the verge of a sob, but by an unexpected self-command she
+uttered no sound. With a gentle panting breath she sat upright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not expect to see you in this state, any more than you me,&rdquo;
+she went on quickly. &ldquo;Where am I, Aunt?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nearly home, my dear. In Egdon Bottom. What dreadful thing is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you in a moment. So near, are we? Then I will get out
+and walk. I want to go home by the path.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this kind man who has done so much will, I am sure, take you right
+on to my house?&rdquo; said the aunt, turning to the reddleman, who had
+withdrawn from the front of the van on the awakening of the girl, and stood in
+the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why should you think it necessary to ask me? I will, of course,&rdquo;
+said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is indeed kind,&rdquo; murmured Thomasin. &ldquo;I was once
+acquainted with him, Aunt, and when I saw him today I thought I should prefer
+his van to any conveyance of a stranger. But I&rsquo;ll walk now. Reddleman,
+stop the horses, please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped them
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright saying to its owner,
+&ldquo;I quite recognize you now. What made you change from the nice business
+your father left you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I did,&rdquo; he said, and looked at Thomasin, who blushed a
+little. &ldquo;Then you&rsquo;ll not be wanting me any more tonight,
+ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills, at the perishing
+bonfires, and at the lighted window of the inn they had neared. &ldquo;I think
+not,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;since Thomasin wishes to walk. We can soon run up
+the path and reach home&mdash;we know it well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And after a few further words they parted, the reddleman moving onwards with
+his van, and the two women remaining standing in the road. As soon as the
+vehicle and its driver had withdrawn so far as to be beyond all possible reach
+of her voice, Mrs. Yeobright turned to her niece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Thomasin,&rdquo; she said sternly, &ldquo;what&rsquo;s the meaning
+of this disgraceful performance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V.<br />
+Perplexity among Honest People</h2>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin looked as if quite overcome by her aunt&rsquo;s change of manner.
+&ldquo;It means just what it seems to mean: I am&mdash;not married,&rdquo; she
+replied faintly. &ldquo;Excuse me&mdash;for humiliating you, Aunt, by this
+mishap&mdash;I am sorry for it. But I cannot help it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me? Think of yourself first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was nobody&rsquo;s fault. When we got there the parson wouldn&rsquo;t
+marry us because of some trifling irregularity in the license.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What irregularity?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. Mr. Wildeve can explain. I did not think when I went
+away this morning that I should come back like this.&rdquo; It being dark,
+Thomasin allowed her emotion to escape her by the silent way of tears, which
+could roll down her cheek unseen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could almost say that it serves you right&mdash;if I did not feel that
+you don&rsquo;t deserve it,&rdquo; continued Mrs. Yeobright, who, possessing
+two distinct moods in close contiguity, a gentle mood and an angry, flew from
+one to the other without the least warning. &ldquo;Remember, Thomasin, this
+business was none of my seeking; from the very first, when you began to feel
+foolish about that man, I warned you he would not make you happy. I felt it so
+strongly that I did what I would never have believed myself capable of
+doing&mdash;stood up in the church, and made myself the public talk for weeks.
+But having once consented, I don&rsquo;t submit to these fancies without good
+reason. Marry him you must after this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?&rdquo; said
+Thomasin, with a heavy sigh. &ldquo;I know how wrong it was of me to love him,
+but don&rsquo;t pain me by talking like that, Aunt! You would not have had me
+stay there with him, would you?&mdash;and your house is the only home I have to
+return to. He says we can be married in a day or two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish he had never seen you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not
+let him see me again. No, I won&rsquo;t have him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too late to speak so. Come with me. I am going to the inn to see
+if he has returned. Of course I shall get to the bottom of this story at once.
+Mr. Wildeve must not suppose he can play tricks upon me, or any belonging to
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not that. The license was wrong, and he couldn&rsquo;t get
+another the same day. He will tell you in a moment how it was, if he
+comes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t he bring you back?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was me!&rdquo; again sobbed Thomasin. &ldquo;When I found we could
+not be married I didn&rsquo;t like to come back with him, and I was very ill.
+Then I saw Diggory Venn, and was glad to get him to take me home. I cannot
+explain it any better, and you must be angry with me if you will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall see about that,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright; and they turned
+towards the inn, known in the neighbourhood as the Quiet Woman, the sign of
+which represented the figure of a matron carrying her head under her arm. The
+front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose dark shape
+seemed to threaten it from the sky. Upon the door was a neglected brass plate,
+bearing the unexpected inscription, &ldquo;Mr. Wildeve, Engineer&rdquo;&mdash;a
+useless yet cherished relic from the time when he had been started in that
+profession in an office at Budmouth by those who had hoped much from him, and
+had been disappointed. The garden was at the back, and behind this ran a still
+deep stream, forming the margin of the heath in that direction, meadow-land
+appearing beyond the stream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be visible of any scene at
+present. The water at the back of the house could be heard, idly spinning
+whirpools in its creep between the rows of dry feather-headed reeds which
+formed a stockade along each bank. Their presence was denoted by sounds as of a
+congregation praying humbly, produced by their rubbing against each other in
+the slow wind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The window, whence the candlelight had shone up the vale to the eyes of the
+bonfire group, was uncurtained, but the sill lay too high for a pedestrian on
+the outside to look over it into the room. A vast shadow, in which could be
+dimly traced portions of a masculine contour, blotted half the ceiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He seems to be at home,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Must I come in, too, Aunt?&rdquo; asked Thomasin faintly. &ldquo;I
+suppose not; it would be wrong.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must come, certainly&mdash;to confront him, so that he may make no
+false representations to me. We shall not be five minutes in the house, and
+then we&rsquo;ll walk home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Entering the open passage, she tapped at the door of the private parlour,
+unfastened it, and looked in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The back and shoulders of a man came between Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s eyes and
+the fire. Wildeve, whose form it was, immediately turned, arose, and advanced
+to meet his visitors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was quite a young man, and of the two properties, form and motion, the
+latter first attracted the eye in him. The grace of his movement was
+singular&mdash;it was the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing career. Next
+came into notice the more material qualities, among which was a profuse crop of
+hair impending over the top of his face, lending to his forehead the
+high-cornered outline of an early Gothic shield; and a neck which was smooth
+and round as a cylinder. The lower half of his figure was of light build.
+Altogether he was one in whom no man would have seen anything to admire, and in
+whom no woman would have seen anything to dislike.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He discerned the young girl&rsquo;s form in the passage, and said,
+&ldquo;Thomasin, then, has reached home. How could you leave me in that way,
+darling?&rdquo; And turning to Mrs. Yeobright&mdash;&ldquo;It was useless to
+argue with her. She would go, and go alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what&rsquo;s the meaning of it all?&rdquo; demanded Mrs. Yeobright
+haughtily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take a seat,&rdquo; said Wildeve, placing chairs for the two women.
+&ldquo;Well, it was a very stupid mistake, but such mistakes will happen. The
+license was useless at Anglebury. It was made out for Budmouth, but as I
+didn&rsquo;t read it I wasn&rsquo;t aware of that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you had been staying at Anglebury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. I had been at Budmouth&mdash;till two days ago&mdash;and that was
+where I had intended to take her; but when I came to fetch her we decided upon
+Anglebury, forgetting that a new license would be necessary. There was not time
+to get to Budmouth afterwards.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you are very much to blame,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was quite my fault we chose Anglebury,&rdquo; Thomasin pleaded.
+&ldquo;I proposed it because I was not known there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know so well that I am to blame that you need not remind me of
+it,&rdquo; replied Wildeve shortly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Such things don&rsquo;t happen for nothing,&rdquo; said the aunt.
+&ldquo;It is a great slight to me and my family; and when it gets known there
+will be a very unpleasant time for us. How can she look her friends in the face
+tomorrow? It is a very great injury, and one I cannot easily forgive. It may
+even reflect on her character.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense,&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin&rsquo;s large eyes had flown from the face of one to the face of the
+other during this discussion, and she now said anxiously, &ldquo;Will you allow
+me, Aunt, to talk it over alone with Damon for five minutes? Will you,
+Damon?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly, dear,&rdquo; said Wildeve, &ldquo;if your aunt will excuse
+us.&rdquo; He led her into an adjoining room, leaving Mrs. Yeobright by the
+fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as they were alone, and the door closed, Thomasin said, turning up her
+pale, tearful face to him, &ldquo;It is killing me, this, Damon! I did not mean
+to part from you in anger at Anglebury this morning; but I was frightened and
+hardly knew what I said. I&rsquo;ve not let Aunt know how much I suffered
+today; and it is so hard to command my face and voice, and to smile as if it
+were a slight thing to me; but I try to do so, that she may not be still more
+indignant with you. I know you could not help it, dear, whatever Aunt may
+think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is very unpleasant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Thomasin murmured, &ldquo;and I suppose I seem so now....
+Damon, what do you mean to do about me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do about you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Those who don&rsquo;t like you whisper things which at moments make
+me doubt you. We mean to marry, I suppose, don&rsquo;t we?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course we do. We have only to go to Budmouth on Monday, and we marry
+at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then do let us go!&mdash;O Damon, what you make me say!&rdquo; She hid
+her face in her handkerchief. &ldquo;Here am I asking you to marry me, when by
+rights you ought to be on your knees imploring me, your cruel mistress, not to
+refuse you, and saying it would break your heart if I did. I used to think it
+would be pretty and sweet like that; but how different!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, real life is never at all like that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t care personally if it never takes place,&rdquo; she
+added with a little dignity; &ldquo;no, I can live without you. It is Aunt I
+think of. She is so proud, and thinks so much of her family respectability,
+that she will be cut down with mortification if this story should get abroad
+before&mdash;it is done. My cousin Clym, too, will be much wounded.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he will be very unreasonable. In fact, you are all rather
+unreasonable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin coloured a little, and not with love. But whatever the momentary
+feeling which caused that flush in her, it went as it came, and she humbly
+said, &ldquo;I never mean to be, if I can help it. I merely feel that you have
+my aunt to some extent in your power at last.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As a matter of justice it is almost due to me,&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+&ldquo;Think what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is
+to any man to have the banns forbidden&mdash;the double insult to a man unlucky
+enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven knows what,
+as I am. I can never forget those banns. A harsher man would rejoice now in the
+power I have of turning upon your aunt by going no further in the
+business.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked wistfully at him with her sorrowful eyes as he said those words, and
+her aspect showed that more than one person in the room could deplore the
+possession of sensitiveness. Seeing that she was really suffering he seemed
+disturbed and added, &ldquo;This is merely a reflection you know. I have not
+the least intention to refuse to complete the marriage, Tamsie mine&mdash;I
+could not bear it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You could not, I know!&rdquo; said the fair girl, brightening.
+&ldquo;You, who cannot bear the sight of pain in even an insect, or any
+disagreeable sound, or unpleasant smell even, will not long cause pain to me
+and mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not, if I can help it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your hand upon it, Damon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He carelessly gave her his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, by my crown, what&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; he said suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There fell upon their ears the sound of numerous voices singing in front of the
+house. Among these, two made themselves prominent by their peculiarity: one was
+a very strong bass, the other a wheezy thin piping. Thomasin recognized them as
+belonging to Timothy Fairway and Grandfer Cantle respectively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does it mean&mdash;it is not skimmity-riding, I hope?&rdquo; she
+said, with a frightened gaze at Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course not; no, it is that the heath-folk have come to sing to us a
+welcome. This is intolerable!&rdquo; He began pacing about, the men outside
+singing cheerily&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;He told&#x2032; her that she&#x2032; was the joy&#x2032; of his
+life&#x2032;,<br />
+And if&#x2032; she&rsquo;d con-sent&#x2032; he would make her his
+wife&#x2032;;<br />
+She could&#x2032; not refuse&#x2032; him; to church&#x2032; so they
+went&#x2032;,<br />
+Young Will was forgot&#x2032;, and young Sue&#x2032; was content&#x2032;;<br />
+And then&#x2032; was she kiss&rsquo;d&#x2032; and set down&#x2032; on his
+knee&#x2032;,<br />
+No man&#x2032; in the world&#x2032; was so lov&#x2032;-ing as
+he&#x2032;!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright burst in from the outer room. &ldquo;Thomasin, Thomasin!&rdquo;
+she said, looking indignantly at Wildeve; &ldquo;here&rsquo;s a pretty
+exposure! Let us escape at once. Come!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was, however, too late to get away by the passage. A rugged knocking had
+begun upon the door of the front room. Wildeve, who had gone to the window,
+came back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; he said imperiously, putting his hand upon Mrs.
+Yeobright&rsquo;s arm. &ldquo;We are regularly besieged. There are fifty of
+them out there if there&rsquo;s one. You stay in this room with Thomasin;
+I&rsquo;ll go out and face them. You must stay now, for my sake, till they are
+gone, so that it may seem as if all was right. Come, Tamsie dear, don&rsquo;t
+go making a scene&mdash;we must marry after this; that you can see as well as
+I. Sit still, that&rsquo;s all&mdash;and don&rsquo;t speak much. I&rsquo;ll
+manage them. Blundering fools!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pressed the agitated girl into a seat, returned to the outer room and opened
+the door. Immediately outside, in the passage, appeared Grandfer Cantle singing
+in concert with those still standing in front of the house. He came into the
+room and nodded abstractedly to Wildeve, his lips still parted, and his
+features excruciatingly strained in the emission of the chorus. This being
+ended, he said heartily, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s welcome to the new-made couple,
+and God bless &rsquo;em!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said Wildeve, with dry resentment, his face as gloomy
+as a thunderstorm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the Grandfer&rsquo;s heels now came the rest of the group, which included
+Fairway, Christian, Sam the turf-cutter, Humphrey, and a dozen others. All
+smiled upon Wildeve, and upon his tables and chairs likewise, from a general
+sense of friendliness towards the articles as well as towards their owner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We be not here afore Mrs. Yeobright after all,&rdquo; said Fairway,
+recognizing the matron&rsquo;s bonnet through the glass partition which divided
+the public apartment they had entered from the room where the women sat.
+&ldquo;We struck down across, d&rsquo;ye see, Mr. Wildeve, and she went round
+by the path.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I see the young bride&rsquo;s little head!&rdquo; said Grandfer,
+peeping in the same direction, and discerning Thomasin, who was waiting beside
+her aunt in a miserable and awkward way. &ldquo;Not quite settled in
+yet&mdash;well, well, there&rsquo;s plenty of time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner he treated them the
+sooner they would go, he produced a stone jar, which threw a warm halo over
+matters at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a drop of the right sort, I can see,&rdquo; said Grandfer
+Cantle, with the air of a man too well-mannered to show any hurry to taste it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Wildeve, &ldquo;&rsquo;tis some old mead. I hope you
+will like it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O ay!&rdquo; replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural when the
+words demanded by politeness coincide with those of deepest feeling.
+&ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t a prettier drink under the sun.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take my oath there isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; added Grandfer Cantle.
+&ldquo;All that can be said against mead is that &rsquo;tis rather heady, and
+apt to lie about a man a good while. But tomorrow&rsquo;s Sunday, thank
+God.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I feel&rsquo;d for all the world like some bold soldier after I had had
+some once,&rdquo; said Christian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall feel so again,&rdquo; said Wildeve, with condescension,
+&ldquo;Cups or glasses, gentlemen?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if you don&rsquo;t mind, we&rsquo;ll have the beaker, and pass
+&rsquo;en round; &rsquo;tis better than heling it out in dribbles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jown the slippery glasses,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the good of a thing that you can&rsquo;t put down in the
+ashes to warm, hey, neighbours; that&rsquo;s what I ask?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right, Grandfer,&rdquo; said Sam; and the mead then circulated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Timothy Fairway, feeling demands upon his praise in
+some form or other, &ldquo;&rsquo;tis a worthy thing to be married, Mr.
+Wildeve; and the woman you&rsquo;ve got is a dimant, so says I. Yes,&rdquo; he
+continued, to Grandfer Cantle, raising his voice so as to be heard through the
+partition, &ldquo;her father (inclining his head towards the inner room) was as
+good a feller as ever lived. He always had his great indignation ready against
+anything underhand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that very dangerous?&rdquo; said Christian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there were few in these parts that were upsides with him,&rdquo;
+said Sam. &ldquo;Whenever a club walked he&rsquo;d play the clarinet in the
+band that marched before &rsquo;em as if he&rsquo;d never touched anything but
+a clarinet all his life. And then, when they got to church door he&rsquo;d
+throw down the clarinet, mount the gallery, snatch up the bass viol, and rozum
+away as if he&rsquo;d never played anything but a bass viol. Folk would
+say&mdash;folk that knowed what a true stave was&mdash;&lsquo;Surely, surely
+that&rsquo;s never the same man that I saw handling the clarinet so masterly by
+now!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can mind it,&rdquo; said the furze-cutter. &ldquo;&rsquo;Twas a
+wonderful thing that one body could hold it all and never mix the
+fingering.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was Kingsbere church likewise,&rdquo; Fairway recommenced, as one
+opening a new vein of the same mine of interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve breathed the breath of one intolerably bored, and glanced through the
+partition at the prisoners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He used to walk over there of a Sunday afternoon to visit his old
+acquaintance Andrew Brown, the first clarinet there; a good man enough, but
+rather screechy in his music, if you can mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;A was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And neighbour Yeobright would take Andrey&rsquo;s place for some part of
+the service, to let Andrey have a bit of a nap, as any friend would naturally
+do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As any friend would,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, the other listeners
+expressing the same accord by the shorter way of nodding their heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No sooner was Andrey asleep and the first whiff of neighbour
+Yeobright&rsquo;s wind had got inside Andrey&rsquo;s clarinet than everyone in
+church feeled in a moment there was a great soul among &rsquo;em. All heads
+would turn, and they&rsquo;d say, &lsquo;Ah, I thought &rsquo;twas he!&rsquo;
+One Sunday I can well mind&mdash;a bass viol day that time, and Yeobright had
+brought his own. &rsquo;Twas the Hundred-and-thirty-third to
+&lsquo;Lydia&rsquo;; and when they&rsquo;d come to &lsquo;Ran down his beard
+and o&rsquo;er his robes its costly moisture shed,&rsquo; neighbour Yeobright,
+who had just warmed to his work, drove his bow into them strings that glorious
+grand that he e&rsquo;en a&rsquo;most sawed the bass viol into two pieces.
+Every winder in church rattled as if &rsquo;twere a thunderstorm. Old
+Pa&rsquo;son Williams lifted his hands in his great holy surplice as natural as
+if he&rsquo;d been in common clothes, and seemed to say hisself, &lsquo;Oh for
+such a man in our parish!&rsquo; But not a soul in Kingsbere could hold a
+candle to Yeobright.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it quite safe when the winder shook?&rdquo; Christian inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He received no answer, all for the moment sitting rapt in admiration of the
+performance described. As with Farinelli&rsquo;s singing before the princesses,
+Sheridan&rsquo;s renowned Begum Speech, and other such examples, the fortunate
+condition of its being for ever lost to the world invested the deceased Mr.
+Yeobright&rsquo;s tour de force on that memorable afternoon with a cumulative
+glory which comparative criticism, had that been possible, might considerably
+have shorn down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was the last you&rsquo;d have expected to drop off in the prime of
+life,&rdquo; said Humphrey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well; he was looking for the earth some months afore he went. At
+that time women used to run for smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill Fair, and
+my wife that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid, hardly husband-high,
+went with the rest of the maidens, for &rsquo;a was a good runner afore she got
+so heavy. When she came home I said&mdash;we were then just beginning to walk
+together&mdash;&lsquo;What have ye got, my honey?&rsquo; &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve
+won&mdash;well, I&rsquo;ve won&mdash;a gown-piece,&rsquo; says she, her colours
+coming up in a moment. &rsquo;Tis a smock for a crown, I thought; and so it
+turned out. Ay, when I think what she&rsquo;ll say to me now without a mossel
+of red in her face, it do seem strange that &rsquo;a wouldn&rsquo;t say such a
+little thing then.... However, then she went on, and that&rsquo;s what made me
+bring up the story, &lsquo;Well, whatever clothes I&rsquo;ve won, white or
+figured, for eyes to see or for eyes not to see&rsquo; (&rsquo;a could do a
+pretty stroke of modesty in those days), &lsquo;I&rsquo;d sooner have lost it
+than have seen what I have. Poor Mr. Yeobright was took bad directly he reached
+the fair ground, and was forced to go home again.&rsquo; That was the last time
+he ever went out of the parish.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;A faltered on from one day to another, and then we heard he was
+gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;D&rsquo;ye think he had great pain when &rsquo;a died?&rdquo; said
+Christian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no&mdash;quite different. Nor any pain of mind. He was lucky enough to
+be God A&rsquo;mighty&rsquo;s own man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And other folk&mdash;d&rsquo;ye think &rsquo;twill be much pain to
+&rsquo;em, Mister Fairway?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That depends on whether they be afeard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I bain&rsquo;t afeard at all, I thank God!&rdquo; said Christian
+strenuously. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad I bain&rsquo;t, for then &rsquo;twon&rsquo;t
+pain me.... I don&rsquo;t think I be afeard&mdash;or if I be I can&rsquo;t help
+it, and I don&rsquo;t deserve to suffer. I wish I was not afeard at all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a solemn silence, and looking from the window, which was unshuttered
+and unblinded, Timothy said, &ldquo;Well, what a fess little bonfire that one
+is, out by Cap&rsquo;n Vye&rsquo;s! &rsquo;Tis burning just the same now as
+ever, upon my life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All glances went through the window, and nobody noticed that Wildeve disguised
+a brief, telltale look. Far away up the sombre valley of heath, and to the
+right of Rainbarrow, could indeed be seen the light, small, but steady and
+persistent as before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was lighted before ours was,&rdquo; Fairway continued; &ldquo;and yet
+every one in the country round is out afore &rsquo;n.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps there&rsquo;s meaning in it!&rdquo; murmured Christian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How meaning?&rdquo; said Wildeve sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian was too scattered to reply, and Timothy helped him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He means, sir, that the lonesome dark-eyed creature up there that some
+say is a witch&mdash;ever I should call a fine young woman such a name&mdash;is
+always up to some odd conceit or other; and so perhaps &rsquo;tis she.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;d be very glad to ask her in wedlock, if she&rsquo;d hae me and
+take the risk of her wild dark eyes ill-wishing me,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle
+staunchly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ye say it, Father!&rdquo; implored Christian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, be dazed if he who do marry the maid won&rsquo;t hae an uncommon
+picture for his best parlour,&rdquo; said Fairway in a liquid tone, placing
+down the cup of mead at the end of a good pull.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a partner as deep as the North Star,&rdquo; said Sam, taking up the
+cup and finishing the little that remained. &ldquo;Well, really, now I think we
+must be moving,&rdquo; said Humphrey, observing the emptiness of the vessel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we&rsquo;ll gie &rsquo;em another song?&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m as full of notes as a bird!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you, Grandfer,&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;But we will not trouble
+you now. Some other day must do for that&mdash;when I have a party.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be jown&rsquo;d if I don&rsquo;t learn ten new songs for&rsquo;t, or I
+won&rsquo;t learn a line!&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle. &ldquo;And you may be
+sure I won&rsquo;t disappoint ye by biding away, Mr. Wildeve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I quite believe you,&rdquo; said that gentleman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All then took their leave, wishing their entertainer long life and happiness as
+a married man, with recapitulations which occupied some time. Wildeve attended
+them to the door, beyond which the deep-dyed upward stretch of heath stood
+awaiting them, an amplitude of darkness reigning from their feet almost to the
+zenith, where a definite form first became visible in the lowering forehead of
+Rainbarrow. Diving into the dense obscurity in a line headed by Sam the
+turf-cutter, they pursued their trackless way home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the scratching of the furze against their leggings had fainted upon the
+ear, Wildeve returned to the room where he had left Thomasin and her aunt. The
+women were gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They could only have left the house in one way, by the back window; and this
+was open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve laughed to himself, remained a moment thinking, and idly returned to
+the front room. Here his glance fell upon a bottle of wine which stood on the
+mantelpiece. &ldquo;Ah&mdash;old Dowden!&rdquo; he murmured; and going to the
+kitchen door shouted, &ldquo;Is anybody here who can take something to old
+Dowden?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no reply. The room was empty, the lad who acted as his factotum
+having gone to bed. Wildeve came back, put on his hat, took the bottle, and
+left the house, turning the key in the door, for there was no guest at the inn
+tonight. As soon as he was on the road the little bonfire on Mistover Knap
+again met his eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Still waiting, are you, my lady?&rdquo; he murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, he did not proceed that way just then; but leaving the hill to the
+left of him, he stumbled over a rutted road that brought him to a cottage
+which, like all other habitations on the heath at this hour, was only saved
+from being visible by a faint shine from its bedroom window. This house was the
+home of Olly Dowden, the besom-maker, and he entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lower room was in darkness; but by feeling his way he found a table,
+whereon he placed the bottle, and a minute later emerged again upon the heath.
+He stood and looked northeast at the undying little fire&mdash;high up above
+him, though not so high as Rainbarrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have been told what happens when a woman deliberates; and the epigram is not
+always terminable with woman, provided that one be in the case, and that a fair
+one. Wildeve stood, and stood longer, and breathed perplexedly, and then said
+to himself with resignation, &ldquo;Yes&mdash;by Heaven, I must go to her, I
+suppose!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of turning in the direction of home he pressed on rapidly by a path
+under Rainbarrow towards what was evidently a signal light.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>VI.<br />
+The Figure against the Sky</h2>
+
+<p>
+When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to its
+accustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached the barrow
+from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay. Had the reddleman
+been watching he might have recognized her as the woman who had first stood
+there so singularly, and vanished at the approach of strangers. She ascended to
+her old position at the top, where the red coals of the perishing fire greeted
+her like living eyes in the corpse of day. There she stood still around her
+stretching the vast night atmosphere, whose incomplete darkness in comparison
+with the total darkness of the heath below it might have represented a venial
+beside a mortal sin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That she was tall and straight in build, that she was lady-like in her
+movements, was all that could be learnt of her just now, her form being wrapped
+in a shawl folded in the old cornerwise fashion, and her head in a large
+kerchief, a protection not superfluous at this hour and place. Her back was
+towards the wind, which blew from the northwest; but whether she had avoided
+that aspect because of the chilly gusts which played about her exceptional
+position, or because her interest lay in the southeast, did not at first
+appear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her reason for standing so dead still as the pivot of this circle of
+heath-country was just as obscure. Her extraordinary fixity, her conspicuous
+loneliness, her heedlessness of night, betokened among other things an utter
+absence of fear. A tract of country unaltered from that sinister condition
+which made Cæsar anxious every year to get clear of its glooms before the
+autumnal equinox, a kind of landscape and weather which leads travellers from
+the South to describe our island as Homer&rsquo;s Cimmerian land, was not, on
+the face of it, friendly to women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It might reasonably have been supposed that she was listening to the wind,
+which rose somewhat as the night advanced, and laid hold of the attention. The
+wind, indeed, seemed made for the scene, as the scene seemed made for the hour.
+Part of its tone was quite special; what was heard there could be heard nowhere
+else. Gusts in innumerable series followed each other from the northwest, and
+when each one of them raced past the sound of its progress resolved into three.
+Treble, tenor, and bass notes were to be found therein. The general ricochet of
+the whole over pits and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. Next
+there could be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in force,
+above them in pitch, a dwindled voice strove hard at a husky tune, which was
+the peculiar local sound alluded to. Thinner and less immediately traceable
+than the other two, it was far more impressive than either. In it lay what may
+be called the linguistic peculiarity of the heath; and being audible nowhere on
+earth off a heath, it afforded a shadow of reason for the woman&rsquo;s
+tenseness, which continued as unbroken as ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Throughout the blowing of these plaintive November winds that note bore a great
+resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain to the throat of fourscore
+and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and it brushed so distinctly
+across the ear that, by the accustomed, the material minutiæ in which it
+originated could be realized as by touch. It was the united products of
+infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these were neither stems, leaves, fruit,
+blades, prickles, lichen, nor moss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were the mummied heathbells of the past summer, originally tender and
+purple, now washed colourless by Michaelmas rains, and dried to dead skins by
+October suns. So low was an individual sound from these that a combination of
+hundreds only just emerged from silence, and the myriads of the whole declivity
+reached the woman&rsquo;s ear but as a shrivelled and intermittent recitative.
+Yet scarcely a single accent among the many afloat tonight could have such
+power to impress a listener with thoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the
+infinity of those combined multitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny
+trumpets was seized on entered, scoured and emerged from by the wind as
+thoroughly as if it were as vast as a crater.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The spirit moved them.&rdquo; A meaning of the phrase forced itself upon
+the attention; and an emotional listener&rsquo;s fetichistic mood might have
+ended in one of more advanced quality. It was not, after all, that the
+left-hand expanse of old blooms spoke, or the right-hand, or those of the slope
+in front; but it was the single person of something else speaking through each
+at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild rhetoric of night a
+sound which modulated so naturally into the rest that its beginning and ending
+were hardly to be distinguished. The bluffs, and the bushes, and the
+heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so did the woman; and her
+articulation was but as another phrase of the same discourse as theirs. Thrown
+out on the winds it became twined in with them, and with them it flew away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at something in her mind
+which had led to her presence here. There was a spasmodic abandonment about it
+as if, in allowing herself to utter the sound the woman&rsquo;s brain had
+authorized what it could not regulate. One point was evident in this; that she
+had been existing in a suppressed state, and not in one of languor, or
+stagnation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Far away down the valley the faint shine from the window of the inn still
+lasted on; and a few additional moments proved that the window, or what was
+within it, had more to do with the woman&rsquo;s sigh than had either her own
+actions or the scene immediately around. She lifted her left hand, which held a
+closed telescope. This she rapidly extended, as if she were well accustomed to
+the operation, and raising it to her eye directed it towards the light beaming
+from the inn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The handkerchief which had hooded her head was now a little thrown back, her
+face being somewhat elevated. A profile was visible against the dull monochrome
+of cloud around her; and it was as though side shadows from the features of
+Sappho and Mrs. Siddons had converged upwards from the tomb to form an image
+like neither but suggesting both. This, however, was mere superficiality. In
+respect of character a face may make certain admissions by its outline; but it
+fully confesses only in its changes. So much is this the case that what is
+called the play of the features often helps more in understanding a man or
+woman than the earnest labours of all the other members together. Thus the
+night revealed little of her whose form it was embracing, for the mobile parts
+of her countenance could not be seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last she gave up her spying attitude, closed the telescope, and turned to
+the decaying embers. From these no appreciable beams now radiated, except when
+a more than usually smart gust brushed over their faces and raised a fitful
+glow which came and went like the blush of a girl. She stooped over the silent
+circle, and selecting from the brands a piece of stick which bore the largest
+live coal at its end, brought it to where she had been standing before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal with her mouth at the
+same time; till it faintly illuminated the sod, and revealed a small object,
+which turned out to be an hourglass, though she wore a watch. She blew long
+enough to show that the sand had all slipped through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she said, as if surprised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The light raised by her breath had been very fitful, and a momentary
+irradiation of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. That consisted
+of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being still enveloped. She
+threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand, the telescope under her arm,
+and moved on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Along the ridge ran a faint foot-track, which the lady followed. Those who knew
+it well called it a path; and, while a mere visitor would have passed it
+unnoticed even by day, the regular haunters of the heath were at no loss for it
+at midnight. The whole secret of following these incipient paths, when there
+was not light enough in the atmosphere to show a turnpike road, lay in the
+development of the sense of touch in the feet, which comes with years of
+night-rambling in little-trodden spots. To a walker practised in such places a
+difference between impact on maiden herbage, and on the crippled stalks of a
+slight footway, is perceptible through the thickest boot or shoe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The solitary figure who walked this beat took no notice of the windy tune still
+played on the dead heathbells. She did not turn her head to look at a group of
+dark creatures further on, who fled from her presence as she skirted a ravine
+where they fed. They were about a score of the small wild ponies known as
+heath-croppers. They roamed at large on the undulations of Egdon, but in
+numbers too few to detract much from the solitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pedestrian noticed nothing just now, and a clue to her abstraction was
+afforded by a trivial incident. A bramble caught hold of her skirt, and checked
+her progress. Instead of putting it off and hastening along, she yielded
+herself up to the pull, and stood passively still. When she began to extricate
+herself it was by turning round and round, and so unwinding the prickly switch.
+She was in a desponding reverie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her course was in the direction of the small undying fire which had drawn the
+attention of the men on Rainbarrow and of Wildeve in the valley below. A faint
+illumination from its rays began to glow upon her face, and the fire soon
+revealed itself to be lit, not on the level ground, but on a salient corner or
+redan of earth, at the junction of two converging bank fences. Outside was a
+ditch, dry except immediately under the fire, where there was a large pool,
+bearded all round by heather and rushes. In the smooth water of the pool the
+fire appeared upside down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The banks meeting behind were bare of a hedge, save such as was formed by
+disconnected tufts of furze, standing upon stems along the top, like impaled
+heads above a city wall. A white mast, fitted up with spars and other nautical
+tackle, could be seen rising against the dark clouds whenever the flames played
+brightly enough to reach it. Altogether the scene had much the appearance of a
+fortification upon which had been kindled a beacon fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody was visible; but ever and anon a whitish something moved above the bank
+from behind, and vanished again. This was a small human hand, in the act of
+lifting pieces of fuel into the fire, but for all that could be seen the hand,
+like that which troubled Belshazzar, was there alone. Occasionally an ember
+rolled off the bank, and dropped with a hiss into the pool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At one side of the pool rough steps built of clods enabled everyone who wished
+to do so to mount the bank; which the woman did. Within was a paddock in an
+uncultivated state, though bearing evidence of having once been tilled; but the
+heath and fern had insidiously crept in, and were reasserting their old
+supremacy. Further ahead were dimly visible an irregular dwelling-house,
+garden, and outbuildings, backed by a clump of firs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young lady&mdash;for youth had revealed its presence in her buoyant bound
+up the bank&mdash;walked along the top instead of descending inside, and came
+to the corner where the fire was burning. One reason for the permanence of the
+blaze was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces of wood, cleft and
+sawn&mdash;the knotty boles of old thorn trees which grew in twos and threes
+about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed pile of these lay in the inner angle of
+the bank; and from this corner the upturned face of a little boy greeted her
+eyes. He was dilatorily throwing up a piece of wood into the fire every now and
+then, a business which seemed to have engaged him a considerable part of the
+evening, for his face was somewhat weary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia,&rdquo; he said, with a sigh of
+relief. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like biding by myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. I have been gone
+only twenty minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seemed long,&rdquo; murmured the sad boy. &ldquo;And you have been so
+many times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, I thought you would be pleased to have a bonfire. Are you not much
+obliged to me for making you one?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; but there&rsquo;s nobody here to play wi&rsquo; me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose nobody has come while I&rsquo;ve been away?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody except your grandfather&mdash;he looked out of doors once for
+&rsquo;ee. I told him you were walking round upon the hill to look at the other
+bonfires.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A good boy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I hear him coming again, miss.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An old man came into the remoter light of the fire from the direction of the
+homestead. He was the same who had overtaken the reddleman on the road that
+afternoon. He looked wistfully to the top of the bank at the woman who stood
+there, and his teeth, which were quite unimpaired, showed like parian from his
+parted lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When are you coming indoors, Eustacia?&rdquo; he asked.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis almost bedtime. I&rsquo;ve been home these two hours, and am
+tired out. Surely &rsquo;tis somewhat childish of you to stay out playing at
+bonfires so long, and wasting such fuel. My precious thorn roots, the rarest of
+all firing, that I laid by on purpose for Christmas&mdash;you have burnt
+&rsquo;em nearly all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I promised Johnny a bonfire, and it pleases him not to let it go out
+just yet,&rdquo; said Eustacia, in a way which told at once that she was
+absolute queen here. &ldquo;Grandfather, you go in to bed. I shall follow you
+soon. You like the fire, don&rsquo;t you, Johnny?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy looked up doubtfully at her and murmured, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I
+want it any longer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her grandfather had turned back again, and did not hear the boy&rsquo;s reply.
+As soon as the white-haired man had vanished she said in a tone of pique to the
+child, &ldquo;Ungrateful little boy, how can you contradict me? Never shall you
+have a bonfire again unless you keep it up now. Come, tell me you like to do
+things for me, and don&rsquo;t deny it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The repressed child said, &ldquo;Yes, I do, miss,&rdquo; and continued to stir
+the fire perfunctorily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence,&rdquo;
+said Eustacia, more gently. &ldquo;Put in one piece of wood every two or three
+minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge a little
+longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a frog jump into the
+pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure you run and tell me,
+because it is a sign of rain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Eustacia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Vye, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Vy&mdash;stacia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That will do. Now put in one stick more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little slave went on feeding the fire as before. He seemed a mere
+automaton, galvanized into moving and speaking by the wayward Eustacia&rsquo;s
+will. He might have been the brass statue which Albertus Magnus is said to have
+animated just so far as to make it chatter, and move, and be his servant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before going on her walk again the young girl stood still on the bank for a few
+instants and listened. It was to the full as lonely a place as Rainbarrow,
+though at rather a lower level; and it was more sheltered from wind and weather
+on account of the few firs to the north. The bank which enclosed the homestead,
+and protected it from the lawless state of the world without, was formed of
+thick square clods, dug from the ditch on the outside, and built up with a
+slight batter or incline, which forms no slight defense where hedges will not
+grow because of the wind and the wilderness, and where wall materials are
+unattainable. Otherwise the situation was quite open, commanding the whole
+length of the valley which reached to the river behind Wildeve&rsquo;s house.
+High above this to the right, and much nearer thitherward than the Quiet Woman
+Inn, the blurred contour of Rainbarrow obstructed the sky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After her attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow ravines a gesture of
+impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant words every now and then, but
+there were sighs between her words, and sudden listenings between her sighs.
+Descending from her perch she again sauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though
+this time she did not go the whole way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes and each time she
+said&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, Miss Eustacia,&rdquo; the child replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said at last, &ldquo;I shall soon be going in, and then
+I will give you the crooked sixpence, and let you go home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank&rsquo;ee, Miss Eustacia,&rdquo; said the tired stoker, breathing
+more easily. And Eustacia again strolled away from the fire, but this time not
+towards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and went round to the wicket before
+the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the scene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks, with the fire upon
+it; within the bank, lifting up to the fire one stick at a time, just as
+before, the figure of the little child. She idly watched him as he occasionally
+climbed up in the nook of the bank and stood beside the brands. The wind blew
+the smoke, and the child&rsquo;s hair, and the corner of his pinafore, all in
+the same direction; the breeze died, and the pinafore and hair lay still, and
+the smoke went up straight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy&rsquo;s form visibly
+started&mdash;he slid down the bank and ran across towards the white gate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A hopfrog have jumped into the pond. Yes, I heard &rsquo;en!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. You will not be
+afraid?&rdquo; She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leapt into her throat
+at the boy&rsquo;s words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can&mdash;not that
+way&mdash;through the garden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a
+bonfire as yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched away into the
+shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving her telescope and
+hourglass by the gate, brushed forward from the wicket towards the angle of the
+bank, under the fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, screened by the outwork, she waited. In a few moments a splash was
+audible from the pond outside. Had the child been there he would have said that
+a second frog had jumped in; but by most people the sound would have been
+likened to the fall of a stone into the water. Eustacia stepped upon the bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; she said, and held her breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against the low-reaching
+sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool. He came round it and
+leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh escaped her&mdash;the third
+utterance which the girl had indulged in tonight. The first, when she stood
+upon Rainbarrow, had expressed anxiety; the second, on the ridge, had expressed
+impatience; the present was one of triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes
+rest upon him without speaking, as upon some wondrous thing she had created out
+of chaos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have come,&rdquo; said the man, who was Wildeve. &ldquo;You give me no
+peace. Why do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the
+evening.&rdquo; The words were not without emotion, and retained their level
+tone as if by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover the girl seemed to repress
+herself also. &ldquo;Of course you have seen my fire,&rdquo; she answered with
+languid calmness, artificially maintained. &ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t I have a
+bonfire on the Fifth of November, like other denizens of the heath?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I knew it was meant for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How did you know it? I have had no word with you since you&mdash;you
+chose her, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely, as if I had
+never been yours life and soul so irretrievably!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day of the month
+and at this same place you lighted exactly such a fire as a signal for me to
+come and see you? Why should there have been a bonfire again by Captain
+Vye&rsquo;s house if not for the same purpose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes&mdash;I own it,&rdquo; she cried under her breath, with a
+drowsy fervour of manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t begin speaking to me as you did, Damon; you will drive me to
+say words I would not wish to say to you. I had given you up, and resolved not
+to think of you any more; and then I heard the news, and I came out and got the
+fire ready because I thought that you had been faithful to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have you heard to make you think that?&rdquo; said Wildeve,
+astonished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you did not marry her!&rdquo; she murmured exultingly. &ldquo;And I
+knew it was because you loved me best, and couldn&rsquo;t do it.... Damon, you
+have been cruel to me to go away, and I have said I would never forgive you. I
+do not think I can forgive you entirely, even now&mdash;it is too much for a
+woman of any spirit to quite overlook.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I had known you wished to call me up here only to reproach me, I
+wouldn&rsquo;t have come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t mind it, and I do forgive you now that you have not
+married her, and have come back to me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who told you that I had not married her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My grandfather. He took a long walk today, and as he was coming home he
+overtook some person who told him of a broken-off wedding&mdash;he thought it
+might be yours, and I knew it was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does anybody else know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose not. Now Damon, do you see why I lit my signal fire? You did
+not think I would have lit it if I had imagined you to have become the husband
+of this woman. It is insulting my pride to suppose that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve was silent; it was evident that he had supposed as much.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you indeed think I believed you were married?&rdquo; she again
+demanded earnestly. &ldquo;Then you wronged me; and upon my life and heart I
+can hardly bear to recognize that you have such ill thoughts of me! Damon, you
+are not worthy of me&mdash;I see it, and yet I love you. Never mind, let it
+go&mdash;I must bear your mean opinion as best I may.... It is true, is it
+not,&rdquo; she added with ill-concealed anxiety, on his making no
+demonstration, &ldquo;that you could not bring yourself to give me up, and are
+still going to love me best of all?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; or why should I have come?&rdquo; he said touchily. &ldquo;Not that
+fidelity will be any great merit in me after your kind speech about my
+unworthiness, which should have been said by myself if by anybody, and comes
+with an ill grace from you. However, the curse of inflammability is upon me,
+and I must live under it, and take any snub from a woman. It has brought me
+down from engineering to innkeeping&mdash;what lower stage it has in store for
+me I have yet to learn.&rdquo; He continued to look upon her gloomily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She seized the moment, and throwing back the shawl so that the firelight shone
+full upon her face and throat, said with a smile, &ldquo;Have you seen anything
+better than that in your travels?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia was not one to commit herself to such a position without good ground.
+He said quietly, &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not even on the shoulders of Thomasin?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thomasin is a pleasing and innocent woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s nothing to do with it,&rdquo; she cried with quick
+passionateness. &ldquo;We will leave her out; there are only you and me now to
+think of.&rdquo; After a long look at him she resumed with the old quiescent
+warmth, &ldquo;Must I go on weakly confessing to you things a woman ought to
+conceal; and own that no words can express how gloomy I have been because of
+that dreadful belief I held till two hours ago&mdash;that you had quite
+deserted me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry I caused you that pain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But perhaps it is not wholly because of you that I get gloomy,&rdquo;
+she archly added. &ldquo;It is in my nature to feel like that. It was born in
+my blood, I suppose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hypochondriasis.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or else it was coming into this wild heath. I was happy enough at
+Budmouth. O the times, O the days at Budmouth! But Egdon will be brighter again
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope it will,&rdquo; said Wildeve moodily. &ldquo;Do you know the
+consequence of this recall to me, my old darling? I shall come to see you again
+as before, at Rainbarrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course you will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet I declare that until I got here tonight I intended, after this
+one good-bye, never to meet you again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t thank you for that,&rdquo; she said, turning away, while
+indignation spread through her like subterranean heat. &ldquo;You may come
+again to Rainbarrow if you like, but you won&rsquo;t see me; and you may call,
+but I shall not listen; and you may tempt me, but I won&rsquo;t give myself to
+you any more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have said as much before, sweet; but such natures as yours
+don&rsquo;t so easily adhere to their words. Neither, for the matter of that,
+do such natures as mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is the pleasure I have won by my trouble,&rdquo; she whispered
+bitterly. &ldquo;Why did I try to recall you? Damon, a strange warring takes
+place in my mind occasionally. I think when I become calm after you woundings,
+&lsquo;Do I embrace a cloud of common fog after all?&rsquo; You are a
+chameleon, and now you are at your worst colour. Go home, or I shall hate
+you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked absently towards Rainbarrow while one might have counted twenty, and
+said, as if he did not much mind all this, &ldquo;Yes, I will go home. Do you
+mean to see me again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you own to me that the wedding is broken off because you love me
+best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it would be good policy,&rdquo; said Wildeve,
+smiling. &ldquo;You would get to know the extent of your power too
+clearly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But tell me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is she now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. I prefer not to speak of her to you. I have not yet
+married her; I have come in obedience to your call. That is enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I merely lit that fire because I was dull, and thought I would get a
+little excitement by calling you up and triumphing over you as the Witch of
+Endor called up Samuel. I determined you should come; and you have come! I have
+shown my power. A mile and half hither, and a mile and half back again to your
+home&mdash;three miles in the dark for me. Have I not shown my power?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook his head at her. &ldquo;I know you too well, my Eustacia; I know you
+too well. There isn&rsquo;t a note in you which I don&rsquo;t know; and that
+hot little bosom couldn&rsquo;t play such a cold-blooded trick to save its
+life. I saw a woman on Rainbarrow at dusk looking down towards my house. I
+think I drew out you before you drew out me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly in Wildeve now; and he
+leant forward as if about to put his face towards her cheek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no,&rdquo; she said, intractably moving to the other side of the
+decayed fire. &ldquo;What did you mean by that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps I may kiss your hand?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, you may not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I may shake your hand?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I wish you good night without caring for either. Good-bye,
+good-bye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-master he vanished on the
+other side of the pool as he had come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia sighed&mdash;it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which shook her
+like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like an electric light upon
+her lover&mdash;as it sometimes would&mdash;and showed his imperfections, she
+shivered thus. But it was over in a second, and she loved on. She knew that he
+trifled with her; but she loved on. She scattered the half-burnt brands, went
+indoors immediately, and up to her bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles
+which denoted her to be undressing in the darkness other heavy breaths
+frequently came; and the same kind of shudder occasionally moved through her
+when, ten minutes later, she lay on her bed asleep.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>VII.<br />
+Queen of Night</h2>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would have done
+well with a little preparation. She had the passions and instincts which make a
+model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman. Had it been
+possible for the earth and mankind to be entirely in her grasp for a while, she
+had handled the distaff, the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few
+in the world would have noticed the change of government. There would have been
+the same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely
+there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas, the
+same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we endure now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness, as without
+pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair was to fancy that a
+whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form its shadow&mdash;it closed
+over her forehead like nightfall extinguishing the western glow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her nerves extended into those tresses, and her temper could always be softened
+by stroking them down. When her hair was brushed she would instantly sink into
+stillness and look like the Sphinx. If, in passing under one of the Egdon
+banks, any of its thick skeins were caught, as they sometimes were, by a
+prickly tuft of the large <i>Ulex Europæus</i>&mdash;which will act as a sort
+of hairbrush&mdash;she would go back a few steps, and pass against it a second
+time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light, as it came
+and went, and came again, was partially hampered by their oppressive lids and
+lashes; and of these the under lid was much fuller than it usually is with
+English women. This enabled her to indulge in reverie without seeming to do
+so&mdash;she might have been believed capable of sleeping without closing them
+up. Assuming that the souls of men and women were visible essences, you could
+fancy the colour of Eustacia&rsquo;s soul to be flamelike. The sparks from it
+that rose into her dark pupils gave the same impression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mouth seemed formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiver than to
+kiss. Some might have added, less to kiss than to curl. Viewed sideways, the
+closing-line of her lips formed, with almost geometric precision, the curve so
+well known in the arts of design as the cima-recta, or ogee. The sight of such
+a flexible bend as that on grim Egdon was quite an apparition. It was felt at
+once that the mouth did not come over from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates
+whose lips met like the two halves of a muffin. One had fancied that such
+lip-curves were mostly lurking underground in the South as fragments of
+forgotten marbles. So fine were the lines of her lips that, though full, each
+corner of her mouth was as clearly cut as the point of a spear. This keenness
+of corner was only blunted when she was given over to sudden fits of gloom, one
+of the phases of the night-side of sentiment which she knew too well for her
+years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon roses, rubies, and
+tropical midnight; her moods recalled lotus-eaters and the march in Athalie;
+her motions, the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, the viola. In a dim light,
+and with a slight rearrangement of her hair, her general figure might have
+stood for that of either of the higher female deities. The new moon behind her
+head, an old helmet upon it, a diadem of accidental dewdrops round her brow,
+would have been adjuncts sufficient to strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or
+Hera respectively, with as close an approximation to the antique as that which
+passes muster on many respected canvases.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be somewhat
+thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, and the consciousness
+of this limitation had biassed her development. Egdon was her Hades, and since
+coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark in its tone, though inwardly
+and eternally unreconciled thereto. Her appearance accorded well with this
+smouldering rebelliousness, and the shady splendour of her beauty was the real
+surface of the sad and stifled warmth within her. A true Tartarean dignity sat
+upon her brow, and not factitiously or with marks of constraint, for it had
+grown in her with years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Across the upper part of her head she wore a thin fillet of black velvet,
+restraining the luxuriance of her shady hair, in a way which added much to this
+class of majesty by irregularly clouding her forehead. &ldquo;Nothing can
+embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow band drawn over the brow,&rdquo;
+says Richter. Some of the neighbouring girls wore coloured ribbon for the same
+purpose, and sported metallic ornaments elsewhere; but if anyone suggested
+coloured ribbon and metallic ornaments to Eustacia Vye she laughed and went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why did a woman of this sort live on Egdon Heath? Budmouth was her native
+place, a fashionable seaside resort at that date. She was the daughter of the
+bandmaster of a regiment which had been quartered there&mdash;a Corfiote by
+birth, and a fine musician&mdash;who met his future wife during her trip
+thither with her father the captain, a man of good family. The marriage was
+scarcely in accord with the old man&rsquo;s wishes, for the bandmaster&rsquo;s
+pockets were as light as his occupation. But the musician did his best; adopted
+his wife&rsquo;s name, made England permanently his home, took great trouble
+with his child&rsquo;s education, the expenses of which were defrayed by the
+grandfather, and throve as the chief local musician till her mother&rsquo;s
+death, when he left off thriving, drank, and died also. The girl was left to
+the care of her grandfather, who, since three of his ribs became broken in a
+shipwreck, had lived in this airy perch on Egdon, a spot which had taken his
+fancy because the house was to be had for next to nothing, and because a remote
+blue tinge on the horizon between the hills, visible from the cottage door, was
+traditionally believed to be the English Channel. She hated the change; she
+felt like one banished; but here she was forced to abide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus it happened that in Eustacia&rsquo;s brain were juxtaposed the strangest
+assortment of ideas, from old time and from new. There was no middle distance
+in her perspective&mdash;romantic recollections of sunny afternoons on an
+esplanade, with military bands, officers, and gallants around, stood like
+gilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding Egdon. Every bizarre effect
+that could result from the random intertwining of watering-place glitter with
+the grand solemnity of a heath, was to be found in her. Seeing nothing of human
+life now, she imagined all the more of what she had seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where did her dignity come from? By a latent vein from Alcinous&rsquo; line,
+her father hailing from Phæacia&rsquo;s isle?&mdash;or from Fitzalan and De
+Vere, her maternal grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage? Perhaps it
+was the gift of Heaven&mdash;a happy convergence of natural laws. Among other
+things opportunity had of late years been denied her of learning to be
+undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation on a heath renders vulgarity
+well-nigh impossible. It would have been as easy for the heath-ponies, bats,
+and snakes to be vulgar as for her. A narrow life in Budmouth might have
+completely demeaned her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over is to
+look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a triumph. In the
+captain&rsquo;s cottage she could suggest mansions she had never seen. Perhaps
+that was because she frequented a vaster mansion than any of them, the open
+hills. Like the summer condition of the place around her, she was an embodiment
+of the phrase &ldquo;a populous solitude&rdquo;&mdash;apparently so listless,
+void, and quiet, she was really busy and full.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To be loved to madness&mdash;such was her great desire. Love was to her the one
+cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she
+seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any
+particular lover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She could show a most reproachful look at times, but it was directed less
+against human beings than against certain creatures of her mind, the chief of
+these being Destiny, through whose interference she dimly fancied it arose that
+love alighted only on gliding youth&mdash;that any love she might win would
+sink simultaneously with the sand in the glass. She thought of it with an
+ever-growing consciousness of cruelty, which tended to breed actions of
+reckless unconventionality, framed to snatch a year&rsquo;s, a week&rsquo;s,
+even an hour&rsquo;s passion from anywhere while it could be won. Through want
+of it she had sung without being merry, possessed without enjoying, outshone
+without triumphing. Her loneliness deepened her desire. On Egdon, coldest and
+meanest kisses were at famine prices, and where was a mouth matching hers to be
+found?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fidelity in love for fidelity&rsquo;s sake had less attraction for her than for
+most women; fidelity because of love&rsquo;s grip had much. A blaze of love,
+and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same which should last
+long years. On this head she knew by prevision what most women learn only by
+experience&mdash;she had mentally walked round love, told the towers thereof,
+considered its palaces, and concluded that love was but a doleful joy. Yet she
+desired it, as one in a desert would be thankful for brackish water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She often repeated her prayers; not at particular times, but, like the
+unaffectedly devout, when she desired to pray. Her prayer was always
+spontaneous, and often ran thus, &ldquo;O deliver my heart from this fearful
+gloom and loneliness; send me great love from somewhere, else I shall
+die.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her high gods were William the Conqueror, Strafford, and Napoleon Buonaparte,
+as they had appeared in the Lady&rsquo;s History used at the establishment in
+which she was educated. Had she been a mother she would have christened her
+boys such names as Saul or Sisera in preference to Jacob or David, neither of
+whom she admired. At school she had used to side with the Philistines in
+several battles, and had wondered if Pontius Pilate were as handsome as he was
+frank and fair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed, weighed in relation to
+her situation among the very rearward of thinkers, very original. Her instincts
+towards social non-comformity were at the root of this. In the matter of
+holidays, her mood was that of horses who, when turned out to grass, enjoy
+looking upon their kind at work on the highway. She only valued rest to herself
+when it came in the midst of other people&rsquo;s labour. Hence she hated
+Sundays when all was at rest, and often said they would be the death of her. To
+see the heathmen in their Sunday condition, that is, with their hands in their
+pockets, their boots newly oiled, and not laced up (a particularly Sunday
+sign), walking leisurely among the turves and furze-faggots they had cut during
+the week, and kicking them critically as if their use were unknown, was a
+fearful heaviness to her. To relieve the tedium of this untimely day she would
+overhaul the cupboards containing her grandfather&rsquo;s old charts and other
+rubbish, humming Saturday-night ballads of the country people the while. But on
+Saturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm, and it was always on a
+weekday that she read the Bible, that she might be unoppressed with a sense of
+doing her duty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such views of life were to some extent the natural begettings of her situation
+upon her nature. To dwell on a heath without studying its meanings was like
+wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue. The subtle beauties of the
+heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught its vapours. An environment which
+would have made a contented woman a poet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious
+woman a psalmist, even a giddy woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman
+saturnine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia had got beyond the vision of some marriage of inexpressible glory;
+yet, though her emotions were in full vigour, she cared for no meaner union.
+Thus we see her in a strange state of isolation. To have lost the godlike
+conceit that we may do what we will, and not to have acquired a homely zest for
+doing what we can, shows a grandeur of temper which cannot be objected to in
+the abstract, for it denotes a mind that, though disappointed, forswears
+compromise. But, if congenial to philosophy, it is apt to be dangerous to the
+commonwealth. In a world where doing means marrying, and the commonwealth is
+one of hearts and hands, the same peril attends the condition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so we see our Eustacia&mdash;for at times she was not altogether
+unlovable&mdash;arriving at that stage of enlightenment which feels that
+nothing is worth while, and filling up the spare hours of her existence by
+idealizing Wildeve for want of a better object. This was the sole reason of his
+ascendency: she knew it herself. At moments her pride rebelled against her
+passion for him, and she even had longed to be free. But there was only one
+circumstance which could dislodge him, and that was the advent of a greater
+man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits, and took slow walks
+to recover them, in which she carried her grandfather&rsquo;s telescope and her
+grandmother&rsquo;s hourglass&mdash;the latter because of a peculiar pleasure
+she derived from watching a material representation of time&rsquo;s gradual
+glide away. She seldom schemed, but when she did scheme, her plans showed
+rather the comprehensive strategy of a general than the small arts called
+womanish, though she could utter oracles of Delphian ambiguity when she did not
+choose to be direct. In heaven she will probably sit between the Héloïses and
+the Cleopatras.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>VIII.<br />
+Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody</h2>
+
+<p>
+As soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire he clasped the money
+tight in the palm of his hand, as if thereby to fortify his courage, and began
+to run. There was really little danger in allowing a child to go home alone on
+this part of Egdon Heath. The distance to the boy&rsquo;s house was not more
+than three-eighths of a mile, his father&rsquo;s cottage, and one other a few
+yards further on, forming part of the small hamlet of Mistover Knap: the third
+and only remaining house was that of Captain Vye and Eustacia, which stood
+quite away from the small cottages and was the loneliest of lonely houses on
+these thinly populated slopes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more courageous, walked
+leisurely along, singing in an old voice a little song about a sailor-boy and a
+fair one, and bright gold in store. In the middle of this the child
+stopped&mdash;from a pit under the hill ahead of him shone a light, whence
+proceeded a cloud of floating dust and a smacking noise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy. The shrivelled voice of the
+heath did not alarm him, for that was familiar. The thornbushes which arose in
+his path from time to time were less satisfactory, for they whistled gloomily,
+and had a ghastly habit after dark of putting on the shapes of jumping madmen,
+sprawling giants, and hideous cripples. Lights were not uncommon this evening,
+but the nature of all of them was different from this. Discretion rather than
+terror prompted the boy to turn back instead of passing the light, with a view
+of asking Miss Eustacia Vye to let her servant accompany him home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the boy had reascended to the top of the valley he found the fire to be
+still burning on the bank, though lower than before. Beside it, instead of
+Eustacia&rsquo;s solitary form, he saw two persons, the second being a man. The
+boy crept along under the bank to ascertain from the nature of the proceedings
+if it would be prudent to interrupt so splendid a creature as Miss Eustacia on
+his poor trivial account.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After listening under the bank for some minutes to the talk he turned in a
+perplexed and doubting manner and began to withdraw as silently as he had come.
+That he did not, upon the whole, think it advisable to interrupt her
+conversation with Wildeve, without being prepared to bear the whole weight of
+her displeasure, was obvious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here was a Scyllæo-Charybdean position for a poor boy. Pausing when again safe
+from discovery, he finally decided to face the pit phenomenon as the lesser
+evil. With a heavy sigh he retraced the slope, and followed the path he had
+followed before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The light had gone, the rising dust had disappeared&mdash;he hoped for ever. He
+marched resolutely along, and found nothing to alarm him till, coming within a
+few yards of the sandpit, he heard a slight noise in front, which led him to
+halt. The halt was but momentary, for the noise resolved itself into the steady
+bites of two animals grazing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two he&rsquo;th-croppers down here,&rdquo; he said aloud. &ldquo;I have
+never known &rsquo;em come down so far afore.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The animals were in the direct line of his path, but that the child thought
+little of; he had played round the fetlocks of horses from his infancy. On
+coming nearer, however, the boy was somewhat surprised to find that the little
+creatures did not run off, and that each wore a clog, to prevent his going
+astray; this signified that they had been broken in. He could now see the
+interior of the pit, which, being in the side of the hill, had a level
+entrance. In the innermost corner the square outline of a van appeared, with
+its back towards him. A light came from the interior, and threw a moving shadow
+upon the vertical face of gravel at the further side of the pit into which the
+vehicle faced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy, and his dread of those
+wanderers reached but to that mild pitch which titillates rather than pains.
+Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and his family from being gipsies
+themselves. He skirted the gravel pit at a respectful distance, ascended the
+slope, and came forward upon the brow, in order to look into the open door of
+the van and see the original of the shadow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The picture alarmed the boy. By a little stove inside the van sat a figure red
+from head to heels&mdash;the man who had been Thomasin&rsquo;s friend. He was
+darning a stocking, which was red like the rest of him. Moreover, as he darned
+he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of which were red also.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the outer shadows was
+audibly shaking off the clog attached to its foot. Aroused by the sound, the
+reddleman laid down his stocking, lit a lantern which hung beside him, and came
+out from the van. In sticking up the candle he lifted the lantern to his face,
+and the light shone into the whites of his eyes and upon his ivory teeth,
+which, in contrast with the red surrounding, lent him a startling aspect enough
+to the gaze of a juvenile. The boy knew too well for his peace of mind upon
+whose lair he had lighted. Uglier persons than gipsies were known to cross
+Egdon at times, and a reddleman was one of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How I wish &rsquo;twas only a gipsy!&rdquo; he murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man was by this time coming back from the horses. In his fear of being seen
+the boy rendered detection certain by nervous motion. The heather and peat
+stratum overhung the brow of the pit in mats, hiding the actual verge. The boy
+had stepped beyond the solid ground; the heather now gave way, and down he
+rolled over the scarp of grey sand to the very foot of the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The red man opened the lantern and turned it upon the figure of the prostrate
+boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who be ye?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Johnny Nunsuch, master!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What were you doing up there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Watching me, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, master.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did you watch me for?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I was coming home from Miss Vye&rsquo;s bonfire.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beest hurt?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, yes, you be&mdash;your hand is bleeding. Come under my tilt and let
+me tie it up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Please let me look for my sixpence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How did you come by that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Vye gied it to me for keeping up her bonfire.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sixpence was found, and the man went to the van, the boy behind, almost
+holding his breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man took a piece of rag from a satchel containing sewing materials, tore
+off a strip, which, like everything else, was tinged red, and proceeded to bind
+up the wound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My eyes have got foggy-like&mdash;please may I sit down, master?&rdquo;
+said the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, poor chap. &rsquo;Tis enough to make you feel fainty. Sit on
+that bundle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man finished tying up the gash, and the boy said, &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll
+go home now, master.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are rather afraid of me. Do you know what I be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down with much misgiving and
+finally said, &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The reddleman!&rdquo; he faltered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s what I be. Though there&rsquo;s more than one. You
+little children think there&rsquo;s only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one
+devil, and one reddleman, when there&rsquo;s lots of us all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there? You won&rsquo;t carry me off in your bags, will ye, master?
+&rsquo;Tis said that the reddleman will sometimes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. You see all these bags
+at the back of my cart? They are not full of little boys&mdash;only full of red
+stuff.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was you born a reddleman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I took to it. I should be as white as you if I were to give up the
+trade&mdash;that is, I should be white in time&mdash;perhaps six months; not at
+first, because &rsquo;tis grow&rsquo;d into my skin and won&rsquo;t wash out.
+Now, you&rsquo;ll never be afraid of a reddleman again, will ye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, never. Willy Orchard said he seed a red ghost here t&rsquo;other
+day&mdash;perhaps that was you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was here t&rsquo;other day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were you making that dusty light I saw by now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh yes, I was beating out some bags. And have you had a good bonfire up
+there? I saw the light. Why did Miss Vye want a bonfire so bad that she should
+give you sixpence to keep it up?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. I was tired, but she made me bide and keep up the
+fire just the same, while she kept going up across Rainbarrow way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how long did that last?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Until a hopfrog jumped into the pond.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman suddenly ceased to talk idly. &ldquo;A hopfrog?&rdquo; he
+inquired. &ldquo;Hopfrogs don&rsquo;t jump into ponds this time of year.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They do, for I heard one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certain-sure?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. She told me afore that I should hear&rsquo;n; and so I did. They
+say she&rsquo;s clever and deep, and perhaps she charmed &rsquo;en to
+come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I came down here, and I was afeard, and I went back; but I
+didn&rsquo;t like to speak to her, because of the gentleman, and I came on here
+again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A gentleman&mdash;ah! What did she say to him, my man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Told him she supposed he had not married the other woman because he
+liked his old sweetheart best; and things like that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did the gentleman say to her, my sonny?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He only said he did like her best, and how he was coming to see her
+again under Rainbarrow o&rsquo; nights.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; cried the reddleman, slapping his hand against the side of
+his van so that the whole fabric shook under the blow. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the
+secret o&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little boy jumped clean from the stool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My man, don&rsquo;t you be afraid,&rdquo; said the dealer in red,
+suddenly becoming gentle. &ldquo;I forgot you were here. That&rsquo;s only a
+curious way reddlemen have of going mad for a moment; but they don&rsquo;t hurt
+anybody. And what did the lady say then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t mind. Please, Master Reddleman, may I go home-along
+now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, to be sure you may. I&rsquo;ll go a bit of ways with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He conducted the boy out of the gravel pit and into the path leading to his
+mother&rsquo;s cottage. When the little figure had vanished in the darkness the
+reddleman returned, resumed his seat by the fire, and proceeded to darn again.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>IX.<br />
+Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy</h2>
+
+<p>
+Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. Since the introduction of
+railways Wessex farmers have managed to do without these Mephistophelian
+visitants, and the bright pigment so largely used by shepherds in preparing
+sheep for the fair is obtained by other routes. Even those who yet survive are
+losing the poetry of existence which characterized them when the pursuit of the
+trade meant periodical journeys to the pit whence the material was dug, a
+regular camping out from month to month, except in the depth of winter, a
+peregrination among farms which could be counted by the hundred, and in spite
+of this Arab existence the preservation of that respectability which is insured
+by the never-failing production of a well-lined purse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on, and stamps
+unmistakably, as with the mark of Cain, any person who has handled it half an
+hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A child&rsquo;s first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in his life. That
+blood-coloured figure was a sublimation of all the horrid dreams which had
+afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began. &ldquo;The reddleman is
+coming for you!&rdquo; had been the formulated threat of Wessex mothers for
+many generations. He was successfully supplanted for a while, at the beginning
+of the present century, by Buonaparte; but as process of time rendered the
+latter personage stale and ineffective the older phrase resumed its early
+prominence. And now the reddleman has in his turn followed Buonaparte to the
+land of worn-out bogeys, and his place is filled by modern inventions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. He was about as
+thriving as travelling basket and mat makers; but he had nothing to do with
+them. He was more decently born and brought up than the cattledrovers who
+passed and repassed him in his wanderings; but they merely nodded to him. His
+stock was more valuable than that of pedlars; but they did not think so, and
+passed his cart with eyes straight ahead. He was such an unnatural colour to
+look at that the men of roundabouts and waxwork shows seemed gentlemen beside
+him; but he considered them low company, and remained aloof. Among all these
+squatters and folks of the road the reddleman continually found himself; yet he
+was not of them. His occupation tended to isolate him, and isolated he was
+mostly seen to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was sometimes suggested that reddlemen were criminals for whose misdeeds
+other men wrongfully suffered&mdash;that in escaping the law they had not
+escaped their own consciences, and had taken to the trade as a lifelong
+penance. Else why should they have chosen it? In the present case such a
+question would have been particularly apposite. The reddleman who had entered
+Egdon that afternoon was an instance of the pleasing being wasted to form the
+ground-work of the singular, when an ugly foundation would have done just as
+well for that purpose. The one point that was forbidding about this reddleman
+was his colour. Freed from that he would have been as agreeable a specimen of
+rustic manhood as one would often see. A keen observer might have been inclined
+to think&mdash;which was, indeed, partly the truth&mdash;that he had
+relinquished his proper station in life for want of interest in it. Moreover,
+after looking at him one would have hazarded the guess that good nature, and an
+acuteness as extreme as it could be without verging on craft, formed the
+framework of his character.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he darned the stocking his face became rigid with thought. Softer
+expressions followed this, and then again recurred the tender sadness which had
+sat upon him during his drive along the highway that afternoon. Presently his
+needle stopped. He laid down the stocking, arose from his seat, and took a
+leathern pouch from a hook in the corner of the van. This contained among other
+articles a brown-paper packet, which, to judge from the hinge-like character of
+its worn folds, seemed to have been carefully opened and closed a good many
+times. He sat down on a three-legged milking stool that formed the only seat in
+the van, and, examining his packet by the light of a candle, took thence an old
+letter and spread it open. The writing had originally been traced on white
+paper, but the letter had now assumed a pale red tinge from the accident of its
+situation; and the black strokes of writing thereon looked like the twigs of a
+winter hedge against a vermilion sunset. The letter bore a date some two years
+previous to that time, and was signed &ldquo;Thomasin Yeobright.&rdquo; It ran
+as follows:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+D<small>EAR</small> D<small>IGGORY</small> V<small>ENN</small>,&mdash;The
+question you put when you overtook me coming home from Pond-close gave me such
+a surprise that I am afraid I did not make you exactly understand what I meant.
+Of course, if my aunt had not met me I could have explained all then at once,
+but as it was there was no chance. I have been quite uneasy since, as you know
+I do not wish to pain you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in contradicting
+what I seemed to say then. I cannot, Diggory, marry you, or think of letting
+you call me your sweetheart. I could not, indeed, Diggory. I hope you will not
+much mind my saying this, and feel in a great pain. It makes me very sad when I
+think it may, for I like you very much, and I always put you next to my cousin
+Clym in my mind. There are so many reasons why we cannot be married that I can
+hardly name them all in a letter. I did not in the least expect that you were
+going to speak on such a thing when you followed me, because I had never
+thought of you in the sense of a lover at all. You must not becall me for
+laughing when you spoke; you mistook when you thought I laughed at you as a
+foolish man. I laughed because the idea was so odd, and not at you at all. The
+great reason with my own personal self for not letting you court me is, that I
+do not feel the things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you with
+the meaning of being your wife. It is not as you think, that I have another in
+my mind, for I do not encourage anybody, and never have in my life. Another
+reason is my aunt. She would not, I know, agree to it, even if I wished to have
+you. She likes you very well, but she will want me to look a little higher than
+a small dairy-farmer, and marry a professional man. I hope you will not set
+your heart against me for writing plainly, but I felt you might try to see me
+again, and it is better that we should not meet. I shall always think of you as
+a good man, and be anxious for your well-doing. I send this by Jane
+Orchard&rsquo;s little maid,&mdash;And remain Diggory, your faithful friend,
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+T<small>HOMASIN</small> Y<small>EOBRIGHT</small>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Mr. V<small>ENN</small>, Dairy-farmer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning long ago, the
+reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today. During the interval he had
+shifted his position even further from hers than it had originally been, by
+adopting the reddle trade; though he was really in very good circumstances
+still. Indeed, seeing that his expenditure was only one-fourth of his income,
+he might have been called a prosperous man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and the business
+to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many ways congenial to Venn.
+But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions, had frequently taken an
+Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon her who attracted him thither.
+To be in Thomasin&rsquo;s heath, and near her, yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb
+of pleasure left to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came the incident of that day, and the reddleman, still loving her well,
+was excited by this accidental service to her at a critical juncture to vow an
+active devotion to her cause, instead of, as hitherto, sighing and holding
+aloof. After what had happened it was impossible that he should not doubt the
+honesty of Wildeve&rsquo;s intentions. But her hope was apparently centred upon
+him; and dismissing his regrets Venn determined to aid her to be happy in her
+own chosen way. That this way was, of all others, the most distressing to
+himself, was awkward enough; but the reddleman&rsquo;s love was generous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His first active step in watching over Thomasin&rsquo;s interests was taken
+about seven o&rsquo;clock the next evening and was dictated by the news which
+he had learnt from the sad boy. That Eustacia was somehow the cause of
+Wildeve&rsquo;s carelessness in relation to the marriage had at once been
+Venn&rsquo;s conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting between them. It did
+not occur to his mind that Eustacia&rsquo;s love signal to Wildeve was the
+tender effect upon the deserted beauty of the intelligence which her
+grandfather had brought home. His instinct was to regard her as a conspirator
+against rather than as an antecedent obstacle to Thomasin&rsquo;s happiness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the condition of
+Thomasin, but he did not venture to intrude upon a threshold to which he was a
+stranger, particularly at such an unpleasant moment as this. He had occupied
+his time in moving with his ponies and load to a new point in the heath,
+eastward to his previous station; and here he selected a nook with a careful
+eye to shelter from wind and rain, which seemed to mean that his stay there was
+to be a comparatively extended one. After this he returned on foot some part of
+the way that he had come; and, it being now dark, he diverged to the left till
+he stood behind a holly bush on the edge of a pit not twenty yards from
+Rainbarrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. Nobody except himself
+came near the spot that night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the loss of his labour produced little effect upon the reddleman. He had
+stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upon a certain mass of
+disappointment as the natural preface to all realizations, without which
+preface they would give cause for alarm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The same hour the next evening found him again at the same place; but Eustacia
+and Wildeve, the expected trysters, did not appear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pursued precisely the same course yet four nights longer, and without
+success. But on the next, being the day-week of their previous meeting, he saw
+a female shape floating along the ridge and the outline of a young man
+ascending from the valley. They met in the little ditch encircling the
+barrow&mdash;the original excavation from which it had been thrown up by the
+ancient British people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin, was aroused to
+strategy in a moment. He instantly left the bush and crept forward on his hands
+and knees. When he had got as close as he might safely venture without
+discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind, the conversation of the
+trysting pair could not be overheard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Near him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas strewn with large
+turves, which lay edgeways and upside down awaiting removal by Timothy Fairway,
+previous to the winter weather. He took two of these as he lay, and dragged
+them over him till one covered his head and shoulders, the other his back and
+legs. The reddleman would now have been quite invisible, even by daylight; the
+turves, standing upon him with the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they
+were growing. He crept along again, and the turves upon his back crept with
+him. Had he approached without any covering the chances are that he would not
+have been perceived in the dusk; approaching thus, it was as though he burrowed
+underground. In this manner he came quite close to where the two were standing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wish to consult me on the matter?&rdquo; reached his ears in the rich,
+impetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. &ldquo;Consult me? It is an indignity to me
+to talk so&mdash;I won&rsquo;t bear it any longer!&rdquo; She began weeping.
+&ldquo;I have loved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to my
+regret; and yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you wish to
+consult with me whether it would not be better to marry Thomasin.
+Better&mdash;of course it would be. Marry her&mdash;she is nearer to your own
+position in life than I am!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes; that&rsquo;s very well,&rdquo; said Wildeve peremptorily.
+&ldquo;But we must look at things as they are. Whatever blame may attach to me
+for having brought it about, Thomasin&rsquo;s position is at present much worse
+than yours. I simply tell you that I am in a strait.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you shall not tell me! You must see that it is only harassing me.
+Damon, you have not acted well; you have sunk in my opinion. You have not
+valued my courtesy&mdash;the courtesy of a lady in loving you&mdash;who used to
+think of far more ambitious things. But it was Thomasin&rsquo;s fault. She won
+you away from me, and she deserves to suffer for it. Where is she staying now?
+Not that I care, nor where I am myself. Ah, if I were dead and gone how glad
+she would be! Where is she, I ask?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thomasin is now staying at her aunt&rsquo;s shut up in a bedroom, and
+keeping out of everybody&rsquo;s sight,&rdquo; he said indifferently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you care much about her even now,&rdquo; said
+Eustacia with sudden joyousness, &ldquo;for if you did you wouldn&rsquo;t talk
+so coolly about her. Do you talk so coolly to her about me? Ah, I expect you
+do! Why did you originally go away from me? I don&rsquo;t think I can ever
+forgive you, except on one condition, that whenever you desert me, you come
+back again, sorry that you served me so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never wish to desert you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not thank you for that. I should hate it to be all smooth. Indeed,
+I think I like you to desert me a little once now and then. Love is the
+dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, it is a shame to say so;
+but it is true!&rdquo; She indulged in a little laugh. &ldquo;My low spirits
+begin at the very idea. Don&rsquo;t you offer me tame love, or away you
+go!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman,&rdquo;
+said Wildeve, &ldquo;so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a
+worthy person. It is I who am the sinner after all; I am not worth the little
+finger of either of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from any sense of
+justice,&rdquo; replied Eustacia quickly. &ldquo;If you do not love her it is
+the most merciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That&rsquo;s
+always the best way. There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose. When you have
+left me I am always angry with myself for things that I have said to
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. The pause was
+filled up by the intonation of a pollard thorn a little way to windward, the
+breezes filtering through its unyielding twigs as through a strainer. It was as
+if the night sang dirges with clenched teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She continued, half sorrowfully, &ldquo;Since meeting you last, it has occurred
+to me once or twice that perhaps it was not for love of me you did not marry
+her. Tell me, Damon&mdash;I&rsquo;ll try to bear it. Had I nothing whatever to
+do with the matter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you press me to tell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I must know. I see I have been too ready to believe in my own
+power.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, the immediate reason was that the license would not do for the
+place, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point you had
+nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to me in a tone which I
+don&rsquo;t at all like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes! I am nothing in it&mdash;I am nothing in it. You only trifle
+with me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so much of
+you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense; do not be so passionate.... Eustacia, how we roved among these
+bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shades of the hills
+kept us almost invisible in the hollows!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She remained in moody silence till she said, &ldquo;Yes; and how I used to
+laugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made me suffer for
+that since.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found someone
+fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you still think you found somebody fairer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sometimes I do, sometimes I don&rsquo;t. The scales are balanced so
+nicely that a feather would turn them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But don&rsquo;t you really care whether I meet you or whether I
+don&rsquo;t?&rdquo; she said slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I care a little, but not enough to break my rest,&rdquo; replied the
+young man languidly. &ldquo;No, all that&rsquo;s past. I find there are two
+flowers where I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four,
+or any number as good as the first.... Mine is a curious fate. Who would have
+thought that all this could happen to me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger seemed an
+equally possible issue, &ldquo;Do you love me now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who can say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell me; I will know it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, and I do not,&rdquo; said he mischievously. &ldquo;That is, I have
+my times and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you are
+too do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I don&rsquo;t
+know what, except&mdash;that you are not the whole world to me that you used to
+be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know and nice to meet, and I dare
+say as sweet as ever&mdash;almost.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in a voice of
+suspended mightiness, &ldquo;I am for a walk, and this is my way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I can do worse than follow you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know you can&rsquo;t do otherwise, for all your moods and
+changes!&rdquo; she answered defiantly. &ldquo;Say what you will; try as you
+may; keep away from me all that you can&mdash;you will never forget me. You
+will love me all your life long. You would jump to marry me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I would!&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;Such strange thoughts as
+I&rsquo;ve had from time to time, Eustacia; and they come to me this moment.
+You hate the heath as much as ever; that I know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do,&rdquo; she murmured deeply. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis my cross, my shame,
+and will be my death!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I abhor it too,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;How mournfully the wind blows
+round us now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not answer. Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive. Compound
+utterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it was possible to view by
+ear the features of the neighbourhood. Acoustic pictures were returned from the
+darkened scenery; they could hear where the tracts of heather began and ended;
+where the furze was growing stalky and tall; where it had been recently cut; in
+what direction the fir-clump lay, and how near was the pit in which the hollies
+grew; for these differing features had their voices no less than their shapes
+and colours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God, how lonely it is!&rdquo; resumed Wildeve. &ldquo;What are
+picturesque ravines and mists to us who see nothing else? Why should we stay
+here? Will you go with me to America? I have kindred in Wisconsin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That wants consideration.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were a wild bird or a
+landscape-painter. Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give me time,&rdquo; she softly said, taking his hand. &ldquo;America is
+so far away. Are you going to walk with me a little way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from the base of the barrow,
+and Wildeve followed her, so that the reddleman could hear no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He lifted the turves and arose. Their black figures sank and disappeared from
+against the sky. They were as two horns which the sluggish heath had put forth
+from its crown, like a mollusc, and had now again drawn in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman&rsquo;s walk across the vale, and over into the next where his
+cart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His spirit
+was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his mouth in that walk
+carried off upon them the accents of a commination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. Without lighting his
+candle he sat down at once on the three-legged stool, and pondered on what he
+had seen and heard touching that still-loved one of his. He uttered a sound
+which was neither sigh nor sob, but was even more indicative than either of a
+troubled mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My Tamsie,&rdquo; he whispered heavily. &ldquo;What can be done? Yes, I
+will see that Eustacia Vye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>X.<br />
+A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion</h2>
+
+<p>
+The next morning, at the time when the height of the sun appeared very
+insignificant from any part of the heath as compared with the altitude of
+Rainbarrow, and when all the little hills in the lower levels were like an
+archipelago in a fog-formed Ægean, the reddleman came from the brambled nook
+which he had adopted as his quarters and ascended the slopes of Mistover Knap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though these shaggy hills were apparently so solitary, several keen round eyes
+were always ready on such a wintry morning as this to converge upon a
+passer-by. Feathered species sojourned here in hiding which would have created
+wonder if found elsewhere. A bustard haunted the spot, and not many years
+before this five and twenty might have been seen in Egdon at one time.
+Marsh-harriers looked up from the valley by Wildeve&rsquo;s. A cream-coloured
+courser had used to visit this hill, a bird so rare that not more than a dozen
+have ever been seen in England; but a barbarian rested neither night nor day
+till he had shot the African truant, and after that event cream-coloured
+coursers thought fit to enter Egdon no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A traveller who should walk and observe any of these visitants as Venn observed
+them now could feel himself to be in direct communication with regions unknown
+to man. Here in front of him was a wild mallard&mdash;just arrived from the
+home of the north wind. The creature brought within him an amplitude of
+Northern knowledge. Glacial catastrophes, snowstorm episodes, glittering
+auroral effects, Polaris in the zenith, Franklin underfoot&mdash;the category
+of his commonplaces was wonderful. But the bird, like many other philosophers,
+seemed as he looked at the reddleman to think that a present moment of
+comfortable reality was worth a decade of memories.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn passed on through these towards the house of the isolated beauty who lived
+up among them and despised them. The day was Sunday; but as going to church,
+except to be married or buried, was exceptional at Egdon, this made little
+difference. He had determined upon the bold stroke of asking for an interview
+with Miss Vye&mdash;to attack her position as Thomasin&rsquo;s rival either by
+art or by storm, showing therein, somewhat too conspicuously, the want of
+gallantry characteristic of a certain astute sort of men, from clowns to kings.
+The great Frederick making war on the beautiful Archduchess, Napoleon refusing
+terms to the beautiful Queen of Prussia, were not more dead to difference of
+sex than the reddleman was, in his peculiar way, in planning the displacement
+of Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To call at the captain&rsquo;s cottage was always more or less an undertaking
+for the inferior inhabitants. Though occasionally chatty, his moods were
+erratic, and nobody could be certain how he would behave at any particular
+moment. Eustacia was reserved, and lived very much to herself. Except the
+daughter of one of the cotters, who was their servant, and a lad who worked in
+the garden and stable, scarcely anyone but themselves ever entered the house.
+They were the only genteel people of the district except the Yeobrights, and
+though far from rich, they did not feel that necessity for preserving a
+friendly face towards every man, bird, and beast which influenced their poorer
+neighbours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the reddleman entered the garden the old man was looking through his glass
+at the stain of blue sea in the distant landscape, the little anchors on his
+buttons twinkling in the sun. He recognized Venn as his companion on the
+highway, but made no remark on that circumstance, merely saying, &ldquo;Ah,
+reddleman&mdash;you here? Have a glass of grog?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn declined, on the plea of it being too early, and stated that his business
+was with Miss Vye. The captain surveyed him from cap to waistcoat and from
+waistcoat to leggings for a few moments, and finally asked him to go indoors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Vye was not to be seen by anybody just then; and the reddleman waited in
+the window-bench of the kitchen, his hands hanging across his divergent knees,
+and his cap hanging from his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose the young lady is not up yet?&rdquo; he presently said to the
+servant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not quite yet. Folks never call upon ladies at this time of day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll step outside,&rdquo; said Venn. &ldquo;If she is willing
+to see me, will she please send out word, and I&rsquo;ll come in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman left the house and loitered on the hill adjoining. A considerable
+time elapsed, and no request for his presence was brought. He was beginning to
+think that his scheme had failed, when he beheld the form of Eustacia herself
+coming leisurely towards him. A sense of novelty in giving audience to that
+singular figure had been sufficient to draw her forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She seemed to feel, after a bare look at Diggory Venn, that the man had come on
+a strange errand, and that he was not so mean as she had thought him; for her
+close approach did not cause him to writhe uneasily, or shift his feet, or show
+any of those little signs which escape an ingenuous rustic at the advent of the
+uncommon in womankind. On his inquiring if he might have a conversation with
+her she replied, &ldquo;Yes, walk beside me,&rdquo; and continued to move on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before they had gone far it occurred to the perspicacious reddleman that he
+would have acted more wisely by appearing less unimpressionable, and he
+resolved to correct the error as soon as he could find opportunity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have made so bold, miss, as to step across and tell you some strange
+news which has come to my ears about that man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! what man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He jerked his elbow to the southeast&mdash;the direction of the Quiet Woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia turned quickly to him. &ldquo;Do you mean Mr. Wildeve?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, there is trouble in a household on account of him, and I have come
+to let you know of it, because I believe you might have power to drive it
+away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I? What is the trouble?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is quite a secret. It is that he may refuse to marry Thomasin
+Yeobright after all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia, though set inwardly pulsing by his words, was equal to her part in
+such a drama as this. She replied coldly, &ldquo;I do not wish to listen to
+this, and you must not expect me to interfere.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, miss, you will hear one word?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot. I am not interested in the marriage, and even if I were I
+could not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As the only lady on the heath I think you might,&rdquo; said Venn with
+subtle indirectness. &ldquo;This is how the case stands. Mr. Wildeve would
+marry Thomasin at once, and make all matters smooth, if so be there were not
+another woman in the case. This other woman is some person he has picked up
+with, and meets on the heath occasionally, I believe. He will never marry her,
+and yet through her he may never marry the woman who loves him dearly. Now, if
+you, miss, who have so much sway over us menfolk, were to insist that he should
+treat your young neighbour Tamsin with honourable kindness and give up the
+other woman, he would perhaps do it, and save her a good deal of misery.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, my life!&rdquo; said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips
+so that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a similar
+scarlet fire. &ldquo;You think too much of my influence over menfolk indeed,
+reddleman. If I had such a power as you imagine I would go straight and use it
+for the good of anybody who has been kind to me&mdash;which Thomasin Yeobright
+has not particularly, to my knowledge.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can it be that you really don&rsquo;t know of it&mdash;how much she had
+always thought of you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have never heard a word of it. Although we live only two miles apart I
+have never been inside her aunt&rsquo;s house in my life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn that thus far he had
+utterly failed. He inwardly sighed and felt it necessary to unmask his second
+argument.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, leaving that out of the question, &rsquo;tis in your power, I
+assure you, Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good to another woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve. It is law with all men who see
+&rsquo;ee. They say, &lsquo;This well-favoured lady coming&mdash;what&rsquo;s
+her name? How handsome!&rsquo; Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright,&rdquo; the
+reddleman persisted, saying to himself, &ldquo;God forgive a rascal for
+lying!&rdquo; And she was handsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking
+so. There was a certain obscurity in Eustacia&rsquo;s beauty, and Venn&rsquo;s
+eye was not trained. In her winter dress, as now, she was like the
+tiger-beetle, which, when observed in dull situations, seems to be of the
+quietest neutral colour, but under a full illumination blazes with dazzling
+splendour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered her
+dignity thereby. &ldquo;Many women are lovelier than Thomasin,&rdquo; she said,
+&ldquo;so not much attaches to that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: &ldquo;He is a man who notices
+the looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like withywind, if you
+only had the mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do
+living up here away from him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. &ldquo;Miss Vye!&rdquo; he
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you say that&mdash;as if you doubted me?&rdquo; She spoke
+faintly, and her breathing was quick. &ldquo;The idea of your speaking in that
+tone to me!&rdquo; she added, with a forced smile of hauteur. &ldquo;What could
+have been in your mind to lead you to speak like that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don&rsquo;t know this
+man?&mdash;I know why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are
+ashamed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are mistaken. What do you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. &ldquo;I was at the
+meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;The woman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of
+Candaules&rsquo; wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip would
+tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be kept down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am unwell,&rdquo; she said hurriedly. &ldquo;No&mdash;it is not
+that&mdash;I am not in a humour to hear you further. Leave me, please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you. What I would put before
+you is this. However it may come about&mdash;whether she is to blame, or
+you&mdash;her case is without doubt worse than yours. Your giving up Mr.
+Wildeve will be a real advantage to you, for how could you marry him? Now she
+cannot get off so easily&mdash;everybody will blame her if she loses him. Then
+I ask you&mdash;not because her right is best, but because her situation is
+worst&mdash;to give him up to her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;I won&rsquo;t, I won&rsquo;t!&rdquo; she said impetuously,
+quite forgetful of her previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling.
+&ldquo;Nobody has ever been served so! It was going on well&mdash;I will not be
+beaten down&mdash;by an inferior woman like her. It is very well for you to
+come and plead for her, but is she not herself the cause of all her own
+trouble? Am I not to show favour to any person I may choose without asking
+permission of a parcel of cottagers? She has come between me and my
+inclination, and now that she finds herself rightly punished she gets you to
+plead for her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said Venn earnestly, &ldquo;she knows nothing whatever
+about it. It is only I who ask you to give him up. It will be better for her
+and you both. People will say bad things if they find out that a lady secretly
+meets a man who has ill-used another woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have <i>not</i> injured her&mdash;he was mine before he was hers! He
+came back&mdash;because&mdash;because he liked me best!&rdquo; she said wildly.
+&ldquo;But I lose all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way
+to!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can keep secrets,&rdquo; said Venn gently. &ldquo;You need not fear. I
+am the only man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing
+more to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to him that you
+hated living here&mdash;that Egdon Heath was a jail to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did say so. There is a sort of beauty in the scenery, I know; but it
+is a jail to me. The man you mention does not save me from that feeling, though
+he lives here. I should have cared nothing for him had there been a better
+person near.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from her his third attempt
+seemed promising. &ldquo;As we have now opened our minds a bit, miss,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what I have got to propose. Since I have taken
+to the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes rested in the misty
+vale beneath them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And in my travels I go near Budmouth. Now Budmouth is a wonderful
+place&mdash;wonderful&mdash;a great salt sheening sea bending into the land
+like a bow&mdash;thousands of gentlepeople walking up and down&mdash;bands of
+music playing&mdash;officers by sea and officers by land walking among the
+rest&mdash;out of every ten folks you meet nine of &rsquo;em in love.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; she said disdainfully. &ldquo;I know Budmouth better
+than you. I was born there. My father came to be a military musician there from
+abroad. Ah, my soul, Budmouth! I wish I was there now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could blaze on occasion.
+&ldquo;If you were, miss,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;in a week&rsquo;s time you
+would think no more of Wildeve than of one of those he&rsquo;th-croppers that
+we see yond. Now, I could get you there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How?&rdquo; said Eustacia, with intense curiosity in her heavy eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My uncle has been for five and twenty years the trusty man of a rich
+widow-lady who has a beautiful house facing the sea. This lady has become old
+and lame, and she wants a young company-keeper to read and sing to her, but
+can&rsquo;t get one to her mind to save her life, though she&rsquo;ve
+advertised in the papers, and tried half a dozen. She would jump to get you,
+and Uncle would make it all easy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should have to work, perhaps?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, not real work&mdash;you&rsquo;d have a little to do, such as reading
+and that. You would not be wanted till New Year&rsquo;s Day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I knew it meant work,&rdquo; she said, drooping to languor again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I confess there would be a trifle to do in the way of amusing her; but
+though idle people might call it work, working people would call it play. Think
+of the company and the life you&rsquo;d lead, miss; the gaiety you&rsquo;d see,
+and the gentleman you&rsquo;d marry. My uncle is to inquire for a trustworthy
+young lady from the country, as she don&rsquo;t like town girls.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won&rsquo;t go. O, if I
+could live in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do my own
+doings, I&rsquo;d give the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman, that would
+I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance shall be
+yours,&rdquo; urged her companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chance&mdash;&rsquo;tis no chance,&rdquo; she said proudly. &ldquo;What
+can a poor man like you offer me, indeed?&mdash;I am going indoors. I have
+nothing more to say. Don&rsquo;t your horses want feeding, or your reddlebags
+want mending, or don&rsquo;t you want to find buyers for your goods, that you
+stay idling here like this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn spoke not another word. With his hands behind him he turned away, that she
+might not see the hopeless disappointment in his face. The mental clearness and
+power he had found in this lonely girl had indeed filled his manner with
+misgiving even from the first few minutes of close quarters with her. Her youth
+and situation had led him to expect a simplicity quite at the beck of his
+method. But a system of inducement which might have carried weaker country
+lasses along with it had merely repelled Eustacia. As a rule, the word Budmouth
+meant fascination on Egdon. That Royal port and watering place, if truly
+mirrored in the minds of the heathfolk, must have combined, in a charming and
+indescribable manner a Carthaginian bustle of building with Tarentine
+luxuriousness and Baian health and beauty. Eustacia felt little less
+extravagantly about the place; but she would not sink her independence to get
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Diggory Venn had gone quite away, Eustacia walked to the bank and looked
+down the wild and picturesque vale towards the sun, which was also in the
+direction of Wildeve&rsquo;s. The mist had now so far collapsed that the tips
+of the trees and bushes around his house could just be discerned, as if boring
+upwards through a vast white cobweb which cloaked them from the day. There was
+no doubt that her mind was inclined thitherward; indefinitely,
+fancifully&mdash;twining and untwining about him as the single object within
+her horizon on which dreams might crystallize. The man who had begun by being
+merely her amusement, and would never have been more than her hobby but for his
+skill in deserting her at the right moments, was now again her desire.
+Cessation in his love-making had revivified her love. Such feeling as Eustacia
+had idly given to Wildeve was dammed into a flood by Thomasin. She had used to
+tease Wildeve, but that was before another had favoured him. Often a drop of
+irony into an indifferent situation renders the whole piquant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will never give him up&mdash;never!&rdquo; she said impetuously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman&rsquo;s hint that rumour might show her to disadvantage had no
+permanent terror for Eustacia. She was as unconcerned at that contingency as a
+goddess at a lack of linen. This did not originate in inherent shamelessness,
+but in her living too far from the world to feel the impact of public opinion.
+Zenobia in the desert could hardly have cared what was said about her at Rome.
+As far as social ethics were concerned Eustacia approached the savage state,
+though in emotion she was all the while an epicure. She had advanced to the
+secret recesses of sensuousness, yet had hardly crossed the threshold of
+conventionality.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>XI.<br />
+The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman</h2>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman had left Eustacia&rsquo;s presence with desponding views on
+Thomasin&rsquo;s future happiness; but he was awakened to the fact that one
+other channel remained untried by seeing, as he followed the way to his van,
+the form of Mrs. Yeobright slowly walking towards the Quiet Woman. He went
+across to her; and could almost perceive in her anxious face that this journey
+of hers to Wildeve was undertaken with the same object as his own to Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not conceal the fact. &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said the reddleman,
+&ldquo;you may as well leave it alone, Mrs. Yeobright.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I half think so myself,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But nothing else remains
+to be done besides pressing the question upon him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to say a word first,&rdquo; said Venn firmly. &ldquo;Mr.
+Wildeve is not the only man who has asked Thomasin to marry him; and why should
+not another have a chance? Mrs. Yeobright, I should be glad to marry your niece
+and would have done it any time these last two years. There, now it is out, and
+I have never told anybody before but herself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright was not demonstrative, but her eyes involuntarily glanced
+towards his singular though shapely figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Looks are not everything,&rdquo; said the reddleman, noticing the
+glance. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s many a calling that don&rsquo;t bring in so much
+as mine, if it comes to money; and perhaps I am not so much worse off than
+Wildeve. There is nobody so poor as these professional fellows who have failed;
+and if you shouldn&rsquo;t like my redness&mdash;well, I am not red by birth,
+you know; I only took to this business for a freak; and I might turn my hand to
+something else in good time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am much obliged to you for your interest in my niece; but I fear there
+would be objections. More than that, she is devoted to this man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True; or I shouldn&rsquo;t have done what I have this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Otherwise there would be no pain in the case, and you would not see me
+going to his house now. What was Thomasin&rsquo;s answer when you told her of
+your feelings?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She wrote that you would object to me; and other things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was in a measure right. You must not take this unkindly&mdash;I
+merely state it as a truth. You have been good to her, and we do not forget it.
+But as she was unwilling on her own account to be your wife, that settles the
+point without my wishes being concerned.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. But there is a difference between then and now, ma&rsquo;am. She is
+distressed now, and I have thought that if you were to talk to her about me,
+and think favourably of me yourself, there might be a chance of winning her
+round, and getting her quite independent of this Wildeve&rsquo;s backward and
+forward play, and his not knowing whether he&rsquo;ll have her or no.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright shook her head. &ldquo;Thomasin thinks, and I think with her,
+that she ought to be Wildeve&rsquo;s wife, if she means to appear before the
+world without a slur upon her name. If they marry soon, everybody will believe
+that an accident did really prevent the wedding. If not, it may cast a shade
+upon her character&mdash;at any rate make her ridiculous. In short, if it is
+anyhow possible they must marry now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought that till half an hour ago. But, after all, why should her
+going off with him to Anglebury for a few hours do her any harm? Anybody who
+knows how pure she is will feel any such thought to be quite unjust. I have
+been trying this morning to help on this marriage with Wildeve&mdash;yes, I,
+ma&rsquo;am&mdash;in the belief that I ought to do it, because she was so
+wrapped up in him. But I much question if I was right, after all. However,
+nothing came of it. And now I offer myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright appeared disinclined to enter further into the question.
+&ldquo;I fear I must go on,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I do not see that anything
+else can be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she went on. But though this conversation did not divert Thomasin&rsquo;s
+aunt from her purposed interview with Wildeve, it made a considerable
+difference in her mode of conducting that interview. She thanked God for the
+weapon which the reddleman had put into her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve was at home when she reached the inn. He showed her silently into the
+parlour, and closed the door. Mrs. Yeobright began&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have thought it my duty to call today. A new proposal has been made to
+me, which has rather astonished me. It will affect Thomasin greatly; and I have
+decided that it should at least be mentioned to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes? What is it?&rdquo; he said civilly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, of course, in reference to her future. You may not be aware that
+another man has shown himself anxious to marry Thomasin. Now, though I have not
+encouraged him yet, I cannot conscientiously refuse him a chance any longer. I
+don&rsquo;t wish to be short with you; but I must be fair to him and to
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is the man?&rdquo; said Wildeve with surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One who has been in love with her longer than she has with you. He
+proposed to her two years ago. At that time she refused him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has seen her lately, and has asked me for permission to pay his
+addresses to her. She may not refuse him twice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is his name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright declined to say. &ldquo;He is a man Thomasin likes,&rdquo; she
+added, &ldquo;and one whose constancy she respects at least. It seems to me
+that what she refused then she would be glad to get now. She is much annoyed at
+her awkward position.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She never once told me of this old lover.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The gentlest women are not such fools as to show <i>every</i>
+card.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if she wants him I suppose she must have him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is easy enough to say that; but you don&rsquo;t see the difficulty.
+He wants her much more than she wants him; and before I can encourage anything
+of the sort I must have a clear understanding from you that you will not
+interfere to injure an arrangement which I promote in the belief that it is for
+the best. Suppose, when they are engaged, and everything is smoothly arranged
+for their marriage, that you should step between them and renew your suit? You
+might not win her back, but you might cause much unhappiness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I should do no such thing,&rdquo; said Wildeve &ldquo;But they
+are not engaged yet. How do you know that Thomasin would accept him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a question I have carefully put to myself; and upon the
+whole the probabilities are in favour of her accepting him in time. I flatter
+myself that I have some influence over her. She is pliable, and I can be strong
+in my recommendations of him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And in your disparagement of me at the same time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you may depend upon my not praising you,&rdquo; she said drily.
+&ldquo;And if this seems like manœuvring, you must remember that her position
+is peculiar, and that she has been hardly used. I shall also be helped in
+making the match by her own desire to escape from the humiliation of her
+present state; and a woman&rsquo;s pride in these cases will lead her a very
+great way. A little managing may be required to bring her round; but I am equal
+to that, provided that you agree to the one thing indispensable; that is, to
+make a distinct declaration that she is to think no more of you as a possible
+husband. That will pique her into accepting him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can hardly say that just now, Mrs. Yeobright. It is so sudden.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so my whole plan is interfered with! It is very inconvenient that
+you refuse to help my family even to the small extent of saying distinctly you
+will have nothing to do with us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve reflected uncomfortably. &ldquo;I confess I was not prepared for
+this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;ll give her up if you wish, if
+it is necessary. But I thought I might be her husband.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have heard that before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Mrs. Yeobright, don&rsquo;t let us disagree. Give me a fair time. I
+don&rsquo;t want to stand in the way of any better chance she may have; only I
+wish you had let me know earlier. I will write to you or call in a day or two.
+Will that suffice?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she replied, &ldquo;provided you promise not to communicate
+with Thomasin without my knowledge.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I promise that,&rdquo; he said. And the interview then terminated, Mrs.
+Yeobright returning homeward as she had come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By far the greatest effect of her simple strategy on that day was, as often
+happens, in a quarter quite outside her view when arranging it. In the first
+place, her visit sent Wildeve the same evening after dark to Eustacia&rsquo;s
+house at Mistover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this hour the lonely dwelling was closely blinded and shuttered from the
+chill and darkness without. Wildeve&rsquo;s clandestine plan with her was to
+take a little gravel in his hand and hold it to the crevice at the top of the
+window shutter, which was on the outside, so that it should fall with a gentle
+rustle, resembling that of a mouse, between shutter and glass. This precaution
+in attracting her attention was to avoid arousing the suspicions of her
+grandfather.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soft words, &ldquo;I hear; wait for me,&rdquo; in Eustacia&rsquo;s voice
+from within told him that she was alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He waited in his customary manner by walking round the enclosure and idling by
+the pool, for Wildeve was never asked into the house by his proud though
+condescending mistress. She showed no sign of coming out in a hurry. The time
+wore on, and he began to grow impatient. In the course of twenty minutes she
+appeared from round the corner, and advanced as if merely taking an airing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You would not have kept me so long had you known what I come
+about,&rdquo; he said with bitterness. &ldquo;Still, you are worth waiting
+for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What has happened?&rdquo; said Eustacia. &ldquo;I did not know you were
+in trouble. I too am gloomy enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not in trouble,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It is merely that affairs
+have come to a head, and I must take a clear course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What course is that?&rdquo; she asked with attentive interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And can you forget so soon what I proposed to you the other night? Why,
+take you from this place, and carry you away with me abroad.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not forgotten. But why have you come so unexpectedly to repeat
+the question, when you only promised to come next Saturday? I thought I was to
+have plenty of time to consider.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but the situation is different now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Explain to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to explain, for I may pain you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I must know the reason of this hurry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is simply my ardour, dear Eustacia. Everything is smooth now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why are you so ruffled?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not aware of it. All is as it should be. Mrs. Yeobright&mdash;but
+she is nothing to us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, I knew she had something to do with it! Come, I don&rsquo;t like
+reserve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;she has nothing. She only says she wishes me to give up
+Thomasin because another man is anxious to marry her. The woman, now she no
+longer needs me, actually shows off!&rdquo; Wildeve&rsquo;s vexation has
+escaped him in spite of himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia was silent a long while. &ldquo;You are in the awkward position of an
+official who is no longer wanted,&rdquo; she said in a changed tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems so. But I have not yet seen Thomasin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that irritates you. Don&rsquo;t deny it, Damon. You are actually
+nettled by this slight from an unexpected quarter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you come to get me because you cannot get her. This is certainly a
+new position altogether. I am to be a stop-gap.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence. What curious feeling
+was this coming over her? Was it really possible that her interest in Wildeve
+had been so entirely the result of antagonism that the glory and the dream
+departed from the man with the first sound that he was no longer coveted by her
+rival? She was, then, secure of him at last. Thomasin no longer required him.
+What a humiliating victory! He loved her best, she thought; and yet&mdash;dared
+she to murmur such treacherous criticism ever so softly?&mdash;what was the man
+worth whom a woman inferior to herself did not value? The sentiment which lurks
+more or less in all animate nature&mdash;that of not desiring the undesired of
+others&mdash;was lively as a passion in the supersubtle, epicurean heart of
+Eustacia. Her social superiority over him, which hitherto had scarcely ever
+impressed her, became unpleasantly insistent, and for the first time she felt
+that she had stooped in loving him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, darling, you agree?&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it could be London, or even Budmouth, instead of America,&rdquo; she
+murmured languidly. &ldquo;Well, I will think. It is too great a thing for me
+to decide offhand. I wish I hated the heath less&mdash;or loved you
+more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can be painfully frank. You loved me a month ago warmly enough to go
+anywhere with me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you loved Thomasin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, perhaps that was where the reason lay,&rdquo; he returned, with
+almost a sneer. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t hate her now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly. The only thing is that you can no longer get her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come&mdash;no taunts, Eustacia, or we shall quarrel. If you don&rsquo;t
+agree to go with me, and agree shortly, I shall go by myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or try Thomasin again. Damon, how strange it seems that you could have
+married her or me indifferently, and only have come to me because I
+am&mdash;cheapest! Yes, yes&mdash;it is true. There was a time when I should
+have exclaimed against a man of that sort, and been quite wild; but it is all
+past now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you go, dearest? Come secretly with me to Bristol, marry me, and
+turn our backs upon this dog-hole of England for ever? Say Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to get away from here at almost any cost,&rdquo; she said with
+weariness, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t like to go with you. Give me more time to
+decide.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have already,&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;Well, I give you one more
+week.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little longer, so that I may tell you decisively. I have to consider
+so many things. Fancy Thomasin being anxious to get rid of you! I cannot forget
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind that. Say Monday week. I will be here precisely at this
+time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let it be at Rainbarrow,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;This is too near home;
+my grandfather may be walking out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you, dear. On Monday week at this time I will be at the Barrow.
+Till then good-bye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-bye. No, no, you must not touch me now. Shaking hands is enough
+till I have made up my mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia watched his shadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed her hand
+to her forehead and breathed heavily; and then her rich, romantic lips parted
+under that homely impulse&mdash;a yawn. She was immediately angry at having
+betrayed even to herself the possible evanescence of her passion for him. She
+could not admit at once that she might have overestimated Wildeve, for to
+perceive his mediocrity now was to admit her own great folly heretofore. And
+the discovery that she was the owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog
+in the manger had something in it which at first made her ashamed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s diplomacy was indeed remarkable, though not
+as yet of the kind she had anticipated. It had appreciably influenced Wildeve,
+but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her lover was no longer to her an
+exciting man whom many women strove for, and herself could only retain by
+striving with them. He was a superfluity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly grief,
+and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the latter days of an
+ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that the end of the dream is
+approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is one of the most wearisome as
+well as the most curious stages along the course between the beginning of a
+passion and its end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in pouring some gallons of
+newly arrived rum into the square bottles of his square cellaret. Whenever
+these home supplies were exhausted he would go to the Quiet Woman, and,
+standing with his back to the fire, grog in hand, tell remarkable stories of
+how he had lived seven years under the waterline of his ship, and other naval
+wonders, to the natives, who hoped too earnestly for a treat of ale from the
+teller to exhibit any doubts of his truth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had been there this evening. &ldquo;I suppose you have heard the Egdon news,
+Eustacia?&rdquo; he said, without looking up from the bottles. &ldquo;The men
+have been talking about it at the Woman as if it were of national
+importance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard none,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming home next week to
+spend Christmas with his mother. He is a fine fellow by this time, it seems. I
+suppose you remember him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never saw him in my life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, true; he left before you came here. I well remember him as a
+promising boy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where has he been living all these years?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In that rookery of pomp and vanity, Paris, I believe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="book02"></a>BOOK SECOND&mdash;THE ARRIVAL</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>I.<br />
+Tidings of the Comer</h2>
+
+<p>
+On the fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain ephemeral
+operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way, the majestic calm of
+Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those of a town, a village, or
+even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment of stagnation merely, a
+creeping of the flesh of somnolence. But here, away from comparisons, shut in
+by the stable hills, among which mere walking had the novelty of pageantry, and
+where any man could imagine himself to be Adam without the least difficulty,
+they attracted the attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not
+yet asleep, and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at
+a safe distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The performance was that of bringing together and building into a stack the
+furze faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the captain&rsquo;s use
+during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at the end of the dwelling, and
+the men engaged in building it were Humphrey and Sam, the old man looking on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o&rsquo;clock; but the winter
+solstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun caused the hour to
+seem later than it actually was, there being little here to remind an
+inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience of the sky as a dial. In
+the course of many days and weeks sunrise had advanced its quarters from
+northeast to southeast, sunset had receded from northwest to southwest; but
+Egdon had hardly heeded the change.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like a kitchen,
+having a stone floor and a gaping chimney-corner. The air was still, and while
+she lingered a moment here alone sounds of voices in conversation came to her
+ears directly down the chimney. She entered the recess, and, listening, looked
+up the old irregular shaft, with its cavernous hollows, where the smoke
+blundered about on its way to the square bit of sky at the top, from which the
+daylight struck down with a pallid glare upon the tatters of soot draping the
+flue as seaweed drapes a rocky fissure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney, and the voices
+were those of the workers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her grandfather joined in the conversation. &ldquo;That lad ought never to have
+left home. His father&rsquo;s occupation would have suited him best, and the
+boy should have followed on. I don&rsquo;t believe in these new moves in
+families. My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should my son have been if I
+had had one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The place he&rsquo;s been living at is Paris,&rdquo; said Humphrey,
+&ldquo;and they tell me &rsquo;tis where the king&rsquo;s head was cut off
+years ago. My poor mother used to tell me about that business.
+&lsquo;Hummy,&rsquo; she used to say, &lsquo;I was a young maid then, and as I
+was at home ironing Mother&rsquo;s caps one afternoon the parson came in and
+said, &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve cut the king&rsquo;s head off, Jane; and what
+&rsquo;twill be next God knows.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A good many of us knew as well as He before long,&rdquo; said the
+captain, chuckling. &ldquo;I lived seven years under water on account of it in
+my boyhood&mdash;in that damned surgery of the Triumph, seeing men brought down
+to the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to Jericho.... And so the young
+man has settled in Paris. Manager to a diamond merchant, or some such thing, is
+he not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir, that&rsquo;s it. &rsquo;Tis a blazing great business that he
+belongs to, so I&rsquo;ve heard his mother say&mdash;like a king&rsquo;s
+palace, as far as diments go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can well mind when he left home,&rdquo; said Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a good thing for the feller,&rdquo; said Humphrey. &ldquo;A
+sight of times better to be selling diments than nobbling about here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A good few indeed, my man,&rdquo; replied the captain. &ldquo;Yes, you
+may make away with a deal of money and be neither drunkard nor glutton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real perusing man, with
+the strangest notions about things. There, that&rsquo;s because he went to
+school early, such as the school was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Strange notions, has he?&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;Ah,
+there&rsquo;s too much of that sending to school in these days! It only does
+harm. Every gatepost and barn&rsquo;s door you come to is sure to have some bad
+word or other chalked upon it by the young rascals&mdash;a woman can hardly
+pass for shame sometimes. If they&rsquo;d never been taught how to write they
+wouldn&rsquo;t have been able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers
+couldn&rsquo;t do it, and the country was all the better for it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, I should think, Cap&rsquo;n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much
+in her head that comes from books as anybody about here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her head it
+would be better for her,&rdquo; said the captain shortly; after which he walked
+away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Sam,&rdquo; observed Humphrey when the old man was gone,
+&ldquo;she and Clym Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair&mdash;hey?
+If they wouldn&rsquo;t I&rsquo;ll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for
+certain, and learned in print, and always thinking about high
+doctrine&mdash;there couldn&rsquo;t be a better couple if they were made
+o&rsquo; purpose. Clym&rsquo;s family is as good as hers. His father was a
+farmer, that&rsquo;s true; but his mother was a sort of lady, as we know.
+Nothing would please me better than to see them two man and wife.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;d look very natty, arm-in-crook together, and their best
+clothes on, whether or no, if he&rsquo;s at all the well-favoured fellow he
+used to be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terrible much
+after so many years. If I knew for certain when he was coming I&rsquo;d stroll
+out three or four miles to meet him and help carry anything for&rsquo;n; though
+I suppose he&rsquo;s altered from the boy he was. They say he can talk French
+as fast as a maid can eat blackberries; and if so, depend upon it we who have
+stayed at home shall seem no more than scroff in his eyes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; but how he&rsquo;s coming from Budmouth I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such a
+nice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What a nunnywatch we
+were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren&rsquo;t married at all, after
+singing to &rsquo;em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if I should like a
+relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by a man. It makes the family
+look small.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health is
+suffering from it, I hear, for she will bide entirely indoors. We never see her
+out now, scampering over the furze with a face as red as a rose, as she used to
+do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard she wouldn&rsquo;t have Wildeve now if he asked
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have? &rsquo;Tis news to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed thus Eustacia&rsquo;s face
+gradually bent to the hearth in a profound reverie, her toe unconsciously
+tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting to her. A young and
+clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of all contrasting places in
+the world, Paris. It was like a man coming from heaven. More singular still,
+the heathmen had instinctively coupled her and this man together in their minds
+as a pair born for each other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visions enough to fill
+the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternations from mental vacuity do
+sometimes occur thus quietly. She could never have believed in the morning that
+her colourless inner world would before night become as animated as water under
+a microscope, and that without the arrival of a single visitor. The words of
+Sam and Humphrey on the harmony between the unknown and herself had on her mind
+the effect of the invading Bard&rsquo;s prelude in the Castle of Indolence, at
+which myriads of imprisoned shapes arose where had previously appeared the
+stillness of a void.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Involved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time. When she became
+conscious of externals it was dusk. The furze-rick was finished; the men had
+gone home. Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she would take a walk at this
+her usual time; and she determined that her walk should be in the direction of
+Blooms-End, the birthplace of young Yeobright and the present home of his
+mother. She had no reason for walking elsewhere, and why should she not go that
+way? The scene of the daydream is sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen. To
+look at the palings before the Yeobrights&rsquo; house had the dignity of a
+necessary performance. Strange that such a piece of idling should have seemed
+an important errand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She put on her bonnet, and, leaving the house, descended the hill on the side
+towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly along the valley for a distance of
+a mile and a half. This brought her to a spot in which the green bottom of the
+dale began to widen, the furze bushes to recede yet further from the path on
+each side, till they were diminished to an isolated one here and there by the
+increasing fertility of the soil. Beyond the irregular carpet of grass was a
+row of white palings, which marked the verge of the heath in this latitude.
+They showed upon the dusky scene that they bordered as distinctly as white lace
+on velvet. Behind the white palings was a little garden; behind the garden an
+old, irregular, thatched house, facing the heath, and commanding a full view of
+the valley. This was the obscure, removed spot to which was about to return a
+man whose latter life had been passed in the French capital&mdash;the centre
+and vortex of the fashionable world.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>II.<br />
+The People at Blooms-End Make Ready</h2>
+
+<p>
+All that afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia&rsquo;s
+ruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin had been
+persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of loyalty towards her
+cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account with an alacrity unusual in her
+during these most sorrowful days of her life. At the time that Eustacia was
+listening to the rick-makers&rsquo; conversation on Clym&rsquo;s return,
+Thomasin was climbing into a loft over her aunt&rsquo;s fuelhouse, where the
+store-apples were kept, to search out the best and largest of them for the
+coming holiday-time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The loft was lighted by a semicircular hole, through which the pigeons crept to
+their lodgings in the same high quarters of the premises; and from this hole
+the sun shone in a bright yellow patch upon the figure of the maiden as she
+knelt and plunged her naked arms into the soft brown fern, which, from its
+abundance, was used on Egdon in packing away stores of all kinds. The pigeons
+were flying about her head with the greatest unconcern, and the face of her
+aunt was just visible above the floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of
+light, as she stood halfway up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was
+not climber enough to venture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well as
+ribstones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where more mellow
+fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking them out she stopped a
+moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?&rdquo; she said, gazing
+abstractedly at the pigeon-hole, which admitted the sunlight so directly upon
+her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost seemed to shine through
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he could have been dear to you in another way,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Yeobright from the ladder, &ldquo;this might have been a happy meeting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said her aunt, with some warmth. &ldquo;To thoroughly fill
+the air with the past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and keep
+clear of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. &ldquo;I am a warning to others,
+just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are,&rdquo; she said in a low voice.
+&ldquo;What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them? &rsquo;Tis
+absurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me think that I do, by the
+way they behave towards me? Why don&rsquo;t people judge me by my acts? Now,
+look at me as I kneel here, picking up these apples&mdash;do I look like a lost
+woman?... I wish all good women were as good as I!&rdquo; she added vehemently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Strangers don&rsquo;t see you as I do,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright;
+&ldquo;they judge from false report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly
+to blame.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How quickly a rash thing can be done!&rdquo; replied the girl. Her lips
+were quivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that she could
+hardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued industriously searching to
+hide her weakness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As soon as you have finished getting the apples,&rdquo; her aunt said,
+descending the ladder, &ldquo;come down, and we&rsquo;ll go for the holly.
+There is nobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear being stared
+at. We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in our
+preparations.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together they went
+through the white palings to the heath beyond. The open hills were airy and
+clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often appears on a fine winter
+day, in distinct planes of illumination independently toned, the rays which lit
+the nearer tracts of landscape streaming visibly across those further off; a
+stratum of ensaffroned light was imposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind
+these lay still remoter scenes wrapped in frigid grey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conical pit, so
+that the tops of the trees were not much above the general level of the ground.
+Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes, as she had done under
+happier circumstances on many similar occasions, and with a small chopper that
+they had brought she began to lop off the heavily berried boughs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t scratch your face,&rdquo; said her aunt, who stood at the
+edge of the pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green
+and scarlet masses of the tree. &ldquo;Will you walk with me to meet him this
+evening?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to. Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him,&rdquo;
+said Thomasin, tossing out a bough. &ldquo;Not that that would matter much; I
+belong to one man; nothing can alter that. And that man I must marry, for my
+pride&rsquo;s sake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid&mdash;&rdquo; began Mrs. Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, you think, &lsquo;That weak girl&mdash;how is she going to get a man
+to marry her when she chooses?&rsquo; But let me tell you one thing, Aunt: Mr.
+Wildeve is not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman. He has
+an unfortunate manner, and doesn&rsquo;t try to make people like him if they
+don&rsquo;t wish to do it of their own accord.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thomasin,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her
+niece, &ldquo;do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr.
+Wildeve?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed its
+colour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him, and that
+you act a part to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment agree to be his
+wife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed. &ldquo;Aunt,&rdquo;
+she said presently, &ldquo;I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer that
+question.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you have.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may think what you choose. I have never implied to you by word or
+deed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will. And I shall
+marry him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, wait till he repeats his offer. I think he may do it, now that he
+knows&mdash;something I told him. I don&rsquo;t for a moment dispute that it is
+the most proper thing for you to marry him. Much as I have objected to him in
+bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure. It is the only way out of a
+false position, and a very galling one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did you tell him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aunt,&rdquo; said Thomasin, with round eyes, &ldquo;what <i>do</i> you
+mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be alarmed; it was my duty. I can say no more about it now,
+but when it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I said
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin was perforce content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for the
+present?&rdquo; she next asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have given my word to. But what is the use of it? He must soon know
+what has happened. A mere look at your face will show him that something is
+wrong.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. &ldquo;Now, hearken to
+me,&rdquo; she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a force
+which was other than physical. &ldquo;Tell him nothing. If he finds out that I
+am not worthy to be his cousin, let him. But, since he loved me once, we will
+not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon. The air is full of the story,
+I know; but gossips will not dare to speak of it to him for the first few days.
+His closeness to me is the very thing that will hinder the tale from reaching
+him early. If I am not made safe from sneers in a week or two I will tell him
+myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented further objections. Her
+aunt simply said, &ldquo;Very well. He should by rights have been told at the
+time that the wedding was going to be. He will never forgive you for your
+secrecy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished to spare him, and
+that I did not expect him home so soon. And you must not let me stand in the
+way of your Christmas party. Putting it off would only make matters
+worse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I shall not. I do not wish to show myself beaten before all
+Egdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve. We have enough berries now, I
+think, and we had better take them home. By the time we have decked the house
+with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must think of starting to meet
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair and dress the loose berries
+which had fallen thereon, and went down the hill with her aunt, each woman
+bearing half the gathered boughs. It was now nearly four o&rsquo;clock, and the
+sunlight was leaving the vales. When the west grew red the two relatives came
+again from the house and plunged into the heath in a different direction from
+the first, towards a point in the distant highway along which the expected man
+was to return.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>III.<br />
+How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream</h2>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes in the direction of
+Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s house and premises. No light, sound, or movement was
+perceptible there. The evening was chilly; the spot was dark and lonely. She
+inferred that the guest had not yet come; and after lingering ten or fifteen
+minutes she turned again towards home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front of her betokened the
+approach of persons in conversation along the same path. Soon their heads
+became visible against the sky. They were walking slowly; and though it was too
+dark for much discovery of character from aspect, the gait of them showed that
+they were not workers on the heath. Eustacia stepped a little out of the
+foot-track to let them pass. They were two women and a man; and the voices of
+the women were those of Mrs. Yeobright and Thomasin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared to discern her dusky
+form. There came to her ears in a masculine voice, &ldquo;Good night!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round. She could not, for a
+moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had brought into her presence the
+soul of the house she had gone to inspect, the man without whom her inspection
+would not have been thought of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. Such was her intentness,
+however, that it seemed as if her ears were performing the functions of seeing
+as well as hearing. This extension of power can almost be believed in at such
+moments. The deaf Dr. Kitto was probably under the influence of a parallel
+fancy when he described his body as having become, by long endeavour, so
+sensitive to vibrations that he had gained the power of perceiving by it as by
+ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She could follow every word that the ramblers uttered. They were talking no
+secrets. They were merely indulging in the ordinary vivacious chat of relatives
+who have long been parted in person though not in soul. But it was not to the
+words that Eustacia listened; she could not even have recalled, a few minutes
+later, what the words were. It was to the alternating voice that gave out about
+one-tenth of them&mdash;the voice that had wished her good night. Sometimes
+this throat uttered Yes, sometimes it uttered No; sometimes it made inquiries
+about a time-worn denizen of the place. Once it surprised her notions by
+remarking upon the friendliness and geniality written in the faces of the hills
+around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear. Thus much
+had been granted her; and all besides withheld. No event could have been more
+exciting. During the greater part of the afternoon she had been entrancing
+herself by imagining the fascination which must attend a man come direct from
+beautiful Paris&mdash;laden with its atmosphere, familiar with its charms. And
+this man had greeted her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of the women wasted
+away from her memory; but the accents of the other stayed on. Was there
+anything in the voice of Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s son&mdash;for Clym it
+was&mdash;startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive. All emotional
+things were possible to the speaker of that &ldquo;good night.&rdquo;
+Eustacia&rsquo;s imagination supplied the rest&mdash;except the solution to one
+riddle. What <i>could</i> the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and
+geniality in these shaggy hills?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly charged
+woman&rsquo;s head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but the changes,
+though actual, are minute. Eustacia&rsquo;s features went through a rhythmical
+succession of them. She glowed; remembering the mendacity of the imagination,
+she flagged; then she freshened; then she fired; then she cooled again. It was
+a cycle of aspects, produced by a cycle of visions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited. Her grandfather was enjoying
+himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing the red-hot surface
+of the turves, so that their lurid glare irradiated the chimney-corner with the
+hues of a furnace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?&rdquo; she
+said, coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth. &ldquo;I
+wish we were. They seem to be very nice people.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be hanged if I know why,&rdquo; said the captain. &ldquo;I liked the old
+man well enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never have
+cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in the
+kitchen, drink mead and elder-wine, and sand the floor to keep it clean. A
+sensible way of life; but how would you like it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman? A curate&rsquo;s
+daughter, was she not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose she
+has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once accidentally
+offended her, and I have never seen her since.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night was an eventful one to Eustacia&rsquo;s brain, and one which she
+hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from
+Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable one. Such
+an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was certainly never
+dreamed by a girl in Eustacia&rsquo;s situation before. It had as many
+ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many fluctuations as the northern
+lights, as much colour as a parterre in June, and was as crowded with figures
+as a coronation. To Queen Scheherazade the dream might have seemed not far
+removed from commonplace; and to a girl just returned from all the courts of
+Europe it might have seemed not more than interesting. But amid the
+circumstances of Eustacia&rsquo;s life it was as wonderful as a dream could be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation scenes a less
+extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared behind the general
+brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music, and her partner
+was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her through the previous
+fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being closed. The mazes of the dance
+were ecstatic. Soft whispering came into her ear from under the radiant helmet,
+and she felt like a woman in Paradise. Suddenly these two wheeled out from the
+mass of dancers, dived into one of the pools of the heath, and came out
+somewhere into an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows. &ldquo;It must be
+here,&rdquo; said the voice by her side, and blushingly looking up she saw him
+removing his casque to kiss her. At that moment there was a cracking noise, and
+his figure fell into fragments like a pack of cards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She cried aloud. &ldquo;O that I had seen his face!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia awoke. The cracking had been that of the window shutter downstairs,
+which the maid-servant was opening to let in the day, now slowly increasing to
+Nature&rsquo;s meagre allowance at this sickly time of the year. &ldquo;O that
+I had seen his face!&rdquo; she said again. &ldquo;&rsquo;Twas meant for Mr.
+Yeobright!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she became cooler she perceived that many of the phases of the dream had
+naturally arisen out of the images and fancies of the day before. But this
+detracted little from its interest, which lay in the excellent fuel it provided
+for newly kindled fervour. She was at the modulating point between indifference
+and love, at the stage called &ldquo;having a fancy for.&rdquo; It occurs once
+in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are
+in the hands of the weakest will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The perfervid woman was by this time half in love with a vision. The fantastic
+nature of her passion, which lowered her as an intellect, raised her as a soul.
+If she had had a little more self-control she would have attenuated the emotion
+to nothing by sheer reasoning, and so have killed it off. If she had had a
+little less pride she might have gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights&rsquo;
+premises at Blooms-End at any maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But
+Eustacia did neither of these things. She acted as the most exemplary might
+have acted, being so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day upon
+the Egdon hills, and kept her eyes employed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first occasion passed, and he did not come that way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She promenaded a second time, and was again the sole wanderer there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third time there was a dense fog; she looked around, but without much hope.
+Even if he had been walking within twenty yards of her she could not have seen
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain in torrents, and she
+turned back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fifth sally was in the afternoon; it was fine, and she remained out long,
+walking to the very top of the valley in which Blooms-End lay. She saw the
+white paling about half a mile off; but he did not appear. It was almost with
+heart-sickness that she came home and with a sense of shame at her weakness.
+She resolved to look for the man from Paris no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had Eustacia formed
+this resolve than the opportunity came which, while sought, had been entirely
+withholden.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>IV.<br />
+Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure</h2>
+
+<p>
+In the evening of this last day of expectation, which was the twenty-third of
+December, Eustacia was at home alone. She had passed the recent hour in
+lamenting over a rumour newly come to her ears&mdash;that Yeobright&rsquo;s
+visit to his mother was to be of short duration, and would end some time the
+next week. &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; she said to herself. A man in the full
+swing of his activities in a gay city could not afford to linger long on Egdon
+Heath. That she would behold face to face the owner of the awakening voice
+within the limits of such a holiday was most unlikely, unless she were to haunt
+the environs of his mother&rsquo;s house like a robin, to do which was
+difficult and unseemly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The customary expedient of provincial girls and men in such circumstances is
+churchgoing. In an ordinary village or country town one can safely calculate
+that, either on Christmas day or the Sunday contiguous, any native home for the
+holidays, who has not through age or ennui lost the appetite for seeing and
+being seen, will turn up in some pew or other, shining with hope,
+self-consciousness, and new clothes. Thus the congregation on Christmas morning
+is mostly a Tussaud collection of celebrities who have been born in the
+neighbourhood. Hither the mistress, left neglected at home all the year, can
+steal and observe the development of the returned lover who has forgotten her,
+and think as she watches him over her prayer book that he may throb with a
+renewed fidelity when novelties have lost their charm. And hither a
+comparatively recent settler like Eustacia may betake herself to scrutinize the
+person of a native son who left home before her advent upon the scene, and
+consider if the friendship of his parents be worth cultivating during his next
+absence in order to secure a knowledge of him on his next return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But these tender schemes were not feasible among the scattered inhabitants of
+Egdon Heath. In name they were parishioners, but virtually they belonged to no
+parish at all. People who came to these few isolated houses to keep Christmas
+with their friends remained in their friends&rsquo; chimney-corners drinking
+mead and other comforting liquors till they left again for good and all. Rain,
+snow, ice, mud everywhere around, they did not care to trudge two or three
+miles to sit wet-footed and splashed to the nape of their necks among those
+who, though in some measure neighbours, lived close to the church, and entered
+it clean and dry. Eustacia knew it was ten to one that Clym Yeobright would go
+to no church at all during his few days of leave, and that it would be a waste
+of labour for her to go driving the pony and gig over a bad road in hope to see
+him there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was dusk, and she was sitting by the fire in the dining-room or hall, which
+they occupied at this time of the year in preference to the parlour, because of
+its large hearth, constructed for turf-fires, a fuel the captain was partial to
+in the winter season. The only visible articles in the room were those on the
+window-sill, which showed their shapes against the low sky, the middle article
+being the old hourglass, and the other two a pair of ancient British urns which
+had been dug from a barrow near, and were used as flowerpots for two
+razor-leaved cactuses. Somebody knocked at the door. The servant was out; so
+was her grandfather. The person, after waiting a minute, came in and tapped at
+the door of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s there?&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Please, Cap&rsquo;n Vye, will you let us&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia arose and went to the door. &ldquo;I cannot allow you to come in so
+boldly. You should have waited.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The cap&rsquo;n said I might come in without any fuss,&rdquo; was
+answered in a lad&rsquo;s pleasant voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, did he?&rdquo; said Eustacia more gently. &ldquo;What do you want,
+Charley?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Please will your grandfather lend us his fuelhouse to try over our parts
+in, tonight at seven o&rsquo;clock?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss. The cap&rsquo;n used to let the old mummers practise
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it. Yes, you may use the fuelhouse if you like,&rdquo; said
+Eustacia languidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The choice of Captain Vye&rsquo;s fuelhouse as the scene of rehearsal was
+dictated by the fact that his dwelling was nearly in the centre of the heath.
+The fuelhouse was as roomy as a barn, and was a most desirable place for such a
+purpose. The lads who formed the company of players lived at different
+scattered points around, and by meeting in this spot the distances to be
+traversed by all the comers would be about equally proportioned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. The mummers
+themselves were not afflicted with any such feeling for their art, though at
+the same time they were not enthusiastic. A traditional pastime is to be
+distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking feature than in this,
+that while in the revival all is excitement and fervour, the survival is
+carried on with a stolidity and absence of stir which sets one wondering why a
+thing that is done so perfunctorily should be kept up at all. Like Balaam and
+other unwilling prophets, the agents seem moved by an inner compulsion to say
+and do their allotted parts whether they will or no. This unweeting manner of
+performance is the true ring by which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized
+survival may be known from a spurious reproduction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The piece was the well-known play of Saint George, and all who were behind the
+scenes assisted in the preparations, including the women of each household.
+Without the co-operation of sisters and sweethearts the dresses were likely to
+be a failure; but on the other hand, this class of assistance was not without
+its drawbacks. The girls could never be brought to respect tradition in
+designing and decorating the armour; they insisted on attaching loops and bows
+of silk and velvet in any situation pleasing to their taste. Gorget, gusset,
+basinet, cuirass, gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine
+eyes were practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of fluttering colour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom, had a sweetheart,
+and that Jim, who fought on the side of the Moslem, had one likewise. During
+the making of the costumes it would come to the knowledge of Joe&rsquo;s
+sweetheart that Jim&rsquo;s was putting brilliant silk scallops at the bottom
+of her lover&rsquo;s surcoat, in addition to the ribbons of the visor, the bars
+of which, being invariably formed of coloured strips about half an inch wide
+hanging before the face, were mostly of that material. Joe&rsquo;s sweetheart
+straight-way placed brilliant silk on the scallops of the hem in question, and,
+going a little further, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim&rsquo;s,
+not to be outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier, of the Christian army, was
+distinguished by no peculiarity of accoutrement from the Turkish Knight; and
+what was worse, on a casual view Saint George himself might be mistaken for his
+deadly enemy, the Saracen. The guisers themselves, though inwardly regretting
+this confusion of persons, could not afford to offend those by whose assistance
+they so largely profited, and the innovations were allowed to stand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity. The Leech or
+Doctor preserved his character intact&mdash;his darker habiliments, peculiar
+hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his arm, could never be mistaken. And
+the same might be said of the conventional figure of Father Christmas, with his
+gigantic club, an older man, who accompanied the band as general protector in
+long night journeys from parish to parish, and was bearer of the purse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seven o&rsquo;clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short time
+Eustacia could hear voices in the fuelhouse. To dissipate in some trifling
+measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life she went to the
+&ldquo;linhay&rdquo; or lean-to shed, which formed the root-store of their
+dwelling and abutted on the fuelhouse. Here was a small rough hole in the mud
+wall, originally made for pigeons, through which the interior of the next shed
+could be viewed. A light came from it now; and Eustacia stepped upon a stool to
+look in upon the scene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On a ledge in the fuelhouse stood three tall rushlights and by the light of
+them seven or eight lads were marching about, haranguing, and confusing each
+other, in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play. Humphrey and Sam, the
+furze- and turf-cutters, were there looking on, so also was Timothy Fairway,
+who leant against the wall and prompted the boys from memory, interspersing
+among the set words remarks and anecdotes of the superior days when he and
+others were the Egdon mummers-elect that these lads were now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Not that such mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the
+Saracen should strut a bit more, and John needn&rsquo;t holler his inside out.
+Beyond that perhaps you&rsquo;ll do. Have you got all your clothes
+ready?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We shall by Monday.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s. What makes her want to see ye? I should
+think a middle-aged woman was tired of mumming.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s got up a bit of a party, because &rsquo;tis the first
+Christmas that her son Clym has been home for a long time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, to be sure&mdash;her party! I am going myself. I almost
+forgot it, upon my life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia&rsquo;s face flagged. There was to be a party at the
+Yeobrights&rsquo;; she, naturally, had nothing to do with it. She was a
+stranger to all such local gatherings, and had always held them as scarcely
+appertaining to her sphere. But had she been going, what an opportunity would
+have been afforded her of seeing the man whose influence was penetrating her
+like summer sun! To increase that influence was coveted excitement; to cast it
+off might be to regain serenity; to leave it as it stood was tantalizing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lads and men prepared to leave the premises, and Eustacia returned to her
+fireside. She was immersed in thought, but not for long. In a few minutes the
+lad Charley, who had come to ask permission to use the place, returned with the
+key to the kitchen. Eustacia heard him, and opening the door into the passage
+said, &ldquo;Charley, come here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lad was surprised. He entered the front room not without blushing; for he,
+like many, had felt the power of this girl&rsquo;s face and form.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She pointed to a seat by the fire, and entered the other side of the
+chimney-corner herself. It could be seen in her face that whatever motive she
+might have had in asking the youth indoors would soon appear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which part do you play, Charley&mdash;the Turkish Knight, do you
+not?&rdquo; inquired the beauty, looking across the smoke of the fire to him on
+the other side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight,&rdquo; he replied diffidently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is yours a long part?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nine speeches, about.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you repeat them to me? If so I should like to hear them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lad smiled into the glowing turf and began&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Here come I, a Turkish Knight,<br />
+Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+continuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the concluding catastrophe of
+his fall by the hand of Saint George.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. When the lad ended she
+began, precisely in the same words, and ranted on without hitch or divergence
+till she too reached the end. It was the same thing, yet how different. Like in
+form, it had the added softness and finish of a Raffaelle after Perugino,
+which, while faithfully reproducing the original subject, entirely distances
+the original art.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charley&rsquo;s eyes rounded with surprise. &ldquo;Well, you be a clever
+lady!&rdquo; he said, in admiration. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been three weeks
+learning mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard it before,&rdquo; she quietly observed. &ldquo;Now, would
+you do anything to please me, Charley?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;d do a good deal, miss.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would you let me play your part for one night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, miss! But your woman&rsquo;s gown&mdash;you couldn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can get boy&rsquo;s clothes&mdash;at least all that would be wanted
+besides the mumming dress. What should I have to give you to lend me your
+things, to let me take your place for an hour or two on Monday night, and on no
+account to say a word about who or what I am? You would, of course, have to
+excuse yourself from playing that night, and to say that somebody&mdash;a
+cousin of Miss Vye&rsquo;s&mdash;would act for you. The other mummers have
+never spoken to me in their lives so that it would be safe enough; and if it
+were not, I should not mind. Now, what must I give you to agree to this? Half a
+crown?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The youth shook his head
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five shillings?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook his head again. &ldquo;Money won&rsquo;t do it,&rdquo; he said,
+brushing the iron head of the firedog with the hollow of his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What will, then, Charley?&rdquo; said Eustacia in a disappointed tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know what you forbade me at the Maypoling, miss,&rdquo; murmured the
+lad, without looking at her, and still stroking the firedog&rsquo;s head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Eustacia, with a little more hauteur. &ldquo;You wanted
+to join hands with me in the ring, if I recollect?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Half an hour of that, and I&rsquo;ll agree, miss.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia regarded the youth steadfastly. He was three years younger than
+herself, but apparently not backward for his age. &ldquo;Half an hour of
+what?&rdquo; she said, though she guessed what.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Holding your hand in mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was silent. &ldquo;Make it a quarter of an hour,&rdquo; she said
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Miss Eustacia&mdash;I will, if I may kiss it too. A quarter of an
+hour. And I&rsquo;ll swear to do the best I can to let you take my place
+without anybody knowing. Don&rsquo;t you think somebody might know your tongue,
+miss?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is possible. But I will put a pebble in my mouth to make is less
+likely. Very well; you shall be allowed to have my hand as soon as you bring
+the dress and your sword and staff. I don&rsquo;t want you any longer
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charley departed, and Eustacia felt more and more interest in life. Here was
+something to do: here was some one to see, and a charmingly adventurous way to
+see him. &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; she said to herself, &ldquo;want of an object to
+live for&mdash;that&rsquo;s all is the matter with me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia&rsquo;s manner was as a rule of a slumberous sort, her passions being
+of the massive rather than the vivacious kind. But when aroused she would make
+a dash which, just for the time, was not unlike the move of a naturally lively
+person.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the question of recognition she was somewhat indifferent. By the acting lads
+themselves she was not likely to be known. With the guests who might be
+assembled she was hardly so secure. Yet detection, after all, would be no such
+dreadful thing. The fact only could be detected, her true motive never. It
+would be instantly set down as the passing freak of a girl whose ways were
+already considered singular. That she was doing for an earnest reason what
+would most naturally be done in jest was at any rate a safe secret.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The next evening Eustacia stood punctually at the fuelhouse door, waiting for
+the dusk which was to bring Charley with the trappings. Her grandfather was at
+home tonight, and she would be unable to ask her confederate indoors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He appeared on the dark ridge of heathland, like a fly on a Negro, bearing the
+articles with him, and came up breathless with his walk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here are the things,&rdquo; he whispered, placing them upon the
+threshold. &ldquo;And now, Miss Eustacia&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The payment. It is quite ready. I am as good as my word.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She leant against the door-post, and gave him her hand. Charley took it in both
+his own with a tenderness beyond description, unless it was like that of a
+child holding a captured sparrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, there&rsquo;s a glove on it!&rdquo; he said in a deprecating way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been walking,&rdquo; she observed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, miss!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;it is hardly fair.&rdquo; She pulled off the glove, and gave
+him her bare hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stood together minute after minute, without further speech, each looking
+at the blackening scene, and each thinking his and her own thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I won&rsquo;t use it all up tonight,&rdquo; said Charley
+devotedly, when six or eight minutes had been passed by him caressing her hand.
+&ldquo;May I have the other few minutes another time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As you like,&rdquo; said she without the least emotion. &ldquo;But it
+must be over in a week. Now, there is only one thing I want you to do&mdash;to
+wait while I put on the dress, and then to see if I do my part properly. But
+let me look first indoors.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She vanished for a minute or two, and went in. Her grandfather was safely
+asleep in his chair. &ldquo;Now, then,&rdquo; she said, on returning,
+&ldquo;walk down the garden a little way, and when I am ready I&rsquo;ll call
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charley walked and waited, and presently heard a soft whistle. He returned to
+the fuelhouse door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you whistle, Miss Vye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; come in,&rdquo; reached him in Eustacia&rsquo;s voice from a back
+quarter. &ldquo;I must not strike a light till the door is shut, or it may be
+seen shining. Push your hat into the hole through to the wash-house, if you can
+feel your way across.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charley did as commanded, and she struck the light revealing herself to be
+changed in sex, brilliant in colours, and armed from top to toe. Perhaps she
+quailed a little under Charley&rsquo;s vigorous gaze, but whether any shyness
+at her male attire appeared upon her countenance could not be seen by reason of
+the strips of ribbon which used to cover the face in mumming costumes,
+representing the barred visor of the mediæval helmet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It fits pretty well,&rdquo; she said, looking down at the white
+overalls, &ldquo;except that the tunic, or whatever you call it, is long in the
+sleeve. The bottom of the overalls I can turn up inside. Now pay
+attention.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia then proceeded in her delivery, striking the sword against the staff
+or lance at the minatory phrases, in the orthodox mumming manner, and strutting
+up and down. Charley seasoned his admiration with criticism of the gentlest
+kind, for the touch of Eustacia&rsquo;s hand yet remained with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for your excuse to the others,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Where do
+you meet before you go to Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We thought of meeting here, miss, if you have nothing to say against it.
+At eight o&rsquo;clock, so as to get there by nine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Well, you of course must not appear. I will march in about five
+minutes late, ready-dressed, and tell them that you can&rsquo;t come. I have
+decided that the best plan will be for you to be sent somewhere by me, to make
+a real thing of the excuse. Our two heath-croppers are in the habit of straying
+into the meads, and tomorrow evening you can go and see if they are gone there.
+I&rsquo;ll manage the rest. Now you may leave me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss. But I think I&rsquo;ll have one minute more of what I am
+owed, if you don&rsquo;t mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia gave him her hand as before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One minute,&rdquo; she said, and counted on till she reached seven or
+eight minutes. Hand and person she then withdrew to a distance of several feet,
+and recovered some of her old dignity. The contract completed, she raised
+between them a barrier impenetrable as a wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, &rsquo;tis all gone; and I didn&rsquo;t mean quite all,&rdquo; he
+said, with a sigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You had good measure,&rdquo; said she, turning away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss. Well, &rsquo;tis over, and now I&rsquo;ll get
+home-along.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>V.<br />
+Through the Moonlight</h2>
+
+<p>
+The next evening the mummers were assembled in the same spot, awaiting the
+entrance of the Turkish Knight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty minutes after eight by the Quiet Woman, and Charley not
+come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ten minutes past by Blooms-End.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It wants ten minutes to, by Grandfer Cantle&rsquo;s watch.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And &rsquo;tis five minutes past by the captain&rsquo;s clock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any moment was a
+number of varying doctrines professed by the different hamlets, some of them
+having originally grown up from a common root, and then become divided by
+secession, some having been alien from the beginning. West Egdon believed in
+Blooms-End time, East Egdon in the time of the Quiet Woman Inn. Grandfer
+Cantle&rsquo;s watch had numbered many followers in years gone by, but since he
+had grown older faiths were shaken. Thus, the mummers having gathered hither
+from scattered points each came with his own tenets on early and late; and they
+waited a little longer as a compromise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia had watched the assemblage through the hole; and seeing that now was
+the proper moment to enter, she went from the &ldquo;linhay&rdquo; and boldly
+pulled the bobbin of the fuelhouse door. Her grandfather was safe at the Quiet
+Woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s Charley at last! How late you be, Charley.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis not Charley,&rdquo; said the Turkish Knight from within his
+visor. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a cousin of Miss Vye&rsquo;s, come to take
+Charley&rsquo;s place from curiosity. He was obliged to go and look for the
+heath-croppers that have got into the meads, and I agreed to take his place, as
+he knew he couldn&rsquo;t come back here again tonight. I know the part as well
+as he.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general won the
+mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if the newcomer
+were perfect in his part.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It don&rsquo;t matter&mdash;if you be not too young,&rdquo; said Saint
+George. Eustacia&rsquo;s voice had sounded somewhat more juvenile and fluty
+than Charley&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know every word of it, I tell you,&rdquo; said Eustacia decisively.
+Dash being all that was required to carry her triumphantly through, she adopted
+as much as was necessary. &ldquo;Go ahead, lads, with the try-over. I&rsquo;ll
+challenge any of you to find a mistake in me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The play was hastily rehearsed, whereupon the other mummers were delighted with
+the new knight. They extinguished the candles at half-past eight, and set out
+upon the heath in the direction of Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s house at
+Bloom&rsquo;s-End.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a slight hoarfrost that night, and the moon, though not more than
+half full, threw a spirited and enticing brightness upon the fantastic figures
+of the mumming band, whose plumes and ribbons rustled in their walk like autumn
+leaves. Their path was not over Rainbarrow now, but down a valley which left
+that ancient elevation a little to the east. The bottom of the vale was green
+to a width of ten yards or thereabouts, and the shining facets of frost upon
+the blades of grass seemed to move on with the shadows of those they
+surrounded. The masses of furze and heath to the right and left were dark as
+ever; a mere half-moon was powerless to silver such sable features as theirs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half-an-hour of walking and talking brought them to the spot in the valley
+where the grass riband widened and led down to the front of the house. At sight
+of the place Eustacia who had felt a few passing doubts during her walk with
+the youths, again was glad that the adventure had been undertaken. She had come
+out to see a man who might possibly have the power to deliver her soul from a
+most deadly oppression. What was Wildeve? Interesting, but inadequate. Perhaps
+she would see a sufficient hero tonight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they drew nearer to the front of the house the mummers became aware that
+music and dancing were briskly flourishing within. Every now and then a long
+low note from the serpent, which was the chief wind instrument played at these
+times, advanced further into the heath than the thin treble part, and reached
+their ears alone; and next a more than usual loud tread from a dancer would
+come the same way. With nearer approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced
+together, and were found to be the salient points of the tune called
+&ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s Fancy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was there, of course. Who was she that he danced with? Perhaps some unknown
+woman, far beneath herself in culture, was by the most subtle of lures sealing
+his fate this very instant. To dance with a man is to concentrate a
+twelvemonth&rsquo;s regulation fire upon him in the fragment of an hour. To
+pass to courtship without acquaintance, to pass to marriage without courtship,
+is a skipping of terms reserved for those alone who tread this royal road. She
+would see how his heart lay by keen observation of them all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The enterprising lady followed the mumming company through the gate in the
+white paling, and stood before the open porch. The house was encrusted with
+heavy thatchings, which dropped between the upper windows; the front, upon
+which the moonbeams directly played, had originally been white; but a huge
+pyracanth now darkened the greater portion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately within the
+surface of the door, no apartment intervening. The brushing of skirts and
+elbows, sometimes the bumping of shoulders, could be heard against the very
+panels. Eustacia, though living within two miles of the place, had never seen
+the interior of this quaint old habitation. Between Captain Vye and the
+Yeobrights there had never existed much acquaintance, the former having come as
+a stranger and purchased the long-empty house at Mistover Knap not long before
+the death of Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s husband; and with that event and the
+departure of her son such friendship as had grown up became quite broken off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there no passage inside the door, then?&rdquo; asked Eustacia as they
+stood within the porch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the lad who played the Saracen. &ldquo;The door opens
+right upon the front sitting-room, where the spree&rsquo;s going on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s it. Here we must bide till they have done, for they always
+bolt the back door after dark.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They won&rsquo;t be much longer,&rdquo; said Father Christmas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event. Again the
+instruments ended the tune; again they recommenced with as much fire and pathos
+as if it were the first strain. The air was now that one without any particular
+beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps, among all the dances which throng an
+inspired fiddler&rsquo;s fancy, best conveys the idea of the
+interminable&mdash;the celebrated &ldquo;Devil&rsquo;s Dream.&rdquo; The fury
+of personal movement that was kindled by the fury of the notes could be
+approximately imagined by these outsiders under the moon, from the occasional
+kicks of toes and heels against the door, whenever the whirl round had been of
+more than customary velocity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first five minutes of listening was interesting enough to the mummers. The
+five minutes extended to ten minutes, and these to a quarter of an hour; but no
+signs of ceasing were audible in the lively &ldquo;Dream.&rdquo; The bumping
+against the door, the laughter, the stamping, were all as vigorous as ever, and
+the pleasure in being outside lessened considerably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why does Mrs. Yeobright give parties of this sort?&rdquo; Eustacia
+asked, a little surprised to hear merriment so pronounced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not one of her bettermost parlour-parties. She&rsquo;s asked the
+plain neighbours and workpeople without drawing any lines, just to give
+&rsquo;em a good supper and such like. Her son and she wait upon the
+folks.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis the last strain, I think,&rdquo; said Saint George, with his
+ear to the panel. &ldquo;A young man and woman have just swung into this
+corner, and he&rsquo;s saying to her, &lsquo;Ah, the pity; &rsquo;tis over for
+us this time, my own.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank God,&rdquo; said the Turkish Knight, stamping, and taking from the
+wall the conventional lance that each of the mummers carried. Her boots being
+thinner than those of the young men, the hoar had damped her feet and made them
+cold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my song &rsquo;tis another ten minutes for us,&rdquo; said the
+Valiant Soldier, looking through the keyhole as the tune modulated into another
+without stopping. &ldquo;Grandfer Cantle is standing in this corner, waiting
+his turn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twon&rsquo;t be long; &rsquo;tis a six-handed reel,&rdquo; said
+the Doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not go in, dancing or no? They sent for us,&rdquo; said the Saracen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not,&rdquo; said Eustacia authoritatively, as she paced
+smartly up and down from door to gate to warm herself. &ldquo;We should burst
+into the middle of them and stop the dance, and that would be
+unmannerly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He thinks himself somebody because he has had a bit more schooling than
+we,&rdquo; said the Doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may go to the deuce!&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a whispered conversation between three or four of them, and one
+turned to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you tell us one thing?&rdquo; he said, not without gentleness.
+&ldquo;Be you Miss Vye? We think you must be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may think what you like,&rdquo; said Eustacia slowly. &ldquo;But
+honourable lads will not tell tales upon a lady.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll say nothing, miss. That&rsquo;s upon our honour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment the fiddles finished off with a screech, and the serpent emitted
+a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the comparative quiet
+within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken their seats, Father
+Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his head inside the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, the mummers, the mummers!&rdquo; cried several guests at once.
+&ldquo;Clear a space for the mummers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Humpbacked Father Christmas then made a complete entry, swinging his huge club,
+and in a general way clearing the stage for the actors proper, while he
+informed the company in smart verse that he was come, welcome or welcome not;
+concluding his speech with
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Make room, make room, my gallant boys,<br />
+And give us space to rhyme;<br />
+We&rsquo;ve come to show Saint George&rsquo;s play,<br />
+Upon this Christmas time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guests were now arranging themselves at one end of the room, the fiddler
+was mending a string, the serpent-player was emptying his mouthpiece, and the
+play began. First of those outside the Valiant Soldier entered, in the interest
+of Saint George&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Here come I, the Valiant Soldier;<br />
+Slasher is my name&rdquo;;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+and so on. This speech concluded with a challenge to the infidel, at the end of
+which it was Eustacia&rsquo;s duty to enter as the Turkish Knight. She, with
+the rest who were not yet on, had hitherto remained in the moonlight which
+streamed under the porch. With no apparent effort or backwardness she came in,
+beginning&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Here come I, a Turkish Knight,<br />
+Who learnt in Turkish land to fight;<br />
+I&rsquo;ll fight this man with courage bold:<br />
+If his blood&rsquo;s hot I&rsquo;ll make it cold!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During her declamation Eustacia held her head erect, and spoke as roughly as
+she could, feeling pretty secure from observation. But the concentration upon
+her part necessary to prevent discovery, the newness of the scene, the shine of
+the candles, and the confusing effect upon her vision of the ribboned visor
+which hid her features, left her absolutely unable to perceive who were present
+as spectators. On the further side of a table bearing candles she could faintly
+discern faces, and that was all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Jim Starks as the Valiant Soldier had come forward, and, with a glare
+upon the Turk, replied&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;If, then, thou art that Turkish Knight,<br />
+Draw out thy sword, and let us fight!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And fight they did; the issue of the combat being that the Valiant Soldier was
+slain by a preternaturally inadequate thrust from Eustacia, Jim, in his ardour
+for genuine histrionic art, coming down like a log upon the stone floor with
+force enough to dislocate his shoulder. Then, after more words from the Turkish
+Knight, rather too faintly delivered, and statements that he&rsquo;d fight
+Saint George and all his crew, Saint George himself magnificently entered with
+the well-known flourish&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Here come I, Saint George, the valiant man,<br />
+With naked sword and spear in hand,<br />
+Who fought the dragon and brought him to the slaughter,<br />
+And by this won fair Sabra, the King of Egypt&rsquo;s daughter;<br />
+What mortal man would dare to stand<br />
+Before me with my sword in hand?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the lad who had first recognized Eustacia; and when she now, as the
+Turk, replied with suitable defiance, and at once began the combat, the young
+fellow took especial care to use his sword as gently as possible. Being
+wounded, the Knight fell upon one knee, according to the direction. The Doctor
+now entered, restored the Knight by giving him a draught from the bottle which
+he carried, and the fight was again resumed, the Turk sinking by degrees until
+quite overcome&mdash;dying as hard in this venerable drama as he is said to do
+at the present day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This gradual sinking to the earth was, in fact, one reason why Eustacia had
+thought that the part of the Turkish Knight, though not the shortest, would
+suit her best. A direct fall from upright to horizontal, which was the end of
+the other fighting characters, was not an elegant or decorous part for a girl.
+But it was easy to die like a Turk, by a dogged decline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia was now among the number of the slain, though not on the floor, for
+she had managed to sink into a sloping position against the clock-case, so that
+her head was well elevated. The play proceeded between Saint George, the
+Saracen, the Doctor, and Father Christmas; and Eustacia, having no more to do,
+for the first time found leisure to observe the scene round, and to search for
+the form that had drawn her hither.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>VI.<br />
+The Two Stand Face to Face</h2>
+
+<p>
+The room had been arranged with a view to the dancing, the large oak table
+having been moved back till it stood as a breastwork to the fireplace. At each
+end, behind, and in the chimney-corner were grouped the guests, many of them
+being warm-faced and panting, among whom Eustacia cursorily recognized some
+well-to-do persons from beyond the heath. Thomasin, as she had expected, was
+not visible, and Eustacia recollected that a light had shone from an upper
+window when they were outside&mdash;the window, probably, of Thomasin&rsquo;s
+room. A nose, chin, hands, knees, and toes projected from the seat within the
+chimney opening, which members she found to unite in the person of Grandfer
+Cantle, Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s occasional assistant in the garden, and
+therefore one of the invited. The smoke went up from an Etna of peat in front
+of him, played round the notches of the chimney-crook, struck against the
+salt-box, and got lost among the flitches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another part of the room soon riveted her gaze. At the other side of the
+chimney stood the settle, which is the necessary supplement to a fire so open
+that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up the smoke. It is, to the
+hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces, what the east belt of trees is
+to the exposed country estate, or the north wall to the garden. Outside the
+settle candles gutter, locks of hair wave, young women shiver, and old men
+sneeze. Inside is Paradise. Not a symptom of a draught disturbs the air; the
+sitters&rsquo; backs are as warm as their faces, and songs and old tales are
+drawn from the occupants by the comfortable heat, like fruit from melon plants
+in a frame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that Eustacia was
+concerned. A face showed itself with marked distinctness against the
+dark-tanned wood of the upper part. The owner, who was leaning against the
+settle&rsquo;s outer end, was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as he was called
+here; she knew it could be nobody else. The spectacle constituted an area of
+two feet in Rembrandt&rsquo;s intensest manner. A strange power in the
+lounger&rsquo;s appearance lay in the fact that, though his whole figure was
+visible, the observer&rsquo;s eye was only aware of his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man, though a youth
+might hardly have seen any necessity for the term of immaturity. But it was
+really one of those faces which convey less the idea of so many years as its
+age than of so much experience as its store. The number of their years may have
+adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel, and the rest of the antediluvians, but
+the age of a modern man is to be measured by the intensity of his history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The face was well shaped, even excellently. But the mind within was beginning
+to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon to trace its idiosyncrasies as they
+developed themselves. The beauty here visible would in no long time be
+ruthlessly over-run by its parasite, thought, which might just as well have fed
+upon a plainer exterior where there was nothing it could harm. Had Heaven
+preserved Yeobright from a wearing habit of meditation, people would have said,
+&ldquo;A handsome man.&rdquo; Had his brain unfolded under sharper contours
+they would have said, &ldquo;A thoughtful man.&rdquo; But an inner
+strenuousness was preying upon an outer symmetry, and they rated his look as
+singular.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hence people who began by beholding him ended by perusing him. His countenance
+was overlaid with legible meanings. Without being thought-worn he yet had
+certain marks derived from a perception of his surroundings, such as are not
+unfrequently found on men at the end of the four or five years of endeavour
+which follow the close of placid pupilage. He already showed that thought is a
+disease of flesh, and indirectly bore evidence that ideal physical beauty is
+incompatible with emotional development and a full recognition of the coil of
+things. Mental luminousness must be fed with the oil of life, even though there
+is already a physical need for it; and the pitiful sight of two demands on one
+supply was just showing itself here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When standing before certain men the philosopher regrets that thinkers are but
+perishable tissue, the artist that perishable tissue has to think. Thus to
+deplore, each from his point of view, the mutually destructive interdependence
+of spirit and flesh would have been instinctive with these in critically
+observing Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against depression from
+without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested isolation, but it
+revealed something more. As is usual with bright natures, the deity that lies
+ignominiously chained within an ephemeral human carcase shone out of him like a
+ray.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The effect upon Eustacia was palpable. The extraordinary pitch of excitement
+that she had reached beforehand would, indeed, have caused her to be influenced
+by the most commonplace man. She was troubled at Yeobright&rsquo;s presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The remainder of the play ended&mdash;the Saracen&rsquo;s head was cut off, and
+Saint George stood as victor. Nobody commented, any more than they would have
+commented on the fact of mushrooms coming in autumn or snowdrops in spring.
+They took the piece as phlegmatically as did the actors themselves. It was a
+phase of cheerfulness which was, as a matter of course, to be passed through
+every Christmas; and there was no more to be said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They sang the plaintive chant which follows the play, during which all the dead
+men rise to their feet in a silent and awful manner, like the ghosts of
+Napoleon&rsquo;s soldiers in the Midnight Review. Afterwards the door opened,
+and Fairway appeared on the threshold, accompanied by Christian and another.
+They had been waiting outside for the conclusion of the play, as the players
+had waited for the conclusion of the dance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, come in,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright; and Clym went forward to
+welcome them. &ldquo;How is it you are so late? Grandfer Cantle has been here
+ever so long, and we thought you&rsquo;d have come with him, as you live so
+near one another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I should have come earlier,&rdquo; Mr. Fairway said and paused to
+look along the beam of the ceiling for a nail to hang his hat on; but, finding
+his accustomed one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all the nails in the
+walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at last relieved himself of the
+hat by ticklishly balancing it between the candle-box and the head of the
+clock-case. &ldquo;I should have come earlier, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; he resumed,
+with a more composed air, &ldquo;but I know what parties be, and how
+there&rsquo;s none too much room in folks&rsquo; houses at such times, so I
+thought I wouldn&rsquo;t come till you&rsquo;d got settled a bit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright,&rdquo; said Christian earnestly,
+&ldquo;but Father there was so eager that he had no manners at all, and left
+home almost afore &rsquo;twas dark. I told him &rsquo;twas barely decent in
+a&rsquo; old man to come so oversoon; but words be wind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Klk! I wasn&rsquo;t going to bide waiting about, till half the game was
+over! I&rsquo;m as light as a kite when anything&rsquo;s going on!&rdquo;
+crowed Grandfer Cantle from the chimneyseat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fairway had meanwhile concluded a critical gaze at Yeobright. &ldquo;Now, you
+may not believe it,&rdquo; he said to the rest of the room, &ldquo;but I should
+never have knowed this gentleman if I had met him anywhere off his own
+he&rsquo;th&mdash;he&rsquo;s altered so much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You too have altered, and for the better, I think Timothy,&rdquo; said
+Yeobright, surveying the firm figure of Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Master Yeobright, look me over too. I have altered for the better,
+haven&rsquo;t I, hey?&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, rising and placing himself
+something above half a foot from Clym&rsquo;s eye, to induce the most searching
+criticism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure we will,&rdquo; said Fairway, taking the candle and moving it
+over the surface of the Grandfer&rsquo;s countenance, the subject of his
+scrutiny irradiating himself with light and pleasant smiles, and giving himself
+jerks of juvenility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t changed much,&rdquo; said Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If there&rsquo;s any difference, Grandfer is younger,&rdquo; appended
+Fairway decisively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet not my own doing, and I feel no pride in it,&rdquo; said the
+pleased ancient. &ldquo;But I can&rsquo;t be cured of my vagaries; them I plead
+guilty to. Yes, Master Cantle always was that, as we know. But I am nothing by
+the side of you, Mister Clym.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor any o&rsquo; us,&rdquo; said Humphrey, in a low rich tone of
+admiration, not intended to reach anybody&rsquo;s ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Really, there would have been nobody here who could have stood as decent
+second to him, or even third, if I hadn&rsquo;t been a soldier in the Bang-up
+Locals (as we was called for our smartness),&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle.
+&ldquo;And even as &rsquo;tis we all look a little scammish beside him. But in
+the year four &rsquo;twas said there wasn&rsquo;t a finer figure in the whole
+South Wessex than I, as I looked when dashing past the shop-winders with the
+rest of our company on the day we ran out o&rsquo; Budmouth because it was
+thoughted that Boney had landed round the point. There was I, straight as a
+young poplar, wi&rsquo; my firelock, and my bagnet, and my spatterdashes, and
+my stock sawing my jaws off, and my accoutrements sheening like the seven
+stars! Yes, neighbours, I was a pretty sight in my soldiering days. You ought
+to have seen me in four!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis his mother&rsquo;s side where Master Clym&rsquo;s figure
+comes from, bless ye,&rdquo; said Timothy. &ldquo;I know&rsquo;d her brothers
+well. Longer coffins were never made in the whole country of South Wessex, and
+&rsquo;tis said that poor George&rsquo;s knees were crumpled up a little
+e&rsquo;en as &rsquo;twas.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Coffins, where?&rdquo; inquired Christian, drawing nearer. &ldquo;Have
+the ghost of one appeared to anybody, Master Fairway?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no. Don&rsquo;t let your mind so mislead your ears, Christian; and
+be a man,&rdquo; said Timothy reproachfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will.&rdquo; said Christian. &ldquo;But now I think o&rsquo;t my
+shadder last night seemed just the shape of a coffin. What is it a sign of when
+your shade&rsquo;s like a coffin, neighbours? It can&rsquo;t be nothing to be
+afeared of, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Afeared, no!&rdquo; said the Grandfer. &ldquo;Faith, I was never afeard
+of nothing except Boney, or I shouldn&rsquo;t ha&rsquo; been the soldier I was.
+Yes, &rsquo;tis a thousand pities you didn&rsquo;t see me in four!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time the mummers were preparing to leave; but Mrs. Yeobright stopped
+them by asking them to sit down and have a little supper. To this invitation
+Father Christmas, in the name of them all, readily agreed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia was happy in the opportunity of staying a little longer. The cold and
+frosty night without was doubly frigid to her. But the lingering was not
+without its difficulties. Mrs. Yeobright, for want of room in the larger
+apartment, placed a bench for the mummers halfway through the pantry door,
+which opened from the sitting-room. Here they seated themselves in a row, the
+door being left open&mdash;thus they were still virtually in the same
+apartment. Mrs. Yeobright now murmured a few words to her son, who crossed the
+room to the pantry door, striking his head against the mistletoe as he passed,
+and brought the mummers beef and bread, cake pastry, mead, and elder-wine, the
+waiting being done by him and his mother, that the little maid-servant might
+sit as guest. The mummers doffed their helmets, and began to eat and drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you will surely have some?&rdquo; said Clym to the Turkish Knight,
+as he stood before that warrior, tray in hand. She had refused, and still sat
+covered, only the sparkle of her eyes being visible between the ribbons which
+covered her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None, thank you,&rdquo; replied Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s quite a youngster,&rdquo; said the Saracen apologetically,
+&ldquo;and you must excuse him. He&rsquo;s not one of the old set, but have
+jined us because t&rsquo;other couldn&rsquo;t come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he will take something?&rdquo; persisted Yeobright. &ldquo;Try a
+glass of mead or elder-wine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you had better try that,&rdquo; said the Saracen. &ldquo;It will
+keep the cold out going home-along.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face she could drink
+easily enough beneath her disguise. The elder-wine was accordingly accepted,
+and the glass vanished inside the ribbons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At moments during this performance Eustacia was half in doubt about the
+security of her position; yet it had a fearful joy. A series of attentions paid
+to her, and yet not to her but to some imaginary person, by the first man she
+had ever been inclined to adore, complicated her emotions indescribably. She
+had loved him partly because he was exceptional in this scene, partly because
+she had determined to love him, chiefly because she was in desperate need of
+loving somebody after wearying of Wildeve. Believing that she must love him in
+spite of herself, she had been influenced after the fashion of the second Lord
+Lyttleton and other persons, who have dreamed that they were to die on a
+certain day, and by stress of a morbid imagination have actually brought about
+that event. Once let a maiden admit the possibility of her being stricken with
+love for someone at a certain hour and place, and the thing is as good as done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Did anything at this moment suggest to Yeobright the sex of the creature whom
+that fantastic guise inclosed, how extended was her scope both in feeling and
+in making others feel, and how far her compass transcended that of her
+companions in the band? When the disguised Queen of Love appeared before Æneas
+a preternatural perfume accompanied her presence and betrayed her quality. If
+such a mysterious emanation ever was projected by the emotions of an earthly
+woman upon their object, it must have signified Eustacia&rsquo;s presence to
+Yeobright now. He looked at her wistfully, then seemed to fall into a reverie,
+as if he were forgetting what he observed. The momentary situation ended, he
+passed on, and Eustacia sipped her wine without knowing what she drank. The man
+for whom she had pre-determined to nourish a passion went into the small room,
+and across it to the further extremity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mummers, as has been stated, were seated on a bench, one end of which
+extended into the small apartment, or pantry, for want of space in the outer
+room. Eustacia, partly from shyness, had chosen the midmost seat, which thus
+commanded a view of the interior of the pantry as well as the room containing
+the guests. When Clym passed down the pantry her eyes followed him in the gloom
+which prevailed there. At the remote end was a door which, just as he was about
+to open it for himself, was opened by somebody within; and light streamed
+forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The person was Thomasin, with a candle, looking anxious, pale, and interesting.
+Yeobright appeared glad to see her, and pressed her hand. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+right, Tamsie,&rdquo; he said heartily, as though recalled to himself by the
+sight of her, &ldquo;you have decided to come down. I am glad of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush&mdash;no, no,&rdquo; she said quickly. &ldquo;I only came to speak
+to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why not join us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot. At least I would rather not. I am not well enough, and we
+shall have plenty of time together now you are going to be home a good long
+holiday.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t nearly so pleasant without you. Are you really
+ill?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just a little, my old cousin&mdash;here,&rdquo; she said, playfully
+sweeping her hand across her heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, Mother should have asked somebody else to be present tonight,
+perhaps?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, indeed. I merely stepped down, Clym, to ask you&mdash;&rdquo; Here
+he followed her through the doorway into the private room beyond, and, the door
+closing, Eustacia and the mummer who sat next to her, the only other witness of
+the performance, saw and heard no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heat flew to Eustacia&rsquo;s head and cheeks. She instantly guessed that
+Clym, having been home only these two or three days, had not as yet been made
+acquainted with Thomasin&rsquo;s painful situation with regard to Wildeve; and
+seeing her living there just as she had been living before he left home, he
+naturally suspected nothing. Eustacia felt a wild jealousy of Thomasin on the
+instant. Though Thomasin might possibly have tender sentiments towards another
+man as yet, how long could they be expected to last when she was shut up here
+with this interesting and travelled cousin of hers? There was no knowing what
+affection might not soon break out between the two, so constantly in each
+other&rsquo;s society, and not a distracting object near. Clym&rsquo;s boyish
+love for her might have languished, but it might easily be revived again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia was nettled by her own contrivances. What a sheer waste of herself to
+be dressed thus while another was shining to advantage! Had she known the full
+effect of the encounter she would have moved heaven and earth to get here in a
+natural manner. The power of her face all lost, the charm of her emotions all
+disguised, the fascinations of her coquetry denied existence, nothing but a
+voice left to her; she had a sense of the doom of Echo. &ldquo;Nobody here
+respects me,&rdquo; she said. She had overlooked the fact that, in coming as a
+boy among other boys, she would be treated as a boy. The slight, though of her
+own causing, and self-explanatory, she was unable to dismiss as unwittingly
+shown, so sensitive had the situation made her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Women have done much for themselves in histrionic dress. To look far below
+those who, like a certain fair personator of Polly Peachum early in the last
+century, and another of Lydia Languish early in this,<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a>
+have won not only love but ducal coronets into the bargain, whole shoals of
+them have reached to the initial satisfaction of getting love almost whence
+they would. But the Turkish Knight was denied even the chance of achieving this
+by the fluttering ribbons which she dared not brush aside.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a>
+Written in 1877.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright returned to the room without his cousin. When within two or three
+feet of Eustacia he stopped, as if again arrested by a thought. He was gazing
+at her. She looked another way, disconcerted, and wondered how long this
+purgatory was to last. After lingering a few seconds he passed on again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To court their own discomfiture by love is a common instinct with certain
+perfervid women. Conflicting sensations of love, fear, and shame reduced
+Eustacia to a state of the utmost uneasiness. To escape was her great and
+immediate desire. The other mummers appeared to be in no hurry to leave; and
+murmuring to the lad who sat next to her that she preferred waiting for them
+outside the house, she moved to the door as imperceptibly as possible, opened
+it, and slipped out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The calm, lone scene reassured her. She went forward to the palings and leant
+over them, looking at the moon. She had stood thus but a little time when the
+door again opened. Expecting to see the remainder of the band Eustacia turned;
+but no&mdash;Clym Yeobright came out as softly as she had done, and closed the
+door behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He advanced and stood beside her. &ldquo;I have an odd opinion,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;and should like to ask you a question. Are you a woman&mdash;or am I
+wrong?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am a woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His eyes lingered on her with great interest. &ldquo;Do girls often play as
+mummers now? They never used to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They don&rsquo;t now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why did you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To get excitement and shake off depression,&rdquo; she said in low
+tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What depressed you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a cause of depression a good many have to put up
+with.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A long silence. &ldquo;And do you find excitement?&rdquo; asked Clym at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At this moment, perhaps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you are vexed at being discovered?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; though I thought I might be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would gladly have asked you to our party had I known you wished to
+come. Have I ever been acquainted with you in my youth?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you come in again, and stay as long as you like?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. I wish not to be further recognized.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you are safe with me.&rdquo; After remaining in thought a minute
+he added gently, &ldquo;I will not intrude upon you longer. It is a strange way
+of meeting, and I will not ask why I find a cultivated woman playing such a
+part as this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not volunteer the reason which he seemed to hope for, and he wished her
+good night, going thence round to the back of the house, where he walked up and
+down by himself for some time before re-entering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for her companions after
+this. She flung back the ribbons from her face, opened the gate, and at once
+struck into the heath. She did not hasten along. Her grandfather was in bed at
+this hour, for she so frequently walked upon the hills on moonlight nights that
+he took no notice of her comings and goings, and, enjoying himself in his own
+way, left her to do likewise. A more important subject than that of getting
+indoors now engrossed her. Yeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would
+infallibly discover her name. What then? She first felt a sort of exultation at
+the way in which the adventure had terminated, even though at moments between
+her exultations she was abashed and blushful. Then this consideration recurred
+to chill her: What was the use of her exploit? She was at present a total
+stranger to the Yeobright family. The unreasonable nimbus of romance with which
+she had encircled that man might be her misery. How could she allow herself to
+become so infatuated with a stranger? And to fill the cup of her sorrow there
+would be Thomasin, living day after day in inflammable proximity to him; for
+she had just learnt that, contrary to her first belief, he was going to stay at
+home some considerable time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she turned and
+faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood above the hills, and
+the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was charged with silence and frost.
+The scene reminded Eustacia of a circumstance which till that moment she had
+totally forgotten. She had promised to meet Wildeve by the Barrow this very
+night at eight, to give a final answer to his pleading for an elopement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come to the
+spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, so much the better&mdash;it did not hurt him,&rdquo; she said
+serenely. Wildeve had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked
+glass, and she could say such things as that with the greatest facility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin&rsquo;s winning manner towards her
+cousin arose again upon Eustacia&rsquo;s mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O that she had been married to Damon before this!&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;And she would if it hadn&rsquo;t been for me! If I had only
+known&mdash;if I had only known!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and, sighing
+that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder, entered the shadow
+of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the outhouse, rolled them up, and
+went indoors to her chamber.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>VII.<br />
+A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness</h2>
+
+<p>
+The old captain&rsquo;s prevailing indifference to his granddaughter&rsquo;s
+movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so happened
+that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why she had walked
+out so late.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only in search of events, Grandfather,&rdquo; she said, looking out of
+the window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much force
+behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Search of events&mdash;one would think you were one of the bucks I knew
+at one-and-twenty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is lonely here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be
+taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been home when I
+returned from the Woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t conceal what I did. I wanted an adventure, and I went with
+the mummers. I played the part of the Turkish Knight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn&rsquo;t expect it of you,
+Eustacia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last. Now I
+have told you&mdash;and remember it is a secret.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did&mdash;ha! ha! Dammy, how
+&rsquo;twould have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my
+girl. You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you
+don&rsquo;t bother me; but no figuring in breeches again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia&rsquo;s moral training never exceeding
+in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became profitable to
+good works, would be a result not dear at the price. But her thoughts soon
+strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a passionate and
+indescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not even a name, she went
+forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around her, restless as Ahasuerus the
+Jew. She was about half a mile from her residence when she beheld a sinister
+redness arising from a ravine a little way in advance&mdash;dull and lurid like
+a flame in sunlight and she guessed it to signify Diggory Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle during the last
+month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people replied, &ldquo;On Egdon
+Heath.&rdquo; Day after day the answer was the same. Now, since Egdon was
+populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather than with sheep and
+shepherds, and the downs where most of the latter were to be found lay some to
+the north, some to the west of Egdon, his reason for camping about there like
+Israel in Zin was not apparent. The position was central and occasionally
+desirable. But the sale of reddle was not Diggory&rsquo;s primary object in
+remaining on the heath, particularly at so late a period of the year, when most
+travellers of his class had gone into winter quarters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at their last meeting
+that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright as one ready and anxious to
+take his place as Thomasin&rsquo;s betrothed. His figure was perfect, his face
+young and well outlined, his eye bright, his intelligence keen, and his
+position one which he could readily better if he chose. But in spite of
+possibilities it was not likely that Thomasin would accept this Ishmaelitish
+creature while she had a cousin like Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the
+same time not absolutely indifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that
+poor Mrs. Yeobright, in her anxiety for her niece&rsquo;s future, had mentioned
+this lover to stimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the side of the
+Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt&rsquo;s desire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good morning, miss,&rdquo; said the reddleman, taking off his cap of
+hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of their
+last meeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good morning, reddleman,&rdquo; she said, hardly troubling to lift her
+heavily shaded eyes to his. &ldquo;I did not know you were so near. Is your van
+here too?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of purple-stemmed
+brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to form a dell. Brambles,
+though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter in early winter, being the
+latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The roof and chimney of Venn&rsquo;s caravan showed behind the tracery and
+tangles of the brake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You remain near this part?&rdquo; she asked with more interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I have business here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not altogether the selling of reddle?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has nothing to do with that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has to do with Miss Yeobright?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said frankly,
+&ldquo;Yes, miss; it is on account of her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On account of your approaching marriage with her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn flushed through his stain. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t make sport of me, Miss
+Vye,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t true?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere <i>pis aller</i> in Mrs.
+Yeobright&rsquo;s mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his
+promotion to that lowly standing. &ldquo;It was a mere notion of mine,&rdquo;
+she said quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech, when,
+looking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure serpentining
+upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top where she stood. Owing
+to the necessary windings of his course his back was at present towards them.
+She glanced quickly round; to escape that man there was only one way. Turning
+to Venn, she said, &ldquo;Would you allow me to rest a few minutes in your van?
+The banks are damp for sitting on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly, miss; I&rsquo;ll make a place for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling into which
+Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is the best I can do for you,&rdquo; he said, stepping down and
+retiring to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he walked up
+and down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from view on
+the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of other feet than
+the reddleman&rsquo;s, a not very friendly &ldquo;Good day&rdquo; uttered by
+two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the foot-fall of one
+of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her neck forward till she
+caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders; and she felt a wretched
+twinge of misery, she knew not why. It was the sickening feeling which, if the
+changed heart has any generosity at all in its composition, accompanies the
+sudden sight of a once-loved one who is beloved no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near.
+&ldquo;That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss,&rdquo; he said slowly, and
+expressed by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting
+unseen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I saw him coming up the hill,&rdquo; replied Eustacia. &ldquo;Why
+should you tell me that?&rdquo; It was a bold question, considering the
+reddleman&rsquo;s knowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner
+had power to repress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am glad to hear that you can ask it,&rdquo; said the reddleman
+bluntly. &ldquo;And, now I think of it, it agrees with what I saw last
+night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;what was that?&rdquo; Eustacia wished to leave him, but wished
+to know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting for a lady who
+didn&rsquo;t come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You waited too, it seems?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I always do. I was glad to see him disappointed. He will be there
+again tonight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady, so
+far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin&rsquo;s marriage with Mr.
+Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it clearly;
+that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from expectation, but it
+is usually withheld in complicated cases of two removes and upwards.
+&ldquo;Indeed, miss,&rdquo; he replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again
+tonight?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard him say to himself that he would. He&rsquo;s in a regular
+temper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting her deep
+dark eyes anxiously to his, &ldquo;I wish I knew what to do. I don&rsquo;t want
+to be uncivil to him; but I don&rsquo;t wish to see him again; and I have some
+few little things to return to him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you choose to send &rsquo;em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that
+you wish to say no more to him, I&rsquo;ll take it for you quite privately.
+That would be the most straightforward way of letting him know your
+mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Eustacia. &ldquo;Come towards my house, and I
+will bring it out to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the shaggy
+locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her trail. She saw from a
+distance that the captain was on the bank sweeping the horizon with his
+telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he stood she entered the house alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in placing them
+in his hand, &ldquo;Why are you so ready to take these for me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you ask that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as
+anxious as ever to help on her marriage?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn was a little moved. &ldquo;I would sooner have married her myself,&rdquo;
+he said in a low voice. &ldquo;But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy
+without him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man ought.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What a strange
+sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of selfishness which is
+frequently the chief constituent of the passion, and sometimes its only one!
+The reddleman&rsquo;s disinterestedness was so well deserving of respect that
+it overshot respect by being barely comprehended; and she almost thought it
+absurd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then we are both of one mind at last,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Venn gloomily. &ldquo;But if you would tell me,
+miss, why you take such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden
+and strange.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia appeared at a loss. &ldquo;I cannot tell you that, reddleman,&rdquo;
+she said coldly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia, went away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended the long
+acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from the earth
+immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia&rsquo;s emissary. He slapped
+Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young inn-keeper and ex-engineer started
+like Satan at the touch of Ithuriel&rsquo;s spear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The meeting is always at eight o&rsquo;clock, at this place,&rdquo; said
+Venn, &ldquo;and here we are&mdash;we three.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We three?&rdquo; said Wildeve, looking quickly round.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she.&rdquo; He held up the letter and
+parcel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve took them wonderingly. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t quite see what this
+means,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How do you come here? There must be some
+mistake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter.
+Lanterns for one.&rdquo; The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of
+tallow-candle which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-light an
+obscure rubicundity of person in his companion. &ldquo;You are the reddleman I
+saw on the hill this morning&mdash;why, you are the man
+who&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Please read the letter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you had come from the other one I shouldn&rsquo;t have been
+surprised,&rdquo; murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face
+grew serious.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;To Mr. W<small>ILDEVE</small>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;After some thought I have decided once and for all that we must hold no
+further communication. The more I consider the matter the more I am convinced
+that there must be an end to our acquaintance. Had you been uniformly faithful
+to me throughout these two years you might now have some ground for accusing me
+of heartlessness; but if you calmly consider what I bore during the period of
+your desertion, and how I passively put up with your courtship of another
+without once interfering, you will, I think, own that I have a right to consult
+my own feelings when you come back to me again. That these are not what they
+were towards you may, perhaps, be a fault in me, but it is one which you can
+scarcely reproach me for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin.<br />
+    The little articles you gave me in the early part of our friendship are
+returned by the bearer of this letter. They should rightly have been sent back
+when I first heard of your engagement to her.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+&ldquo;E<small>USTACIA</small>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which he had read
+the first half of the letter intensified to mortification. &ldquo;I am made a
+great fool of, one way and another,&rdquo; he said pettishly. &ldquo;Do you
+know what is in this letter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman hummed a tune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you answer me?&rdquo; asked Wildeve warmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ru-um-tum-tum,&rdquo; sang the reddleman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn&rsquo;s feet, till he allowed
+his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory&rsquo;s form, as illuminated by the
+candle, to his head and face. &ldquo;Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I deserve it,
+considering how I have played with them both,&rdquo; he said at last, as much
+to himself as to Venn. &ldquo;But of all the odd things that ever I knew, the
+oddest is that you should so run counter to your own interests as to bring this
+to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My interests?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly. &rsquo;Twas your interest not to do anything which would send
+me courting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you&mdash;or something like
+it. Mrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. &rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t true,
+then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn&rsquo;t believe it. When did
+she say so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it now,&rdquo; cried Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ru-um-tum-tum,&rdquo; sang Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Lord&mdash;how we can imitate!&rdquo; said Venn contemptuously.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have this out. I&rsquo;ll go straight to her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Diggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve&rsquo;s eye passing over his
+form in withering derision, as if he were no more than a heath-cropper. When
+the reddleman&rsquo;s figure could no longer be seen, Wildeve himself descended
+and plunged into the rayless hollow of the vale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To lose the two women&mdash;he who had been the well-beloved of both&mdash;was
+too ironical an issue to be endured. He could only decently save himself by
+Thomasin; and once he became her husband, Eustacia&rsquo;s repentance, he
+thought, would set in for a long and bitter term. It was no wonder that
+Wildeve, ignorant of the new man at the back of the scene, should have supposed
+Eustacia to be playing a part. To believe that the letter was not the result of
+some momentary pique, to infer that she really gave him up to Thomasin, would
+have required previous knowledge of her transfiguration by that man&rsquo;s
+influence. Who was to know that she had grown generous in the greediness of a
+new passion, that in coveting one cousin she was dealing liberally with
+another, that in her eagerness to appropriate she gave way?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Full of this resolve to marry in haste, and wring the heart of the proud girl,
+Wildeve went his way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Diggory Venn had returned to his van, where he stood looking
+thoughtfully into the stove. A new vista was opened up to him. But, however
+promising Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s views of him might be as a candidate for her
+niece&rsquo;s hand, one condition was indispensable to the favour of Thomasin
+herself, and that was a renunciation of his present wild mode of life. In this
+he saw little difficulty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He could not afford to wait till the next day before seeing Thomasin and
+detailing his plan. He speedily plunged himself into toilet operations, pulled
+a suit of cloth clothes from a box, and in about twenty minutes stood before
+the van-lantern as a reddleman in nothing but his face, the vermilion shades of
+which were not to be removed in a day. Closing the door and fastening it with a
+padlock, Venn set off towards Blooms-End.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had reached the white palings and laid his hand upon the gate when the door
+of the house opened, and quickly closed again. A female form had glided in. At
+the same time a man, who had seemingly been standing with the woman in the
+porch, came forward from the house till he was face to face with Venn. It was
+Wildeve again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Man alive, you&rsquo;ve been quick at it,&rdquo; said Diggory
+sarcastically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you slow, as you will find,&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;And,&rdquo;
+lowering his voice, &ldquo;you may as well go back again now. I&rsquo;ve
+claimed her, and got her. Good night, reddleman!&rdquo; Thereupon Wildeve
+walked away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn&rsquo;s heart sank within him, though it had not risen unduly high. He
+stood leaning over the palings in an indecisive mood for nearly a quarter of an
+hour. Then he went up the garden path, knocked, and asked for Mrs. Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of requesting him to enter she came to the porch. A discourse was
+carried on between them in low measured tones for the space of ten minutes or
+more. At the end of the time Mrs. Yeobright went in, and Venn sadly retraced
+his steps into the heath. When he had again regained his van he lit the
+lantern, and with an apathetic face at once began to pull off his best clothes,
+till in the course of a few minutes he reappeared as the confirmed and
+irretrievable reddleman that he had seemed before.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>VIII.<br />
+Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart</h2>
+
+<p>
+On that evening the interior of Blooms-End, though cosy and comfortable, had
+been rather silent. Clym Yeobright was not at home. Since the Christmas party
+he had gone on a few days&rsquo; visit to a friend about ten miles off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The shadowy form seen by Venn to part from Wildeve in the porch, and quickly
+withdraw into the house, was Thomasin&rsquo;s. On entering she threw down a
+cloak which had been carelessly wrapped round her, and came forward to the
+light, where Mrs. Yeobright sat at her work-table, drawn up within the settle,
+so that part of it projected into the chimney-corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin,&rdquo; said
+her aunt quietly, without looking up from her work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have only been just outside the door.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change in the tone of
+Thomasin&rsquo;s voice, and observing her. Thomasin&rsquo;s cheek was flushed
+to a pitch far beyond that which it had reached before her troubles, and her
+eyes glittered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was <i>he</i> who knocked,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought as much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He wishes the marriage to be at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed! What&mdash;is he anxious?&rdquo; Mrs. Yeobright directed a
+searching look upon her niece. &ldquo;Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did not wish to. You are not friends with him, he says. He would like
+the wedding to be the day after tomorrow, quite privately; at the church of his
+parish&mdash;not at ours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! And what did you say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I agreed to it,&rdquo; Thomasin answered firmly. &ldquo;I am a practical
+woman now. I don&rsquo;t believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any
+circumstances since&mdash;since Clym&rsquo;s letter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s work-basket, and at
+Thomasin&rsquo;s words her aunt reopened it, and silently read for the tenth
+time that day:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is the meaning of this silly story that people are circulating
+about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve? I should call such a scandal humiliating if
+there was the least chance of its being true. How could such a gross falsehood
+have arisen? It is said that one should go abroad to hear news of home, and I
+appear to have done it. Of course I contradict the tale everywhere; but it is
+very vexing, and I wonder how it could have originated. It is too ridiculous
+that such a girl as Thomasin could so mortify us as to get jilted on the
+wedding day. What has she done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter.
+&ldquo;If you think you can marry him, do so. And since Mr. Wildeve wishes it
+to be unceremonious, let it be that too. I can do nothing. It is all in your
+own hands now. My power over your welfare came to an end when you left this
+house to go with him to Anglebury.&rdquo; She continued, half in bitterness,
+&ldquo;I may almost ask, why do you consult me in the matter at all? If you had
+gone and married him without saying a word to me, I could hardly have been
+angry&mdash;simply because, poor girl, you can&rsquo;t do a better
+thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say that and dishearten me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are right&mdash;I will not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not plead for him, Aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a blind
+woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don&rsquo;t now. But
+I know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for the best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so do I, and we will both continue to,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright,
+rising and kissing her. &ldquo;Then the wedding, if it comes off, will be on
+the morning of the very day Clym comes home?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. After that you
+can look him in the face, and so can I. Our concealments will matter
+nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent, and presently said,
+&ldquo;Do you wish me to give you away? I am willing to undertake that, you
+know, if you wish, as I was last time. After once forbidding the banns I think
+I can do no less.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I will ask you to come,&rdquo; said Thomasin
+reluctantly, but with decision. &ldquo;It would be unpleasant, I am almost
+sure. Better let there be only strangers present, and none of my relations at
+all. I would rather have it so. I do not wish to do anything which may touch
+your credit, and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were there, after
+what has passed. I am only your niece, and there is no necessity why you should
+concern yourself more about me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, he has beaten us,&rdquo; her aunt said. &ldquo;It really seems as
+if he had been playing with you in this way in revenge for my humbling him as I
+did by standing up against him at first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, Aunt,&rdquo; murmured Thomasin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They said no more on the subject then. Diggory Venn&rsquo;s knock came soon
+after; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from her interview with him in the
+porch, carelessly observed, &ldquo;Another lover has come to ask for
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that queer young man Venn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Asks to pay his addresses to me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and I told him he was too late.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. &ldquo;Poor Diggory!&rdquo; she
+said, and then aroused herself to other things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation, both the women
+being anxious to immerse themselves in these to escape the emotional aspect of
+the situation. Some wearing apparel and other articles were collected anew for
+Thomasin, and remarks on domestic details were frequently made, so as to
+obscure any inner misgivings about her future as Wildeve&rsquo;s wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The appointed morning came. The arrangement with Wildeve was that he should
+meet her at the church to guard against any unpleasant curiosity which might
+have affected them had they been seen walking off together in the usual country
+way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride was dressing. The
+sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of Thomasin&rsquo;s hair, which she
+always wore braided. It was braided according to a calendar system&mdash;the
+more important the day the more numerous the strands in the braid. On ordinary
+working-days she braided it in threes; on ordinary Sundays in fours; at
+Maypolings, gipsyings, and the like, she braided it in fives. Years ago she had
+said that when she married she would braid it in sevens. She had braided it in
+sevens today.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;It is my wedding day, even though there may be something sad about
+the time. I mean,&rdquo; she added, anxious to correct any wrong impression,
+&ldquo;not sad in itself, but in its having had great disappointment and
+trouble before it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh. &ldquo;I
+almost wish Clym had been at home,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Of course you chose
+the time because of his absence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him all;
+but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry out the plan to
+its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was clear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a practical little woman,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling.
+&ldquo;I wish you and he&mdash;no, I don&rsquo;t wish anything. There, it is
+nine o&rsquo;clock,&rdquo; she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging
+downstairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told Damon I would leave at nine,&rdquo; said Thomasin, hastening out
+of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her aunt followed. When Thomasin was going up the little walk from the door to
+the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright looked reluctantly at her, and said, &ldquo;It
+is a shame to let you go alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is necessary,&rdquo; said Thomasin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At any rate,&rdquo; added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, &ldquo;I
+shall call upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. If Clym has
+returned by that time he will perhaps come too. I wish to show Mr. Wildeve that
+I bear him no ill-will. Let the past be forgotten. Well, God bless you! There,
+I don&rsquo;t believe in old superstitions, but I&rsquo;ll do it.&rdquo; She
+threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl, who turned, smiled, and
+went on again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few steps further, and she looked back. &ldquo;Did you call me, Aunt?&rdquo;
+she tremulously inquired. &ldquo;Good-bye!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s
+worn, wet face, she ran back, when her aunt came forward, and they met again.
+&ldquo;O&mdash;Tamsie,&rdquo; said the elder, weeping, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+like to let you go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;I am&mdash;&rdquo; Thomasin began, giving way likewise. But,
+quelling her grief, she said &ldquo;Good-bye!&rdquo; again and went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way between the scratching
+furze-bushes, and diminishing far up the valley&mdash;a pale-blue spot in a
+vast field of neutral brown, solitary and undefended except by the power of her
+own hope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the worst feature in the case was one which did not appear in the
+landscape; it was the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had been so timed as
+to enable her to escape the awkwardness of meeting her cousin Clym, who was
+returning the same morning. To own to the partial truth of what he had heard
+would be distressing as long as the humiliating position resulting from the
+event was unimproved. It was only after a second and successful journey to the
+altar that she could lift up her head and prove the failure of the first
+attempt a pure accident.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had not been gone from Blooms-End more than half an hour when Yeobright
+came by the meads from the other direction and entered the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had an early breakfast,&rdquo; he said to his mother after greeting
+her. &ldquo;Now I could eat a little more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They sat down to the repeated meal, and he went on in a low, anxious voice,
+apparently imagining that Thomasin had not yet come downstairs,
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this I have heard about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is true in many points,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright quietly;
+&ldquo;but it is all right now, I hope.&rdquo; She looked at the clock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thomasin is gone to him today.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym pushed away his breakfast. &ldquo;Then there is a scandal of some sort,
+and that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s the matter with Thomasin. Was it this that made
+her ill?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Not a scandal&mdash;a misfortune. I will tell you all about it,
+Clym. You must not be angry, but you must listen, and you&rsquo;ll find that
+what we have done has been done for the best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She then told him the circumstances. All that he had known of the affair before
+he returned from Paris was that there had existed an attachment between
+Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first discountenanced, but had
+since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin, looked upon in a little more
+favourable light. When she, therefore, proceeded to explain all he was greatly
+surprised and troubled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she determined that the wedding should be over before you came
+back,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright, &ldquo;that there might be no chance of her
+meeting you, and having a very painful time of it. That&rsquo;s why she has
+gone to him; they have arranged to be married this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I can&rsquo;t understand it,&rdquo; said Yeobright, rising.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis so unlike her. I can see why you did not write to me after
+her unfortunate return home. But why didn&rsquo;t you let me know when the
+wedding was going to be&mdash;the first time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be obstinate;
+and when I found that you were nothing in her mind I vowed that she should be
+nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my niece after all; I told her she
+might marry, but that I should take no interest in it, and should not bother
+you about it either.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It wouldn&rsquo;t have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might
+throw up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because of it, so
+I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time in a proper manner,
+I should have told you at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time. It
+may, considering he&rsquo;s the same man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose Wildeve
+is really a bad fellow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he won&rsquo;t come, and she&rsquo;ll come home again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You should have looked more into it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is useless to say that,&rdquo; his mother answered with an impatient
+look of sorrow. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know how bad it has been here with us
+all these weeks, Clym. You don&rsquo;t know what a mortification anything of
+that sort is to a woman. You don&rsquo;t know the sleepless nights we&rsquo;ve
+had in this house, and the almost bitter words that have passed between us
+since that Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven such weeks again.
+Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have been ashamed to look anybody
+in the face; and now you blame me for letting her do the only thing that can be
+done to set that trouble straight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said slowly. &ldquo;Upon the whole I don&rsquo;t blame
+you. But just consider how sudden it seems to me. Here was I, knowing nothing;
+and then I am told all at once that Tamsie is gone to be married. Well, I
+suppose there was nothing better to do. Do you know, Mother,&rdquo; he
+continued after a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his own past
+history, &ldquo;I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart? Yes, I did. How odd
+boys are! And when I came home and saw her this time she seemed so much more
+affectionate than usual, that I was quite reminded of those days, particularly
+on the night of the party, when she was unwell. We had the party just the
+same&mdash;was not that rather cruel to her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It made no difference. I had arranged to give one, and it was not worth
+while to make more gloom than necessary. To begin by shutting ourselves up and
+telling you of Tamsin&rsquo;s misfortunes would have been a poor sort of
+welcome.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym remained thinking. &ldquo;I almost wish you had not had that party,&rdquo;
+he said; &ldquo;and for other reasons. But I will tell you in a day or two. We
+must think of Tamsin now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They lapsed into silence. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what,&rdquo; said
+Yeobright again, in a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t think it kind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and
+neither of us there to keep up her spirits or care a bit about her. She
+hasn&rsquo;t disgraced herself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad
+enough that the wedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our
+keeping away from it in addition. Upon my soul, &rsquo;tis almost a shame.
+I&rsquo;ll go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is over by this time,&rdquo; said his mother with a sigh;
+&ldquo;unless they were late, or he&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don&rsquo;t quite
+like your keeping me in ignorance, Mother, after all. Really, I half hope he
+has failed to meet her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And ruined her character?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense&mdash;that wouldn&rsquo;t ruin Thomasin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked rather
+unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long left alone. A few
+minutes later Clym came back again, and in his company came Diggory Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I find there isn&rsquo;t time for me to get there,&rdquo; said Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she married?&rdquo; Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman
+a face in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was apparent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn bowed. &ldquo;She is, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How strange it sounds,&rdquo; murmured Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he didn&rsquo;t disappoint her this time?&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did not. And there is now no slight on her name. I was hastening
+ath&rsquo;art to tell you at once, as I saw you were not there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How came you to be there? How did you know it?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been in that neighbourhood for some time, and I saw them go
+in,&rdquo; said the reddleman. &ldquo;Wildeve came up to the door, punctual as
+the clock. I didn&rsquo;t expect it of him.&rdquo; He did not add, as he might
+have added, that how he came to be in that neighbourhood was not by accident;
+that, since Wildeve&rsquo;s resumption of his right to Thomasin, Venn, with the
+thoroughness which was part of his character, had determined to see the end of
+the episode.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who was there?&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody hardly. I stood right out of the way, and she did not see
+me.&rdquo; The reddleman spoke huskily, and looked into the garden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who gave her away?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Vye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered an honour, I
+suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s Miss Vye?&rdquo; said Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Captain Vye&rsquo;s granddaughter, of Mistover Knap.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A proud girl from Budmouth,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright. &ldquo;One not
+much to my liking. People say she&rsquo;s a witch, but of course that&rsquo;s
+absurd.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman kept to himself his acquaintance with that fair personage, and
+also that Eustacia was there because he went to fetch her, in accordance with a
+promise he had given as soon as he learnt that the marriage was to take place.
+He merely said, in continuation of the story&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was sitting on the churchyard wall when they came up, one from one
+way, the other from the other; and Miss Vye was walking thereabouts, looking at
+the headstones. As soon as they had gone in I went to the door, feeling I
+should like to see it, as I knew her so well. I pulled off my boots because
+they were so noisy, and went up into the gallery. I saw then that the parson
+and clerk were already there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it, if she was only on a
+walk that way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because there was nobody else. She had gone into the church just before
+me, not into the gallery. The parson looked round before beginning, and as she
+was the only one near he beckoned to her, and she went up to the rails. After
+that, when it came to signing the book, she pushed up her veil and signed; and
+Tamsin seemed to thank her for her kindness.&rdquo; The reddleman told the tale
+thoughtfully for there lingered upon his vision the changing colour of Wildeve,
+when Eustacia lifted the thick veil which had concealed her from recognition
+and looked calmly into his face. &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; said Diggory sadly,
+&ldquo;I came away, for her history as Tamsin Yeobright was over.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I offered to go,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. &ldquo;But she
+said it was not necessary.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it is no matter,&rdquo; said the reddleman. &ldquo;The thing is
+done at last as it was meant to be at first, and God send her happiness. Now
+I&rsquo;ll wish you good morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He placed his cap on his head and went out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s door, the reddleman was
+seen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months. He vanished
+entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had been standing was as
+vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a sign remained to show that he
+had been there, excepting a few straws, and a little redness on the turf, which
+was washed away by the next storm of rain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far as it went,
+was deficient in one significant particular, which had escaped him through his
+being at some distance back in the church. When Thomasin was tremblingly
+engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung towards Eustacia a glance that
+said plainly, &ldquo;I have punished you now.&rdquo; She had replied in a low
+tone&mdash;and he little thought how truly&mdash;&ldquo;You mistake; it gives
+me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today.&rdquo;
+</p>
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="book03"></a>BOOK THIRD&mdash;THE FASCINATION</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>I.<br />
+&ldquo;My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+In Clym Yeobright&rsquo;s face could be dimly seen the typical countenance of
+the future. Should there be a classic period to art hereafter, its Pheidias may
+produce such faces. The view of life as a thing to be put up with, replacing
+that zest for existence which was so intense in early civilizations, must
+ultimately enter so thoroughly into the constitution of the advanced races that
+its facial expression will become accepted as a new artistic departure. People
+already feel that a man who lives without disturbing a curve of feature, or
+setting a mark of mental concern anywhere upon himself, is too far removed from
+modern perceptiveness to be a modern type. Physically beautiful men&mdash;the
+glory of the race when it was young&mdash;are almost an anachronism now; and we
+may wonder whether, at some time or other, physically beautiful women may not
+be an anachronism likewise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries has permanently
+displaced the Hellenic idea of life, or whatever it may be called. What the
+Greeks only suspected we know well; what their Æschylus imagined our nursery
+children feel. That old-fashioned revelling in the general situation grows less
+and less possible as we uncover the defects of natural laws, and see the
+quandary that man is in by their operation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based upon this new
+recognition will probably be akin to those of Yeobright. The observer&rsquo;s
+eye was arrested, not by his face as a picture, but by his face as a page; not
+by what it was, but by what it recorded. His features were attractive in the
+light of symbols, as sounds intrinsically common become attractive in language,
+and as shapes intrinsically simple become interesting in writing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had been a lad of whom something was expected. Beyond this all had been
+chaos. That he would be successful in an original way, or that he would go to
+the dogs in an original way, seemed equally probable. The only absolute
+certainty about him was that he would not stand still in the circumstances amid
+which he was born.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighbouring yeomen, the
+listener said, &ldquo;Ah, Clym Yeobright&mdash;what is he doing now?&rdquo;
+When the instinctive question about a person is, What is he doing? it is felt
+that he will be found to be, like most of us, doing nothing in particular.
+There is an indefinite sense that he must be invading some region of
+singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that he is doing well. The secret
+faith is that he is making a mess of it. Half a dozen comfortable market-men,
+who were habitual callers at the Quiet Woman as they passed by in their carts,
+were partial to the topic. In fact, though they were not Egdon men, they could
+hardly avoid it while they sucked their long clay tubes and regarded the heath
+through the window. Clym had been so inwoven with the heath in his boyhood that
+hardly anybody could look upon it without thinking of him. So the subject
+recurred: if he were making a fortune and a name, so much the better for him;
+if he were making a tragical figure in the world, so much the better for a
+narrative.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fact was that Yeobright&rsquo;s fame had spread to an awkward extent before
+he left home. &ldquo;It is bad when your fame outruns your means,&rdquo; said
+the Spanish Jesuit Gracian. At the age of six he had asked a Scripture riddle:
+&ldquo;Who was the first man known to wear breeches?&rdquo; and applause had
+resounded from the very verge of the heath. At seven he painted the Battle of
+Waterloo with tiger-lily pollen and black-currant juice, in the absence of
+water-colours. By the time he reached twelve he had in this manner been heard
+of as artist and scholar for at least two miles round. An individual whose fame
+spreads three or four thousand yards in the time taken by the fame of others
+similarly situated to travel six or eight hundred, must of necessity have
+something in him. Possibly Clym&rsquo;s fame, like Homer&rsquo;s, owed
+something to the accidents of his situation; nevertheless famous he was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He grew up and was helped out in life. That waggery of fate which started Clive
+as a writing clerk, Gay as a linen-draper, Keats as a surgeon, and a thousand
+others in a thousand other odd ways, banished the wild and ascetic heath lad to
+a trade whose sole concern was with the especial symbols of self-indulgence and
+vainglory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The details of this choice of a business for him it is not necessary to give.
+At the death of his father a neighbouring gentleman had kindly undertaken to
+give the boy a start, and this assumed the form of sending him to Budmouth.
+Yeobright did not wish to go there, but it was the only feasible opening.
+Thence he went to London; and thence, shortly after, to Paris, where he had
+remained till now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something being expected of him, he had not been at home many days before a
+great curiosity as to why he stayed on so long began to arise in the heath. The
+natural term of a holiday had passed, yet he still remained. On the Sunday
+morning following the week of Thomasin&rsquo;s marriage a discussion on this
+subject was in progress at a hair-cutting before Fairway&rsquo;s house. Here
+the local barbering was always done at this hour on this day, to be followed by
+the great Sunday wash of the inhabitants at noon, which in its turn was
+followed by the great Sunday dressing an hour later. On Egdon Heath Sunday
+proper did not begin till dinner-time, and even then it was a somewhat battered
+specimen of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway; the victim
+sitting on a chopping-block in front of the house, without a coat, and the
+neighbours gossiping around, idly observing the locks of hair as they rose upon
+the wind after the snip, and flew away out of sight to the four quarters of the
+heavens. Summer and winter the scene was the same, unless the wind were more
+than usually blusterous, when the stool was shifted a few feet round the
+corner. To complain of cold in sitting out of doors, hatless and coatless,
+while Fairway told true stories between the cuts of the scissors, would have
+been to pronounce yourself no man at once. To flinch, exclaim, or move a muscle
+of the face at the small stabs under the ear received from those instruments,
+or at scarifications of the neck by the comb, would have been thought a gross
+breach of good manners, considering that Fairway did it all for nothing. A
+bleeding about the poll on Sunday afternoons was amply accounted for by the
+explanation. &ldquo;I have had my hair cut, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The conversation on Yeobright had been started by a distant view of the young
+man rambling leisurely across the heath before them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man who is doing well elsewhere wouldn&rsquo;t bide here two or three
+weeks for nothing,&rdquo; said Fairway. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got some project in
+&rsquo;s head&mdash;depend upon that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, &rsquo;a can&rsquo;t keep a diment shop here,&rdquo; said Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why he should have had them two heavy boxes home if he
+had not been going to bide; and what there is for him to do here the Lord in
+heaven knows.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before many more surmises could be indulged in Yeobright had come near; and
+seeing the hair-cutting group he turned aside to join them. Marching up, and
+looking critically at their faces for a moment, he said, without introduction,
+&ldquo;Now, folks, let me guess what you have been talking about.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, sure, if you will,&rdquo; said Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, it is a thing I shouldn&rsquo;t have dreamed of doing,
+otherwise,&rdquo; said Fairway in a tone of integrity; &ldquo;but since you
+have named it, Master Yeobright, I&rsquo;ll own that we was talking about
+&rsquo;ee. We were wondering what could keep you home here mollyhorning about
+when you have made such a world-wide name for yourself in the nick-nack
+trade&mdash;now, that&rsquo;s the truth o&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you,&rdquo; said Yeobright with unexpected earnestness.
+&ldquo;I am not sorry to have the opportunity. I&rsquo;ve come home because,
+all things considered, I can be a trifle less useless here than anywhere else.
+But I have only lately found this out. When I first got away from home I
+thought this place was not worth troubling about. I thought our life here was
+contemptible. To oil your boots instead of blacking them, to dust your coat
+with a switch instead of a brush&mdash;was there ever anything more ridiculous?
+I said.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So &rsquo;tis; so &rsquo;tis!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no&mdash;you are wrong; it isn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beg your pardon, we thought that was your maning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as my views changed my course became very depressing. I found that
+I was trying to be like people who had hardly anything in common with myself. I
+was endeavouring to put off one sort of life for another sort of life, which
+was not better than the life I had known before. It was simply
+different.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True; a sight different,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Paris must be a taking place,&rdquo; said Humphrey. &ldquo;Grand
+shop-winders, trumpets, and drums; and here be we out of doors in all winds and
+weathers&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you mistake me,&rdquo; pleaded Clym. &ldquo;All this was very
+depressing. But not so depressing as something I next perceived&mdash;that my
+business was the idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a man
+could be put to. That decided me&mdash;I would give it up and try to follow
+some rational occupation among the people I knew best, and to whom I could be
+of most use. I have come home; and this is how I mean to carry out my plan. I
+shall keep a school as near to Egdon as possible, so as to be able to walk over
+here and have a night-school in my mother&rsquo;s house. But I must study a
+little at first, to get properly qualified. Now, neighbours, I must go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Clym resumed his walk across the heath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll never carry it out in the world,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+&ldquo;In a few weeks he&rsquo;ll learn to see things otherwise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis good-hearted of the young man,&rdquo; said another.
+&ldquo;But, for my part, I think he had better mind his business.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>II.<br />
+The New Course Causes Disappointment</h2>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright loved his kind. He had a conviction that the want of most men was
+knowledge of a sort which brings wisdom rather than affluence. He wished to
+raise the class at the expense of individuals rather than individuals at the
+expense of the class. What was more, he was ready at once to be the first unit
+sacrificed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life the intermediate stages
+are usually two at least, frequently many more; and one of those stages is
+almost sure to be worldly advanced. We can hardly imagine bucolic placidity
+quickening to intellectual aims without imagining social aims as the
+transitional phase. Yeobright&rsquo;s local peculiarity was that in striving at
+high thinking he still cleaved to plain living&mdash;nay, wild and meagre
+living in many respects, and brotherliness with clowns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than repentance for his
+text. Mentally he was in a provincial future, that is, he was in many points
+abreast with the central town thinkers of his date. Much of this development he
+may have owed to his studious life in Paris, where he had become acquainted
+with ethical systems popular at the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In consequence of this relatively advanced position, Yeobright might have been
+called unfortunate. The rural world was not ripe for him. A man should be only
+partially before his time&mdash;to be completely to the vanward in aspirations
+is fatal to fame. Had Philip&rsquo;s warlike son been intellectually so far
+ahead as to have attempted civilization without bloodshed, he would have been
+twice the godlike hero that he seemed, but nobody would have heard of an
+Alexander.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the interests of renown the forwardness should lie chiefly in the capacity
+to handle things. Successful propagandists have succeeded because the doctrine
+they bring into form is that which their listeners have for some time felt
+without being able to shape. A man who advocates æsthetic effort and
+deprecates social effort is only likely to be understood by a class to which
+social effort has become a stale matter. To argue upon the possibility of
+culture before luxury to the bucolic world may be to argue truly, but it is an
+attempt to disturb a sequence to which humanity has been long accustomed.
+Yeobright preaching to the Egdon eremites that they might rise to a serene
+comprehensiveness without going through the process of enriching themselves was
+not unlike arguing to ancient Chaldeans that in ascending from earth to the
+pure empyrean it was not necessary to pass first into the intervening heaven of
+ether.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was Yeobright&rsquo;s mind well-proportioned? No. A well proportioned mind is
+one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that it will
+never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a heretic, or
+crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it will never cause
+him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest, or exalted as a king.
+Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity. It produces the poetry of
+Rogers, the paintings of West, the statecraft of North, the spiritual guidance
+of Tomline; enabling its possessors to find their way to wealth, to wind up
+well, to step with dignity off the stage, to die comfortably in their beds, and
+to get the decent monument which, in many cases, they deserve. It never would
+have allowed Yeobright to do such a ridiculous thing as throw up his business
+to benefit his fellow-creatures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He walked along towards home without attending to paths. If anyone knew the
+heath well it was Clym. He was permeated with its scenes, with its substance,
+and with its odours. He might be said to be its product. His eyes had first
+opened thereon; with its appearance all the first images of his memory were
+mingled, his estimate of life had been coloured by it: his toys had been the
+flint knives and arrow-heads which he found there, wondering why stones should
+&ldquo;grow&rdquo; to such odd shapes; his flowers, the purple bells and yellow
+furze: his animal kingdom, the snakes and croppers; his society, its human
+haunters. Take all the varying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the heath,
+and translate them into loves, and you have the heart of Clym. He gazed upon
+the wide prospect as he walked, and was glad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To many persons this Egdon was a place which had slipped out of its century
+generations ago, to intrude as an uncouth object into this. It was an obsolete
+thing, and few cared to study it. How could this be otherwise in the days of
+square fields, plashed hedges, and meadows watered on a plan so rectangular
+that on a fine day they looked like silver gridirons? The farmer, in his ride,
+who could smile at artificial grasses, look with solicitude at the coming corn,
+and sigh with sadness at the fly-eaten turnips, bestowed upon the distant
+upland of heath nothing better than a frown. But as for Yeobright, when he
+looked from the heights on his way he could not help indulging in a barbarous
+satisfaction at observing that, in some of the attempts at reclamation from the
+waste, tillage, after holding on for a year or two, had receded again in
+despair, the ferns and furze-tufts stubbornly reasserting themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He descended into the valley, and soon reached his home at Blooms-End. His
+mother was snipping dead leaves from the window-plants. She looked up at him as
+if she did not understand the meaning of his long stay with her; her face had
+worn that look for several days. He could perceive that the curiosity which had
+been shown by the hair-cutting group amounted in his mother to concern. But she
+had asked no question with her lips, even when the arrival of his trunk
+suggested that he was not going to leave her soon. Her silence besought an
+explanation of him more loudly than words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not going back to Paris again, Mother,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;At
+least, in my old capacity. I have given up the business.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright turned in pained surprise. &ldquo;I thought something was amiss,
+because of the boxes. I wonder you did not tell me sooner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ought to have done it. But I have been in doubt whether you would be
+pleased with my plan. I was not quite clear on a few points myself. I am going
+to take an entirely new course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am astonished, Clym. How can you want to do better than you&rsquo;ve
+been doing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very easily. But I shall not do better in the way you mean; I suppose it
+will be called doing worse. But I hate that business of mine, and I want to do
+some worthy thing before I die. As a schoolmaster I think to do it&mdash;a
+school-master to the poor and ignorant, to teach them what nobody else
+will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After all the trouble that has been taken to give you a start, and when
+there is nothing to do but to keep straight on towards affluence, you say you
+will be a poor man&rsquo;s schoolmaster. Your fancies will be your ruin,
+Clym.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke calmly, but the force of feeling behind the words was but
+too apparent to one who knew her as well as her son did. He did not answer.
+There was in his face that hopelessness of being understood which comes when
+the objector is constitutionally beyond the reach of a logic that, even under
+favouring conditions, is almost too coarse a vehicle for the subtlety of the
+argument.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No more was said on the subject till the end of dinner. His mother then began,
+as if there had been no interval since the morning. &ldquo;It disturbs me,
+Clym, to find that you have come home with such thoughts as those. I
+hadn&rsquo;t the least idea that you meant to go backward in the world by your
+own free choice. Of course, I have always supposed you were going to push
+straight on, as other men do&mdash;all who deserve the name&mdash;when they
+have been put in a good way of doing well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot help it,&rdquo; said Clym, in a troubled tone. &ldquo;Mother, I
+hate the flashy business. Talk about men who deserve the name, can any man
+deserving the name waste his time in that effeminate way, when he sees half the
+world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle to and teach them how to
+breast the misery they are born to? I get up every morning and see the whole
+creation groaning and travailing in pain, as St. Paul says, and yet there am I,
+trafficking in glittering splendours with wealthy women and titled libertines,
+and pandering to the meanest vanities&mdash;I, who have health and strength
+enough for anything. I have been troubled in my mind about it all the year, and
+the end is that I cannot do it any more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t you do it as well as others?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, except that there are many things other people care
+for which I don&rsquo;t; and that&rsquo;s partly why I think I ought to do
+this. For one thing, my body does not require much of me. I cannot enjoy
+delicacies; good things are wasted upon me. Well, I ought to turn that defect
+to advantage, and by being able to do without what other people require I can
+spend what such things cost upon anybody else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very instincts from the woman
+before him, could not fail to awaken a reciprocity in her through her feelings,
+if not by arguments, disguise it as she might for his good. She spoke with less
+assurance. &ldquo;And yet you might have been a wealthy man if you had only
+persevered. Manager to that large diamond establishment&mdash;what better can a
+man wish for? What a post of trust and respect! I suppose you will be like your
+father; like him, you are getting weary of doing well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said her son, &ldquo;I am not weary of that, though I am
+weary of what you mean by it. Mother, what is doing well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be content with ready
+definitions, and, like the &ldquo;What is wisdom?&rdquo; of Plato&rsquo;s
+Socrates, and the &ldquo;What is truth?&rdquo; of Pontius Pilate,
+Yeobright&rsquo;s burning question received no answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The silence was broken by the clash of the garden gate, a tap at the door, and
+its opening. Christian Cantle appeared in the room in his Sunday clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story before absolutely
+entering the house, so as to be well in for the body of the narrative by the
+time visitor and visited stood face to face. Christian had been saying to them
+while the door was leaving its latch, &ldquo;To think that I, who go from home
+but once in a while, and hardly then, should have been there this
+morning!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis news you have brought us, then, Christian?&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, sure, about a witch, and ye must overlook my time o&rsquo; day; for,
+says I, &lsquo;I must go and tell &rsquo;em, though they won&rsquo;t have half
+done dinner.&rsquo; I assure ye it made me shake like a driven leaf. Do ye
+think any harm will come o&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This morning at church we was all standing up, and the pa&rsquo;son
+said, &lsquo;Let us pray.&rsquo; &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; thinks I, &lsquo;one may
+as well kneel as stand&rsquo;; so down I went; and, more than that, all the
+rest were as willing to oblige the man as I. We hadn&rsquo;t been hard at it
+for more than a minute when a most terrible screech sounded through church, as
+if somebody had just gied up their heart&rsquo;s blood. All the folk jumped up
+and then we found that Susan Nunsuch had pricked Miss Vye with a long
+stocking-needle, as she had threatened to do as soon as ever she could get the
+young lady to church, where she don&rsquo;t come very often. She&rsquo;ve
+waited for this chance for weeks, so as to draw her blood and put an end to the
+bewitching of Susan&rsquo;s children that has been carried on so long. Sue
+followed her into church, sat next to her, and as soon as she could find a
+chance in went the stocking-needle into my lady&rsquo;s arm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heaven, how horrid!&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sue pricked her that deep that the maid fainted away; and as I was
+afeard there might be some tumult among us, I got behind the bass viol and
+didn&rsquo;t see no more. But they carried her out into the air, &rsquo;tis
+said; but when they looked round for Sue she was gone. What a scream that girl
+gied, poor thing! There were the pa&rsquo;son in his surplice holding up his
+hand and saying, &lsquo;Sit down, my good people, sit down!&rsquo; But the
+deuce a bit would they sit down. O, and what d&rsquo;ye think I found out, Mrs.
+Yeobright? The pa&rsquo;son wears a suit of clothes under his surplice!&mdash;I
+could see his black sleeves when he held up his arm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a cruel thing,&rdquo; said Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said his mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The nation ought to look into it,&rdquo; said Christian.
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s Humphrey coming, I think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In came Humphrey. &ldquo;Well, have ye heard the news? But I see you have.
+&rsquo;Tis a very strange thing that whenever one of Egdon folk goes to church
+some rum job or other is sure to be doing. The last time one of us was there
+was when neighbour Fairway went in the fall; and that was the day you forbad
+the banns, Mrs. Yeobright.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Has this cruelly treated girl been able to walk home?&rdquo; said Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say she got better, and went home very well. And now I&rsquo;ve
+told it I must be moving homeward myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I,&rdquo; said Humphrey. &ldquo;Truly now we shall see if
+there&rsquo;s anything in what folks say about her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they were gone into the heath again Yeobright said quietly to his mother,
+&ldquo;Do you think I have turned teacher too soon?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is right that there should be schoolmasters, and missionaries, and
+all such men,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;But it is right, too, that I should
+try to lift you out of this life into something richer, and that you should not
+come back again, and be as if I had not tried at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Later in the day Sam, the turf-cutter, entered. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve come
+a-borrowing, Mrs. Yeobright. I suppose you have heard what&rsquo;s been
+happening to the beauty on the hill?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Sam: half a dozen have been telling us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beauty?&rdquo; said Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, tolerably well-favoured,&rdquo; Sam replied. &ldquo;Lord! all the
+country owns that &rsquo;tis one of the strangest things in the world that such
+a woman should have come to live up there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dark or fair?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, though I&rsquo;ve seen her twenty times, that&rsquo;s a thing I
+cannot call to mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Darker than Tamsin,&rdquo; murmured Mrs. Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A woman who seems to care for nothing at all, as you may say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is melancholy, then?&rdquo; inquired Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She mopes about by herself, and don&rsquo;t mix in with the
+people.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not to my knowledge.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t join in with the lads in their games, to get some sort of
+excitement in this lonely place?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mumming, for instance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Her notions be different. I should rather say her thoughts were far
+away from here, with lords and ladies she&rsquo;ll never know, and mansions
+she&rsquo;ll never see again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Observing that Clym appeared singularly interested Mrs. Yeobright said rather
+uneasily to Sam, &ldquo;You see more in her than most of us do. Miss Vye is to
+my mind too idle to be charming. I have never heard that she is of any use to
+herself or to other people. Good girls don&rsquo;t get treated as witches even
+on Egdon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense&mdash;that proves nothing either way,&rdquo; said Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, of course I don&rsquo;t understand such niceties,&rdquo; said Sam,
+withdrawing from a possibly unpleasant argument; &ldquo;and what she is we must
+wait for time to tell us. The business that I have really called about is this,
+to borrow the longest and strongest rope you have. The captain&rsquo;s bucket
+has dropped into the well, and they are in want of water; and as all the chaps
+are at home today we think we can get it out for him. We have three cart-ropes
+already, but they won&rsquo;t reach to the bottom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright told him that he might have whatever ropes he could find in the
+outhouse, and Sam went out to search. When he passed by the door Clym joined
+him, and accompanied him to the gate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this young witch-lady going to stay long at Mistover?&rdquo; he
+asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a cruel shame to ill-use her, She must have suffered
+greatly&mdash;more in mind than in body.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas a graceless trick&mdash;such a handsome girl, too. You ought
+to see her, Mr. Yeobright, being a young man come from far, and with a little
+more to show for your years than most of us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think she would like to teach children?&rdquo; said Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam shook his head. &ldquo;Quite a different sort of body from that, I
+reckon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, it was merely something which occurred to me. It would of course be
+necessary to see her and talk it over&mdash;not an easy thing, by the way, for
+my family and hers are not very friendly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you how you mid see her, Mr. Yeobright,&rdquo; said Sam.
+&ldquo;We are going to grapple for the bucket at six o&rsquo;clock tonight at
+her house, and you could lend a hand. There&rsquo;s five or six coming, but the
+well is deep, and another might be useful, if you don&rsquo;t mind appearing in
+that shape. She&rsquo;s sure to be walking round.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll think of it,&rdquo; said Yeobright; and they parted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He thought of it a good deal; but nothing more was said about Eustacia inside
+the house at that time. Whether this romantic martyr to superstition and the
+melancholy mummer he had conversed with under the full moon were one and the
+same person remained as yet a problem.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>III.<br />
+The First Act in a Timeworn Drama</h2>
+
+<p>
+The afternoon was fine, and Yeobright walked on the heath for an hour with his
+mother. When they reached the lofty ridge which divided the valley of
+Blooms-End from the adjoining valley they stood still and looked round. The
+Quiet Woman Inn was visible on the low margin of the heath in one direction,
+and afar on the other hand rose Mistover Knap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mean to call on Thomasin?&rdquo; he inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. But you need not come this time,&rdquo; said his mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In that case I&rsquo;ll branch off here, Mother. I am going to
+Mistover.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright turned to him inquiringly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going to help them get the bucket out of the captain&rsquo;s
+well,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;As it is so very deep I may be useful. And I
+should like to see this Miss Vye&mdash;not so much for her good looks as for
+another reason.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Must you go?&rdquo; his mother asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And they parted. &ldquo;There is no help for it,&rdquo; murmured Clym&rsquo;s
+mother gloomily as he withdrew. &ldquo;They are sure to see each other. I wish
+Sam would carry his news to other houses than mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym&rsquo;s retreating figure got smaller and smaller as it rose and fell over
+the hillocks on his way. &ldquo;He is tender-hearted,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Yeobright to herself while she watched him; &ldquo;otherwise it would matter
+little. How he&rsquo;s going on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was, indeed, walking with a will over the furze, as straight as a line, as
+if his life depended upon it. His mother drew a long breath, and, abandoning
+the visit to Thomasin, turned back. The evening films began to make nebulous
+pictures of the valleys, but the high lands still were raked by the declining
+rays of the winter sun, which glanced on Clym as he walked forward, eyed by
+every rabbit and field-fare around, a long shadow advancing in front of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On drawing near to the furze-covered bank and ditch which fortified the
+captain&rsquo;s dwelling he could hear voices within, signifying that
+operations had been already begun. At the side-entrance gate he stopped and
+looked over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half a dozen able-bodied men were standing in a line from the well-mouth,
+holding a rope which passed over the well-roller into the depths below.
+Fairway, with a piece of smaller rope round his body, made fast to one of the
+standards, to guard against accidents, was leaning over the opening, his right
+hand clasping the vertical rope that descended into the well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, silence, folks,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The talking ceased, and Fairway gave a circular motion to the rope, as if he
+were stirring batter. At the end of a minute a dull splashing reverberated from
+the bottom of the well; the helical twist he had imparted to the rope had
+reached the grapnel below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Haul!&rdquo; said Fairway; and the men who held the rope began to gather
+it over the wheel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think we&rsquo;ve got sommat,&rdquo; said one of the haulers-in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then pull steady,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They gathered up more and more, till a regular dripping into the well could be
+heard below. It grew smarter with the increasing height of the bucket, and
+presently a hundred and fifty feet of rope had been pulled in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fairway then lit a lantern, tied it to another cord, and began lowering it into
+the well beside the first: Clym came forward and looked down. Strange humid
+leaves, which knew nothing of the seasons of the year, and quaint-natured
+mosses were revealed on the wellside as the lantern descended; till its rays
+fell upon a confused mass of rope and bucket dangling in the dank, dark air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve only got en by the edge of the hoop&mdash;steady, for
+God&rsquo;s sake!&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They pulled with the greatest gentleness, till the wet bucket appeared about
+two yards below them, like a dead friend come to earth again. Three or four
+hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz went the wheel, the
+two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating of a falling body was heard,
+receding down the sides of the well, and a thunderous uproar arose at the
+bottom. The bucket was gone again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Damn the bucket!&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lower again,&rdquo; said Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m as stiff as a ram&rsquo;s horn stooping so long,&rdquo; said
+Fairway, standing up and stretching himself till his joints creaked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rest a few minutes, Timothy,&rdquo; said Yeobright. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+take your place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The grapnel was again lowered. Its smart impact upon the distant water reached
+their ears like a kiss, whereupon Yeobright knelt down, and leaning over the
+well began dragging the grapnel round and round as Fairway had done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tie a rope round him&mdash;it is dangerous!&rdquo; cried a soft and
+anxious voice somewhere above them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everybody turned. The speaker was a woman, gazing down upon the group from an
+upper window, whose panes blazed in the ruddy glare from the west. Her lips
+were parted and she appeared for the moment to forget where she was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rope was accordingly tied round his waist, and the work proceeded. At the
+next haul the weight was not heavy, and it was discovered that they had only
+secured a coil of the rope detached from the bucket. The tangled mass was
+thrown into the background. Humphrey took Yeobright&rsquo;s place, and the
+grapnel was lowered again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright retired to the heap of recovered rope in a meditative mood. Of the
+identity between the lady&rsquo;s voice and that of the melancholy mummer he
+had not a moment&rsquo;s doubt. &ldquo;How thoughtful of her!&rdquo; he said to
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect of her exclamation
+upon the group below, was no longer to be seen at the window, though Yeobright
+scanned it wistfully. While he stood there the men at the well succeeded in
+getting up the bucket without a mishap. One of them went to inquire for the
+captain, to learn what orders he wished to give for mending the well-tackle.
+The captain proved to be away from home, and Eustacia appeared at the door and
+came out. She had lapsed into an easy and dignified calm, far removed from the
+intensity of life in her words of solicitude for Clym&rsquo;s safety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?&rdquo; she inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. And as we can
+do no more now we&rsquo;ll leave off, and come again tomorrow morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No water,&rdquo; she murmured, turning away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can send you up some from Blooms-End,&rdquo; said Clym, coming forward
+and raising his hat as the men retired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant, as if each had in
+mind those few moments during which a certain moonlight scene was common to
+both. With the glance the calm fixity of her features sublimed itself to an
+expression of refinement and warmth; it was like garish noon rising to the
+dignity of sunset in a couple of seconds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you; it will hardly be necessary,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if you have no water?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it is what I call no water,&rdquo; she said, blushing, and lifting
+her long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them were a work requiring consideration.
+&ldquo;But my grandfather calls it water enough. I&rsquo;ll show you what I
+mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She moved away a few yards, and Clym followed. When she reached the corner of
+the enclosure, where the steps were formed for mounting the boundary bank, she
+sprang up with a lightness which seemed strange after her listless movement
+towards the well. It incidentally showed that her apparent languor did not
+arise from lack of force.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the top of the
+bank. &ldquo;Ashes?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Eustacia. &ldquo;We had a little bonfire here last
+Fifth of November, and those are the marks of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the only kind of water we have,&rdquo; she continued,
+tossing a stone into the pool, which lay on the outside of the bank like the
+white of an eye without its pupil. The stone fell with a flounce, but no
+Wildeve appeared on the other side, as on a previous occasion there. &ldquo;My
+grandfather says he lived for more than twenty years at sea on water twice as
+bad as that,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;and considers it quite good enough for
+us here on an emergency.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities in the water of these
+pools at this time of the year. It has only just rained into them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head. &ldquo;I am managing to exist in a wilderness, but I cannot
+drink from a pond,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym looked towards the well, which was now deserted, the men having gone home.
+&ldquo;It is a long way to send for spring-water,&rdquo; he said, after a
+silence. &ldquo;But since you don&rsquo;t like this in the pond, I&rsquo;ll try
+to get you some myself.&rdquo; He went back to the well. &ldquo;Yes, I think I
+could do it by tying on this pail.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, since I would not trouble the men to get it, I cannot in conscience
+let you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind the trouble at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made fast the pail to the long coil of rope, put it over the wheel, and
+allowed it to descend by letting the rope slip through his hands. Before it had
+gone far, however, he checked it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must make fast the end first, or we may lose the whole,&rdquo; he said
+to Eustacia, who had drawn near. &ldquo;Could you hold this a moment, while I
+do it&mdash;or shall I call your servant?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can hold it,&rdquo; said Eustacia; and he placed the rope in her
+hands, going then to search for the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose I may let it slip down?&rdquo; she inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would advise you not to let it go far,&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;It
+will get much heavier, you will find.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, Eustacia had begun to pay out. While he was tying she cried, &ldquo;I
+cannot stop it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym ran to her side, and found he could only check the rope by twisting the
+loose part round the upright post, when it stopped with a jerk. &ldquo;Has it
+hurt you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very much?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; I think not.&rdquo; She opened her hands. One of them was bleeding;
+the rope had dragged off the skin. Eustacia wrapped it in her handkerchief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You should have let go,&rdquo; said Yeobright. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You said I was to hold on.... This is the second time I have been
+wounded today.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, yes; I have heard of it. I blush for my native Egdon. Was it a
+serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was such an abundance of sympathy in Clym&rsquo;s tone that Eustacia
+slowly drew up her sleeve and disclosed her round white arm. A bright red spot
+appeared on its smooth surface, like a ruby on Parian marble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There it is,&rdquo; she said, putting her finger against the spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was dastardly of the woman,&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;Will not Captain
+Vye get her punished?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is gone from home on that very business. I did not know that I had
+such a magic reputation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you fainted?&rdquo; said Clym, looking at the scarlet little
+puncture as if he would like to kiss it and make it well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it frightened me. I had not been to church for a long time. And now
+I shall not go again for ever so long&mdash;perhaps never. I cannot face their
+eyes after this. Don&rsquo;t you think it dreadfully humiliating? I wished I
+was dead for hours after, but I don&rsquo;t mind now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have come to clean away these cobwebs,&rdquo; said Yeobright.
+&ldquo;Would you like to help me&mdash;by high-class teaching? We might benefit
+them much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t quite feel anxious to. I have not much love for my
+fellow-creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Still I think that if you were to hear my scheme you might take an
+interest in it. There is no use in hating people&mdash;if you hate anything,
+you should hate what produced them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean Nature? I hate her already. But I shall be glad to hear your
+scheme at any time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The situation had now worked itself out, and the next natural thing was for
+them to part. Clym knew this well enough, and Eustacia made a move of
+conclusion; yet he looked at her as if he had one word more to say. Perhaps if
+he had not lived in Paris it would never have been uttered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have met before,&rdquo; he said, regarding her with rather more
+interest than was necessary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not own it,&rdquo; said Eustacia, with a repressed, still look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I may think what I like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are lonely here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season. The heath is a
+cruel taskmaster to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you say so?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;To my mind it is most
+exhilarating, and strengthening, and soothing. I would rather live on these
+hills than anywhere else in the world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn to draw.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there is a very curious druidical stone just out there.&rdquo; He
+threw a pebble in the direction signified. &ldquo;Do you often go to see
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was not even aware there existed any such curious druidical stone. I
+am aware that there are boulevards in Paris.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground. &ldquo;That means much,&rdquo; he
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It does indeed,&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle. Five years of a
+great city would be a perfect cure for that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heaven send me such a cure! Now, Mr. Yeobright, I will go indoors and
+plaster my wounded hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade. She seemed full
+of many things. Her past was a blank, her life had begun. The effect upon Clym
+of this meeting he did not fully discover till some time after. During his walk
+home his most intelligible sensation was that his scheme had somehow become
+glorified. A beautiful woman had been intertwined with it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On reaching the house he went up to the room which was to be made his study,
+and occupied himself during the evening in unpacking his books from the boxes
+and arranging them on shelves. From another box he drew a lamp and a can of
+oil. He trimmed the lamp, arranged his table, and said, &ldquo;Now, I am ready
+to begin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+He rose early the next morning, read two hours before breakfast by the light of
+his lamp&mdash;read all the morning, all the afternoon. Just when the sun was
+going down his eyes felt weary, and he leant back in his chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His room overlooked the front of the premises and the valley of the heath
+beyond. The lowest beams of the winter sun threw the shadow of the house over
+the palings, across the grass margin of the heath, and far up the vale, where
+the chimney outlines and those of the surrounding tree-tops stretched forth in
+long dark prongs. Having been seated at work all day, he decided to take a turn
+upon the hills before it got dark; and, going out forthwith, he struck across
+the heath towards Mistover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an hour and a half later when he again appeared at the garden gate. The
+shutters of the house were closed, and Christian Cantle, who had been wheeling
+manure about the garden all day, had gone home. On entering he found that his
+mother, after waiting a long time for him, had finished her meal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where have you been, Clym?&rdquo; she immediately said. &ldquo;Why
+didn&rsquo;t you tell me that you were going away at this time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been on the heath.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll meet Eustacia Vye if you go up there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym paused a minute. &ldquo;Yes, I met her this evening,&rdquo; he said, as
+though it were spoken under the sheer necessity of preserving honesty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wondered if you had.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was no appointment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; such meetings never are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you are not angry, Mother?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can hardly say that I am not. Angry? No. But when I consider the usual
+nature of the drag which causes men of promise to disappoint the world I feel
+uneasy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You deserve credit for the feeling, Mother. But I can assure you that
+you need not be disturbed by it on my account.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When I think of you and your new crotchets,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright,
+with some emphasis, &ldquo;I naturally don&rsquo;t feel so comfortable as I did
+a twelvemonth ago. It is incredible to me that a man accustomed to the
+attractive women of Paris and elsewhere should be so easily worked upon by a
+girl in a heath. You could just as well have walked another way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had been studying all day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes,&rdquo; she added more hopefully, &ldquo;I have been thinking
+that you might get on as a schoolmaster, and rise that way, since you really
+are determined to hate the course you were pursuing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright was unwilling to disturb this idea, though his scheme was far enough
+removed from one wherein the education of youth should be made a mere channel
+of social ascent. He had no desires of that sort. He had reached the stage in a
+young man&rsquo;s life when the grimness of the general human situation first
+becomes clear; and the realization of this causes ambition to halt awhile. In
+France it is not uncustomary to commit suicide at this stage; in England we do
+much better, or much worse, as the case may be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The love between the young man and his mother was strangely invisible now. Of
+love it may be said, the less earthly the less demonstrative. In its absolutely
+indestructible form it reaches a profundity in which all exhibition of itself
+is painful. It was so with these. Had conversations between them been
+overheard, people would have said, &ldquo;How cold they are to each
+other!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His theory and his wishes about devoting his future to teaching had made an
+impression on Mrs. Yeobright. Indeed, how could it be otherwise when he was a
+part of her&mdash;when their discourses were as if carried on between the right
+and the left hands of the same body? He had despaired of reaching her by
+argument; and it was almost as a discovery to him that he could reach her by a
+magnetism which was as superior to words as words are to yells.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Strangely enough he began to feel now that it would not be so hard to persuade
+her who was his best friend that comparative poverty was essentially the higher
+course for him, as to reconcile to his feelings the act of persuading her. From
+every provident point of view his mother was so undoubtedly right, that he was
+not without a sickness of heart in finding he could shake her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had a singular insight into life, considering that she had never mixed with
+it. There are instances of persons who, without clear ideas of the things they
+criticize have yet had clear ideas of the relations of those things. Blacklock,
+a poet blind from his birth, could describe visual objects with accuracy;
+Professor Sanderson, who was also blind, gave excellent lectures on colour, and
+taught others the theory of ideas which they had and he had not. In the social
+sphere these gifted ones are mostly women; they can watch a world which they
+never saw, and estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it
+intuition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What was the great world to Mrs. Yeobright? A multitude whose tendencies could
+be perceived, though not its essences. Communities were seen by her as from a
+distance; she saw them as we see the throngs which cover the canvases of
+Sallaert, Van Alsloot, and others of that school&mdash;vast masses of beings,
+jostling, zigzagging, and processioning in definite directions, but whose
+features are indistinguishable by the very comprehensiveness of the view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One could see that, as far as it had gone, her life was very complete on its
+reflective side. The philosophy of her nature, and its limitation by
+circumstances, was almost written in her movements. They had a majestic
+foundation, though they were far from being majestic; and they had a
+ground-work of assurance, but they were not assured. As her once elastic walk
+had become deadened by time, so had her natural pride of life been hindered in
+its blooming by her necessities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next slight touch in the shaping of Clym&rsquo;s destiny occurred a few
+days after. A barrow was opened on the heath, and Yeobright attended the
+operation, remaining away from his study during several hours. In the afternoon
+Christian returned from a journey in the same direction, and Mrs. Yeobright
+questioned him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They have dug a hole, and they have found things like flowerpots upside
+down, Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright; and inside these be real charnel bones. They
+have carried &rsquo;em off to men&rsquo;s houses; but I shouldn&rsquo;t like to
+sleep where they will bide. Dead folks have been known to come and claim their
+own. Mr. Yeobright had got one pot of the bones, and was going to bring
+&rsquo;em home&mdash;real skellington bones&mdash;but &rsquo;twas ordered
+otherwise. You&rsquo;ll be relieved to hear that he gave away his pot and all,
+on second thoughts; and a blessed thing for ye, Mis&rsquo;ess Yeobright,
+considering the wind o&rsquo; nights.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gave it away?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. To Miss Vye. She has a cannibal taste for such churchyard furniture
+seemingly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Vye was there too?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, &rsquo;a b&rsquo;lieve she was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Clym came home, which was shortly after, his mother said, in a curious
+tone, &ldquo;The urn you had meant for me you gave away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright made no reply; the current of her feeling was too pronounced to admit
+it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The early weeks of the year passed on. Yeobright certainly studied at home, but
+he also walked much abroad, and the direction of his walk was always towards
+some point of a line between Mistover and Rainbarrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The month of March arrived, and the heath showed its first signs of awakening
+from winter trance. The awakening was almost feline in its stealthiness. The
+pool outside the bank by Eustacia&rsquo;s dwelling, which seemed as dead and
+desolate as ever to an observer who moved and made noises in his observation,
+would gradually disclose a state of great animation when silently watched
+awhile. A timid animal world had come to life for the season. Little tadpoles
+and efts began to bubble up through the water, and to race along beneath it;
+toads made noises like very young ducks, and advanced to the margin in twos and
+threes; overhead, bumblebees flew hither and thither in the thickening light,
+their drone coming and going like the sound of a gong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On an evening such as this Yeobright descended into the Blooms-End valley from
+beside that very pool, where he had been standing with another person quite
+silently and quite long enough to hear all this puny stir of resurrection in
+nature; yet he had not heard it. His walk was rapid as he came down, and he
+went with a springy trend. Before entering upon his mother&rsquo;s premises he
+stopped and breathed. The light which shone forth on him from the window
+revealed that his face was flushed and his eye bright. What it did not show was
+something which lingered upon his lips like a seal set there. The abiding
+presence of this impress was so real that he hardly dared to enter the house,
+for it seemed as if his mother might say, &ldquo;What red spot is that glowing
+upon your mouth so vividly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he entered soon after. The tea was ready, and he sat down opposite his
+mother. She did not speak many words; and as for him, something had been just
+done and some words had been just said on the hill which prevented him from
+beginning a desultory chat. His mother&rsquo;s taciturnity was not without
+ominousness, but he appeared not to care. He knew why she said so little, but
+he could not remove the cause of her bearing towards him. These half-silent
+sittings were far from uncommon with them now. At last Yeobright made a
+beginning of what was intended to strike at the whole root of the matter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five days have we sat like this at meals with scarcely a word.
+What&rsquo;s the use of it, Mother?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None,&rdquo; said she, in a heart-swollen tone. &ldquo;But there is only
+too good a reason.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not when you know all. I have been wanting to speak about this, and I am
+glad the subject is begun. The reason, of course, is Eustacia Vye. Well, I
+confess I have seen her lately, and have seen her a good many times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes; and I know what that amounts to. It troubles me, Clym. You are
+wasting your life here; and it is solely on account of her. If it had not been
+for that woman you would never have entertained this teaching scheme at
+all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym looked hard at his mother. &ldquo;You know that is not it,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I know you had decided to attempt it before you saw her; but that
+would have ended in intentions. It was very well to talk of, but ridiculous to
+put in practice. I fully expected that in the course of a month or two you
+would have seen the folly of such self-sacrifice, and would have been by this
+time back again to Paris in some business or other. I can understand objections
+to the diamond trade&mdash;I really was thinking that it might be inadequate to
+the life of a man like you even though it might have made you a millionaire.
+But now I see how mistaken you are about this girl I doubt if you could be
+correct about other things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How am I mistaken in her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is lazy and dissatisfied. But that is not all of it. Supposing her
+to be as good a woman as any you can find, which she certainly is not, why do
+you wish to connect yourself with anybody at present?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there are practical reasons,&rdquo; Clym began, and then almost
+broke off under an overpowering sense of the weight of argument which could be
+brought against his statement. &ldquo;If I take a school an educated woman
+would be invaluable as a help to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! you really mean to marry her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would be premature to state that plainly. But consider what obvious
+advantages there would be in doing it. She&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t suppose she has any money. She hasn&rsquo;t a
+farthing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is excellently educated, and would make a good matron in a
+boarding-school. I candidly own that I have modified my views a little, in
+deference to you; and it should satisfy you. I no longer adhere to my intention
+of giving with my own mouth rudimentary education to the lowest class. I can do
+better. I can establish a good private school for farmers&rsquo; sons, and
+without stopping the school I can manage to pass examinations. By this means,
+and by the assistance of a wife like her&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Clym!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools in
+the county.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright had enunciated the word &ldquo;her&rdquo; with a fervour which, in
+conversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a maternal heart
+within the four seas could in such circumstances, have helped being irritated
+at that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are blinded, Clym,&rdquo; she said warmly. &ldquo;It was a bad day
+for you when you first set eyes on her. And your scheme is merely a castle in
+the air built on purpose to justify this folly which has seized you, and to
+salve your conscience on the irrational situation you are in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother, that&rsquo;s not true,&rdquo; he firmly answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you maintain that I sit and tell untruths, when all I wish to do is
+to save you from sorrow? For shame, Clym! But it is all through that
+woman&mdash;a hussy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym reddened like fire and rose. He placed his hand upon his mother&rsquo;s
+shoulder and said, in a tone which hung strangely between entreaty and command,
+&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t hear it. I may be led to answer you in a way which we
+shall both regret.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His mother parted her lips to begin some other vehement truth, but on looking
+at him she saw that in his face which led her to leave the words unsaid.
+Yeobright walked once or twice across the room, and then suddenly went out of
+the house. It was eleven o&rsquo;clock when he came in, though he had not been
+further than the precincts of the garden. His mother was gone to bed. A light
+was left burning on the table, and supper was spread. Without stopping for any
+food he secured the doors and went upstairs.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>IV.<br />
+An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness</h2>
+
+<p>
+The next day was gloomy enough at Blooms-End. Yeobright remained in his study,
+sitting over the open books; but the work of those hours was miserably scant.
+Determined that there should be nothing in his conduct towards his mother
+resembling sullenness, he had occasionally spoken to her on passing matters,
+and would take no notice of the brevity of her replies. With the same resolve
+to keep up a show of conversation he said, about seven o&rsquo;clock in the
+evening, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s an eclipse of the moon tonight. I am going out to
+see it.&rdquo; And, putting on his overcoat, he left her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The low moon was not as yet visible from the front of the house, and Yeobright
+climbed out of the valley until he stood in the full flood of her light. But
+even now he walked on, and his steps were in the direction of Rainbarrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In half an hour he stood at the top. The sky was clear from verge to verge, and
+the moon flung her rays over the whole heath, but without sensibly lighting it,
+except where paths and water-courses had laid bare the white flints and
+glistening quartz sand, which made streaks upon the general shade. After
+standing awhile he stooped and felt the heather. It was dry, and he flung
+himself down upon the barrow, his face towards the moon, which depicted a small
+image of herself in each of his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had often come up here without stating his purpose to his mother; but this
+was the first time that he had been ostensibly frank as to his purpose while
+really concealing it. It was a moral situation which, three months earlier, he
+could hardly have credited of himself. In returning to labour in this
+sequestered spot he had anticipated an escape from the chafing of social
+necessities; yet behold they were here also. More than ever he longed to be in
+some world where personal ambition was not the only recognized form of
+progress&mdash;such, perhaps, as might have been the case at some time or other
+in the silvery globe then shining upon him. His eye travelled over the length
+and breadth of that distant country&mdash;over the Bay of Rainbows, the sombre
+Sea of Crises, the Ocean of Storms, the Lake of Dreams, the vast Walled Plains,
+and the wondrous Ring Mountains&mdash;till he almost felt himself to be
+voyaging bodily through its wild scenes, standing on its hollow hills,
+traversing its deserts, descending its vales and old sea bottoms, or mounting
+to the edges of its craters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he watched the far-removed landscape a tawny stain grew into being on the
+lower verge&mdash;the eclipse had begun. This marked a preconcerted
+moment&mdash;for the remote celestial phenomenon had been pressed into
+sublunary service as a lover&rsquo;s signal. Yeobright&rsquo;s mind flew back
+to earth at the sight; he arose, shook himself and listened. Minute after
+minute passed by, perhaps ten minutes passed, and the shadow on the moon
+perceptibly widened. He heard a rustling on his left hand, a cloaked figure
+with an upturned face appeared at the base of the Barrow, and Clym descended.
+In a moment the figure was in his arms, and his lips upon hers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My Eustacia!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clym, dearest!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a situation had less than three months brought forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They remained long without a single utterance, for no language could reach the
+level of their condition&mdash;words were as the rusty implements of a by-gone
+barbarous epoch, and only to be occasionally tolerated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I began to wonder why you did not come,&rdquo; said Yeobright, when she
+had withdrawn a little from his embrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You said ten minutes after the first mark of shade on the edge of the
+moon, and that&rsquo;s what it is now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, let us only think that here we are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, holding each other&rsquo;s hand, they were again silent, and the shadow
+on the moon&rsquo;s disc grew a little larger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Has it seemed long since you last saw me?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has seemed sad.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And not long? That&rsquo;s because you occupy yourself, and so blind
+yourself to my absence. To me, who can do nothing, it has been like living
+under stagnant water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would rather bear tediousness, dear, than have time made short by such
+means as have shortened mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what way is that? You have been thinking you wished you did not love
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How can a man wish that, and yet love on? No, Eustacia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Men can, women cannot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, whatever I may have thought, one thing is certain&mdash;I do love
+you&mdash;past all compass and description. I love you to
+oppressiveness&mdash;I, who have never before felt more than a pleasant passing
+fancy for any woman I have ever seen. Let me look right into your moonlit face
+and dwell on every line and curve in it! Only a few hairbreadths make the
+difference between this face and faces I have seen many times before I knew
+you; yet what a difference&mdash;the difference between everything and nothing
+at all. One touch on that mouth again! there, and there, and there. Your eyes
+seem heavy, Eustacia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, it is my general way of looking. I think it arises from my feeling
+sometimes an agonizing pity for myself that I ever was born.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t feel it now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. Nothing can
+ensure the continuance of love. It will evaporate like a spirit, and so I feel
+full of fears.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, you don&rsquo;t know. You have seen more than I, and have been into
+cities and among people that I have only heard of, and have lived more years
+than I; but yet I am older at this than you. I loved another man once, and now
+I love you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In God&rsquo;s mercy don&rsquo;t talk so, Eustacia!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I do not think I shall be the one who wearies first. It will, I
+fear, end in this way: your mother will find out that you meet me, and she will
+influence you against me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That can never be. She knows of these meetings already.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she speaks against me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, go away! Obey her. I shall ruin you. It is foolish of you to meet
+me like this. Kiss me, and go away forever. Forever&mdash;do you
+hear?&mdash;forever!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is your only chance. Many a man&rsquo;s love has been a curse to
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are desperate, full of fancies, and wilful; and you misunderstand. I
+have an additional reason for seeing you tonight besides love of you. For
+though, unlike you, I feel our affection may be eternal. I feel with you in
+this, that our present mode of existence cannot last.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! &rsquo;tis your mother. Yes, that&rsquo;s it! I knew it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind what it is. Believe this, I cannot let myself lose you. I
+must have you always with me. This very evening I do not like to let you go.
+There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest&mdash;you must be my
+wife.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started&mdash;then endeavoured to say calmly, &ldquo;Cynics say that cures
+the anxiety by curing the love.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you must answer me. Shall I claim you some day&mdash;I don&rsquo;t
+mean at once?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must think,&rdquo; Eustacia murmured. &ldquo;At present speak of Paris
+to me. Is there any place like it on earth?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is very beautiful. But will you be mine?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will be nobody else&rsquo;s in the world&mdash;does that satisfy
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, for the present.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now tell me of the Tuileries, and the Louvre,&rdquo; she continued
+evasively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hate talking of Paris! Well, I remember one sunny room in the Louvre
+which would make a fitting place for you to live in&mdash;the Galerie
+d&rsquo;Apollon. Its windows are mainly east; and in the early morning, when
+the sun is bright, the whole apartment is in a perfect blaze of splendour. The
+rays bristle and dart from the encrustations of gilding to the magnificent
+inlaid coffers, from the coffers to the gold and silver plate, from the plate
+to the jewels and precious stones, from these to the enamels, till there is a
+perfect network of light which quite dazzles the eye. But now, about our
+marriage&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Versailles&mdash;the King&rsquo;s Gallery is some such gorgeous
+room, is it not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. But what&rsquo;s the use of talking of gorgeous rooms? By the way,
+the Little Trianon would suit us beautifully to live in, and you might walk in
+the gardens in the moonlight and think you were in some English shrubbery; it
+is laid out in English fashion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should hate to think that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you could keep to the lawn in front of the Grand Palace. All about
+there you would doubtless feel in a world of historical romance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went on, since it was all new to her, and described Fontainebleau, St.
+Cloud, the Bois, and many other familiar haunts of the Parisians; till she
+said&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When used you to go to these places?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On Sundays.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, yes. I dislike English Sundays. How I should chime in with their
+manners over there! Dear Clym, you&rsquo;ll go back again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym shook his head, and looked at the eclipse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you&rsquo;ll go back again I&rsquo;ll&mdash;be something,&rdquo; she
+said tenderly, putting her head near his breast. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;ll agree
+I&rsquo;ll give my promise, without making you wait a minute longer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How extraordinary that you and my mother should be of one mind about
+this!&rdquo; said Yeobright. &ldquo;I have vowed not to go back, Eustacia. It
+is not the place I dislike; it is the occupation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you can go in some other capacity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Besides, it would interfere with my scheme. Don&rsquo;t press that,
+Eustacia. Will you marry me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot tell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now&mdash;never mind Paris; it is no better than other spots. Promise,
+sweet!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will never adhere to your education plan, I am quite sure; and then
+it will be all right for me; and so I promise to be yours for ever and
+ever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym brought her face towards his by a gentle pressure of the hand, and kissed
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! but you don&rsquo;t know what you have got in me,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;Sometimes I think there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make a
+good homespun wife. Well, let it go&mdash;see how our time is slipping,
+slipping, slipping!&rdquo; She pointed towards the half-eclipsed moon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are too mournful.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Only I dread to think of anything beyond the present. What is, we
+know. We are together now, and it is unknown how long we shall be so; the
+unknown always fills my mind with terrible possibilities, even when I may
+reasonably expect it to be cheerful.... Clym, the eclipsed moonlight shines
+upon your face with a strange foreign colour, and shows its shape as if it were
+cut out in gold. That means that you should be doing better things than
+this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are ambitious, Eustacia&mdash;no, not exactly ambitious, luxurious.
+I ought to be of the same vein, to make you happy, I suppose. And yet, far from
+that, I could live and die in a hermitage here, with proper work to do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was that in his tone which implied distrust of his position as a
+solicitous lover, a doubt if he were acting fairly towards one whose tastes
+touched his own only at rare and infrequent points. She saw his meaning, and
+whispered, in a low, full accent of eager assurance, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mistake
+me, Clym&mdash;though I should like Paris, I love you for yourself alone. To be
+your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to me; but I would rather live with
+you in a hermitage here than not be yours at all. It is gain to me either way,
+and very great gain. There&rsquo;s my too candid confession.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spoken like a woman. And now I must soon leave you. I&rsquo;ll walk with
+you towards your house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But must you go home yet?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Yes, the sand has
+nearly slipped away, I see, and the eclipse is creeping on more and more.
+Don&rsquo;t go yet! Stop till the hour has run itself out; then I will not
+press you any more. You will go home and sleep well; I keep sighing in my
+sleep! Do you ever dream of me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot recollect a clear dream of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see your face in every scene of my dreams, and hear your voice in
+every sound. I wish I did not. It is too much what I feel. They say such love
+never lasts. But it must! And yet once, I remember, I saw an officer of the
+Hussars ride down the street at Budmouth, and though he was a total stranger
+and never spoke to me, I loved him till I thought I should really die of
+love&mdash;but I didn&rsquo;t die, and at last I left off caring for him. How
+terrible it would be if a time should come when I could not love you, my
+Clym!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Please don&rsquo;t say such reckless things. When we see such a time at
+hand we will say, &lsquo;I have outlived my faith and purpose,&rsquo; and die.
+There, the hour has expired&mdash;now let us walk on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hand in hand they went along the path towards Mistover. When they were near the
+house he said, &ldquo;It is too late for me to see your grandfather tonight. Do
+you think he will object to it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will speak to him. I am so accustomed to be my own mistress that it
+did not occur to me that we should have to ask him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they lingeringly separated, and Clym descended towards Blooms-End.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And as he walked further and further from the charmed atmosphere of his
+Olympian girl his face grew sad with a new sort of sadness. A perception of the
+dilemma in which his love had placed him came back in full force. In spite of
+Eustacia&rsquo;s apparent willingness to wait through the period of an
+unpromising engagement, till he should be established in his new pursuit, he
+could not but perceive at moments that she loved him rather as a visitant from
+a gay world to which she rightly belonged than as a man with a purpose opposed
+to that recent past of his which so interested her. It meant that, though she
+made no conditions as to his return to the French capital, this was what she
+secretly longed for in the event of marriage; and it robbed him of many an
+otherwise pleasant hour. Along with that came the widening breach between
+himself and his mother. Whenever any little occurrence had brought into more
+prominence than usual the disappointment that he was causing her it had sent
+him on lone and moody walks; or he was kept awake a great part of the night by
+the turmoil of spirit which such a recognition created. If Mrs. Yeobright could
+only have been led to see what a sound and worthy purpose this purpose of his
+was and how little it was being affected by his devotions to Eustacia, how
+differently would she regard him!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus as his sight grew accustomed to the first blinding halo kindled about him
+by love and beauty, Yeobright began to perceive what a strait he was in.
+Sometimes he wished that he had never known Eustacia, immediately to retract
+the wish as brutal. Three antagonistic growths had to be kept alive: his
+mother&rsquo;s trust in him, his plan for becoming a teacher, and
+Eustacia&rsquo;s happiness. His fervid nature could not afford to relinquish
+one of these, though two of the three were as many as he could hope to
+preserve. Though his love was as chaste as that of Petrarch for his Laura, it
+had made fetters of what previously was only a difficulty. A position which was
+not too simple when he stood whole-hearted had become indescribably complicated
+by the addition of Eustacia. Just when his mother was beginning to tolerate one
+scheme he had introduced another still bitterer than the first, and the
+combination was more than she could bear.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>V.<br />
+Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues</h2>
+
+<p>
+When Yeobright was not with Eustacia he was sitting slavishly over his books;
+when he was not reading he was meeting her. These meetings were carried on with
+the greatest secrecy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One afternoon his mother came home from a morning visit to Thomasin. He could
+see from a disturbance in the lines of her face that something had happened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been told an incomprehensible thing,&rdquo; she said mournfully.
+&ldquo;The captain has let out at the Woman that you and Eustacia Vye are
+engaged to be married.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are,&rdquo; said Yeobright. &ldquo;But it may not be yet for a very
+long time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should hardly think it <i>would</i> be yet for a very long time! You
+will take her to Paris, I suppose?&rdquo; She spoke with weary hopelessness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not going back to Paris.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What will you do with a wife, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep a school in Budmouth, as I have told you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s incredible! The place is overrun with schoolmasters. You
+have no special qualifications. What possible chance is there for such as
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is no chance of getting rich. But with my system of education,
+which is as new as it is true, I shall do a great deal of good to my
+fellow-creatures.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be invented they
+would have found it out at the universities long before this time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never, Mother. They cannot find it out, because their teachers
+don&rsquo;t come in contact with the class which demands such a
+system&mdash;that is, those who have had no preliminary training. My plan is
+one for instilling high knowledge into empty minds without first cramming them
+with what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I might have believed you if you had kept yourself free from
+entanglements; but this woman&mdash;if she had been a good girl it would have
+been bad enough; but being&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is a good girl.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you think. A Corfu bandmaster&rsquo;s daughter! What has her life
+been? Her surname even is not her true one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is Captain Vye&rsquo;s granddaughter, and her father merely took her
+mother&rsquo;s name. And she is a lady by instinct.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They call him &lsquo;captain,&rsquo; but anybody is captain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was in the Royal Navy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No doubt he has been to sea in some tub or other. Why doesn&rsquo;t he
+look after her? No lady would rove about the heath at all hours of the day and
+night as she does. But that&rsquo;s not all of it. There was something queer
+between her and Thomasin&rsquo;s husband at one time&mdash;I am as sure of it
+as that I stand here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eustacia has told me. He did pay her a little attention a year ago; but
+there&rsquo;s no harm in that. I like her all the better.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clym,&rdquo; said his mother with firmness, &ldquo;I have no proofs
+against her, unfortunately. But if she makes you a good wife, there has never
+been a bad one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Believe me, you are almost exasperating,&rdquo; said Yeobright
+vehemently. &ldquo;And this very day I had intended to arrange a meeting
+between you. But you give me no peace; you try to thwart my wishes in
+everything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hate the thought of any son of mine marrying badly! I wish I had never
+lived to see this; it is too much for me&mdash;it is more than I dreamt!&rdquo;
+She turned to the window. Her breath was coming quickly, and her lips were
+pale, parted, and trembling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; said Clym, &ldquo;whatever you do, you will always be
+dear to me&mdash;that you know. But one thing I have a right to say, which is,
+that at my age I am old enough to know what is best for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright remained for some time silent and shaken, as if she could say no
+more. Then she replied, &ldquo;Best? Is it best for you to injure your
+prospects for such a voluptuous, idle woman as that? Don&rsquo;t you see that
+by the very fact of your choosing her you prove that you do not know what is
+best for you? You give up your whole thought&mdash;you set your whole
+soul&mdash;to please a woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do. And that woman is you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How can you treat me so flippantly!&rdquo; said his mother, turning
+again to him with a tearful look. &ldquo;You are unnatural, Clym, and I did not
+expect it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very likely,&rdquo; said he cheerlessly. &ldquo;You did not know the
+measure you were going to mete me, and therefore did not know the measure that
+would be returned to you again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You answer me; you think only of her. You stick to her in all
+things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That proves her to be worthy. I have never yet supported what is bad.
+And I do not care only for her. I care for you and for myself, and for anything
+that is good. When a woman once dislikes another she is merciless!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Clym! please don&rsquo;t go setting down as my fault what is your
+obstinate wrongheadedness. If you wished to connect yourself with an unworthy
+person why did you come home here to do it? Why didn&rsquo;t you do it in
+Paris?&mdash;it is more the fashion there. You have come only to distress me, a
+lonely woman, and shorten my days! I wish that you would bestow your presence
+where you bestow your love!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym said huskily, &ldquo;You are my mother. I will say no more&mdash;beyond
+this, that I beg your pardon for having thought this my home. I will no longer
+inflict myself upon you; I&rsquo;ll go.&rdquo; And he went out with tears in
+his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a sunny afternoon at the beginning of summer, and the moist hollows of
+the heath had passed from their brown to their green stage. Yeobright walked to
+the edge of the basin which extended down from Mistover and Rainbarrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time he was calm, and he looked over the landscape. In the minor
+valleys, between the hillocks which diversified the contour of the vale, the
+fresh young ferns were luxuriantly growing up, ultimately to reach a height of
+five or six feet. He descended a little way, flung himself down in a spot where
+a path emerged from one of the small hollows, and waited. Hither it was that he
+had promised Eustacia to bring his mother this afternoon, that they might meet
+and be friends. His attempt had utterly failed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was in a nest of vivid green. The ferny vegetation round him, though so
+abundant, was quite uniform&mdash;it was a grove of machine-made foliage, a
+world of green triangles with saw-edges, and not a single flower. The air was
+warm with a vaporous warmth, and the stillness was unbroken. Lizards,
+grasshoppers, and ants were the only living things to be beheld. The scene
+seemed to belong to the ancient world of the carboniferous period, when the
+forms of plants were few, and of the fern kind; when there was neither bud nor
+blossom, nothing but a monotonous extent of leafage, amid which no bird sang.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he had reclined for some considerable time, gloomily pondering, he
+discerned above the ferns a drawn bonnet of white silk approaching from the
+left, and Yeobright knew directly that it covered the head of her he loved. His
+heart awoke from its apathy to a warm excitement, and, jumping to his feet, he
+said aloud, &ldquo;I knew she was sure to come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She vanished in a hollow for a few moments, and then her whole form unfolded
+itself from the brake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only you here?&rdquo; she exclaimed, with a disappointed air, whose
+hollowness was proved by her rising redness and her half-guilty low laugh.
+&ldquo;Where is Mrs. Yeobright?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She has not come,&rdquo; he replied in a subdued tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I had known that you would be here alone,&rdquo; she said
+seriously, &ldquo;and that we were going to have such an idle, pleasant time as
+this. Pleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to
+double it. I have not thought once today of having you all to myself this
+afternoon, and the actual moment of a thing is so soon gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is indeed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor Clym!&rdquo; she continued, looking tenderly into his face.
+&ldquo;You are sad. Something has happened at your home. Never mind what
+is&mdash;let us only look at what seems.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, darling, what shall we do?&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Still go on as we do now&mdash;just live on from meeting to meeting,
+never minding about another day. You, I know, are always thinking of
+that&mdash;I can see you are. But you must not&mdash;will you, dear
+Clym?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are just like all women. They are ever content to build their lives
+on any incidental position that offers itself; whilst men would fain make a
+globe to suit them. Listen to this, Eustacia. There is a subject I have
+determined to put off no longer. Your sentiment on the wisdom of <i>Carpe
+diem</i> does not impress me today. Our present mode of life must shortly be
+brought to an end.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is your mother!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is. I love you none the less in telling you; it is only right you
+should know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have feared my bliss,&rdquo; she said, with the merest motion of her
+lips. &ldquo;It has been too intense and consuming.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is hope yet. There are forty years of work in me yet, and why
+should you despair? I am only at an awkward turning. I wish people
+wouldn&rsquo;t be so ready to think that there is no progress without
+uniformity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;your mind runs off to the philosophical side of it. Well, these
+sad and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to look
+with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to indulge in. I have
+heard of people, who, upon coming suddenly into happiness, have died from
+anxiety lest they should not live to enjoy it. I felt myself in that whimsical
+state of uneasiness lately; but I shall be spared it now. Let us walk
+on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym took the hand which was already bared for him&mdash;it was a favourite way
+with them to walk bare hand in bare hand&mdash;and led her through the ferns.
+They formed a very comely picture of love at full flush, as they walked along
+the valley that late afternoon, the sun sloping down on their right, and
+throwing their thin spectral shadows, tall as poplar trees, far out across the
+furze and fern. Eustacia went with her head thrown back fancifully, a certain
+glad and voluptuous air of triumph pervading her eyes at having won by her own
+unaided self a man who was her perfect complement in attainment, appearance,
+and age. On the young man&rsquo;s part, the paleness of face which he had
+brought with him from Paris, and the incipient marks of time and thought, were
+less perceptible than when he returned, the healthful and energetic sturdiness
+which was his by nature having partially recovered its original proportions.
+They wandered onward till they reached the nether margin of the heath, where it
+became marshy and merged in moorland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must part from you here, Clym,&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stood still and prepared to bid each other farewell. Everything before
+them was on a perfect level. The sun, resting on the horizon line, streamed
+across the ground from between copper-coloured and lilac clouds, stretched out
+in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green. All dark objects on the earth that
+lay towards the sun were overspread by a purple haze, against which groups of
+wailing gnats shone out, rising upwards and dancing about like sparks of fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O! this leaving you is too hard to bear!&rdquo; exclaimed Eustacia in a
+sudden whisper of anguish. &ldquo;Your mother will influence you too much; I
+shall not be judged fairly, it will get afloat that I am not a good girl, and
+the witch story will be added to make me blacker!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They cannot. Nobody dares to speak disrespectfully of you or of
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh how I wish I was sure of never losing you&mdash;that you could not be
+able to desert me anyhow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym stood silent a moment. His feelings were high, the moment was passionate,
+and he cut the knot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall be sure of me, darling,&rdquo; he said, folding her in his
+arms. &ldquo;We will be married at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Clym!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you agree to it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If&mdash;if we can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We certainly can, both being of full age. And I have not followed my
+occupation all these years without having accumulated money; and if you will
+agree to live in a tiny cottage somewhere on the heath, until I take a house in
+Budmouth for the school, we can do it at a very little expense.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long shall we have to live in the tiny cottage, Clym?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About six months. At the end of that time I shall have finished my
+reading&mdash;yes, we will do it, and this heart-aching will be over. We shall,
+of course, live in absolute seclusion, and our married life will only begin to
+outward view when we take the house in Budmouth, where I have already addressed
+a letter on the matter. Would your grandfather allow you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think he would&mdash;on the understanding that it should not last
+longer than six months.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will guarantee that, if no misfortune happens.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If no misfortune happens,&rdquo; she repeated slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which is not likely. Dearest, fix the exact day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then they consulted on the question, and the day was chosen. It was to be a
+fortnight from that time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the end of their talk, and Eustacia left him. Clym watched her as she
+retired towards the sun. The luminous rays wrapped her up with her increasing
+distance, and the rustle of her dress over the sprouting sedge and grass died
+away. As he watched, the dead flat of the scenery overpowered him, though he
+was fully alive to the beauty of that untarnished early summer green which was
+worn for the nonce by the poorest blade. There was something in its oppressive
+horizontality which too much reminded him of the arena of life; it gave him a
+sense of bare equality with, and no superiority to, a single living thing under
+the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia was now no longer the goddess but the woman to him, a being to fight
+for, support, help, be maligned for. Now that he had reached a cooler moment he
+would have preferred a less hasty marriage; but the card was laid, and he
+determined to abide by the game. Whether Eustacia was to add one other to the
+list of those who love too hotly to love long and well, the forthcoming event
+was certainly a ready way of proving.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>VI.<br />
+Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete</h2>
+
+<p>
+All that evening smart sounds denoting an active packing up came from
+Yeobright&rsquo;s room to the ears of his mother downstairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next morning he departed from the house and again proceeded across the heath. A
+long day&rsquo;s march was before him, his object being to secure a dwelling to
+which he might take Eustacia when she became his wife. Such a house, small,
+secluded, and with its windows boarded up, he had casually observed a month
+earlier, about two miles beyond the village of East Egdon, and six miles
+distant altogether; and thither he directed his steps today.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The weather was far different from that of the evening before. The yellow and
+vapoury sunset which had wrapped up Eustacia from his parting gaze had presaged
+change. It was one of those not infrequent days of an English June which are as
+wet and boisterous as November. The cold clouds hastened on in a body, as if
+painted on a moving slide. Vapours from other continents arrived upon the wind,
+which curled and parted round him as he walked on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length Clym reached the margin of a fir and beech plantation that had been
+enclosed from heath-land in the year of his birth. Here the trees, laden
+heavily with their new and humid leaves, were now suffering more damage than
+during the highest winds of winter, when the boughs are especially
+disencumbered to do battle with the storm. The wet young beeches were
+undergoing amputations, bruises, cripplings, and harsh lacerations, from which
+the wasting sap would bleed for many a day to come, and which would leave scars
+visible till the day of their burning. Each stem was wrenched at the root,
+where it moved like a bone in its socket, and at every onset of the gale
+convulsive sounds came from the branches, as if pain were felt. In a
+neighbouring brake a finch was trying to sing; but the wind blew under his
+feathers till they stood on end, twisted round his little tail, and made him
+give up his song.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet a few yards to Yeobright&rsquo;s left, on the open heath, how ineffectively
+gnashed the storm! Those gusts which tore the trees merely waved the furze and
+heather in a light caress. Egdon was made for such times as these.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright reached the empty house about midday. It was almost as lonely as that
+of Eustacia&rsquo;s grandfather, but the fact that it stood near a heath was
+disguised by a belt of firs which almost enclosed the premises. He journeyed on
+about a mile further to the village in which the owner lived, and, returning
+with him to the house, arrangements were completed, and the man undertook that
+one room at least should be ready for occupation the next day. Clym&rsquo;s
+intention was to live there alone until Eustacia should join him on their
+wedding-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he turned to pursue his way homeward through the drizzle that had so
+greatly transformed the scene. The ferns, among which he had lain in comfort
+yesterday, were dripping moisture from every frond, wetting his legs through as
+he brushed past; and the fur of the rabbits leaping before him was clotted into
+dark locks by the same watery surrounding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He reached home damp and weary enough after his ten-mile walk. It had hardly
+been a propitious beginning, but he had chosen his course, and would show no
+swerving. The evening and the following morning were spent in concluding
+arrangements for his departure. To stay at home a minute longer than necessary
+after having once come to his determination would be, he felt, only to give new
+pain to his mother by some word, look, or deed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had hired a conveyance and sent off his goods by two o&rsquo;clock that day.
+The next step was to get some furniture, which, after serving for temporary use
+in the cottage, would be available for the house at Budmouth when increased by
+goods of a better description. A mart extensive enough for the purpose existed
+at Anglebury, some miles beyond the spot chosen for his residence, and there he
+resolved to pass the coming night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It now only remained to wish his mother good-bye. She was sitting by the window
+as usual when he came downstairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother, I am going to leave you,&rdquo; he said, holding out his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you were, by your packing,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Yeobright in a
+voice from which every particle of emotion was painfully excluded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you will part friends with me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly, Clym.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going to be married on the twenty-fifth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you were going to be married.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then&mdash;and then you must come and see us. You will understand me
+better after that, and our situation will not be so wretched as it is
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not think it likely I shall come to see you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it will not be my fault or Eustacia&rsquo;s, Mother.
+Good-bye!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He kissed her cheek, and departed in great misery, which was several hours in
+lessening itself to a controllable level. The position had been such that
+nothing more could be said without, in the first place, breaking down a
+barrier; and that was not to be done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner had Yeobright gone from his mother&rsquo;s house than her face
+changed its rigid aspect for one of blank despair. After a while she wept, and
+her tears brought some relief. During the rest of the day she did nothing but
+walk up and down the garden path in a state bordering on stupefaction. Night
+came, and with it but little rest. The next day, with an instinct to do
+something which should reduce prostration to mournfulness, she went to her
+son&rsquo;s room, and with her own hands arranged it in order, for an imaginary
+time when he should return again. She gave some attention to her flowers, but
+it was perfunctorily bestowed, for they no longer charmed her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a great relief when, early in the afternoon, Thomasin paid her an
+unexpected visit. This was not the first meeting between the relatives since
+Thomasin&rsquo;s marriage; and past blunders having been in a rough way
+rectified, they could always greet each other with pleasure and ease.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The oblique band of sunlight which followed her through the door became the
+young wife well. It illuminated her as her presence illuminated the heath. In
+her movements, in her gaze, she reminded the beholder of the feathered
+creatures who lived around her home. All similes and allegories concerning her
+began and ended with birds. There was as much variety in her motions as in
+their flight. When she was musing she was a kestrel, which hangs in the air by
+an invisible motion of its wings. When she was in a high wind her light body
+was blown against trees and banks like a heron&rsquo;s. When she was frightened
+she darted noiselessly like a kingfisher. When she was serene she skimmed like
+a swallow, and that is how she was moving now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are looking very blithe, upon my word, Tamsie,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Yeobright, with a sad smile. &ldquo;How is Damon?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is very well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he kind to you, Thomasin?&rdquo; And Mrs. Yeobright observed her
+narrowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pretty fairly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that honestly said?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Aunt. I would tell you if he were unkind.&rdquo; She added,
+blushing, and with hesitation, &ldquo;He&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know if I ought to
+complain to you about this, but I am not quite sure what to do. I want some
+money, you know, Aunt&mdash;some to buy little things for myself&mdash;and he
+doesn&rsquo;t give me any. I don&rsquo;t like to ask him; and yet, perhaps, he
+doesn&rsquo;t give it me because he doesn&rsquo;t know. Ought I to mention it
+to him, Aunt?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course you ought. Have you never said a word on the matter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, I had some of my own,&rdquo; said Thomasin evasively,
+&ldquo;and I have not wanted any of his until lately. I did just say something
+about it last week; but he seems&mdash;not to remember.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He must be made to remember. You are aware that I have a little box full
+of spade-guineas, which your uncle put into my hands to divide between yourself
+and Clym whenever I chose. Perhaps the time has come when it should be done.
+They can be turned into sovereigns at any moment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I should like to have my share&mdash;that is, if you don&rsquo;t
+mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall, if necessary. But it is only proper that you should first
+tell your husband distinctly that you are without any, and see what he will
+do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, I will.... Aunt, I have heard about Clym. I know you are in
+trouble about him, and that&rsquo;s why I have come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright turned away, and her features worked in her attempt to conceal
+her feelings. Then she ceased to make any attempt, and said, weeping, &ldquo;O
+Thomasin, do you think he hates me? How can he bear to grieve me so, when I
+have lived only for him through all these years?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hate you&mdash;no,&rdquo; said Thomasin soothingly. &ldquo;It is only
+that he loves her too well. Look at it quietly&mdash;do. It is not so very bad
+of him. Do you know, I thought it not the worst match he could have made. Miss
+Vye&rsquo;s family is a good one on her mother&rsquo;s side; and her father was
+a romantic wanderer&mdash;a sort of Greek Ulysses.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is no use, Thomasin; it is no use. Your intention is good; but I will
+not trouble you to argue. I have gone through the whole that can be said on
+either side times, and many times. Clym and I have not parted in anger; we have
+parted in a worse way. It is not a passionate quarrel that would have broken my
+heart; it is the steady opposition and persistence in going wrong that he has
+shown. O Thomasin, he was so good as a little boy&mdash;so tender and
+kind!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was, I know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not think one whom I called mine would grow up to treat me like
+this. He spoke to me as if I opposed him to injure him. As though I could wish
+him ill!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are worse women in the world than Eustacia Vye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are too many better that&rsquo;s the agony of it. It was she,
+Thomasin, and she only, who led your husband to act as he did&mdash;I would
+swear it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Thomasin eagerly. &ldquo;It was before he knew me that
+he thought of her, and it was nothing but a mere flirtation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well; we will let it be so. There is little use in unravelling that
+now. Sons must be blind if they will. Why is it that a woman can see from a
+distance what a man cannot see close? Clym must do as he will&mdash;he is
+nothing more to me. And this is maternity&mdash;to give one&rsquo;s best years
+and best love to ensure the fate of being despised!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are too unyielding. Think how many mothers there are whose sons have
+brought them to public shame by real crimes before you feel so deeply a case
+like this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thomasin, don&rsquo;t lecture me&mdash;I can&rsquo;t have it. It is the
+excess above what we expect that makes the force of the blow, and that may not
+be greater in their case than in mine&mdash;they may have foreseen the
+worst.... I am wrongly made, Thomasin,&rdquo; she added, with a mournful smile.
+&ldquo;Some widows can guard against the wounds their children give them by
+turning their hearts to another husband and beginning life again. But I always
+was a poor, weak, one-idea&rsquo;d creature&mdash;I had not the compass of
+heart nor the enterprise for that. Just as forlorn and stupefied as I was when
+my husband&rsquo;s spirit flew away I have sat ever since&mdash;never
+attempting to mend matters at all. I was comparatively a young woman then, and
+I might have had another family by this time, and have been comforted by them
+for the failure of this one son.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is more noble in you that you did not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The more noble, the less wise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forget it, and be soothed, dear Aunt. And I shall not leave you alone
+for long. I shall come and see you every day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And for one week Thomasin literally fulfilled her word. She endeavoured to make
+light of the wedding; and brought news of the preparations, and that she was
+invited to be present. The next week she was rather unwell, and did not appear.
+Nothing had as yet been done about the guineas, for Thomasin feared to address
+her husband again on the subject, and Mrs. Yeobright had insisted upon this.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+One day just before this time Wildeve was standing at the door of the Quiet
+Woman. In addition to the upward path through the heath to Rainbarrow and
+Mistover, there was a road which branched from the highway a short distance
+below the inn, and ascended to Mistover by a circuitous and easy incline. This
+was the only route on that side for vehicles to the captain&rsquo;s retreat. A
+light cart from the nearest town descended the road, and the lad who was
+driving pulled up in front of the inn for something to drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You come from Mistover?&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. They are taking in good things up there. Going to be a
+wedding.&rdquo; And the driver buried his face in his mug.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before, and a sudden expression
+of pain overspread his face. He turned for a moment into the passage to hide
+it. Then he came back again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean Miss Vye?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How is it&mdash;that she
+can be married so soon?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the will of God and a ready young man, I suppose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t mean Mr. Yeobright?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. He has been creeping about with her all the spring.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose&mdash;she was immensely taken with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is crazy about him, so their general servant of all work tells me.
+And that lad Charley that looks after the horse is all in a daze about it. The
+stun-poll has got fond-like of her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she lively&mdash;is she glad? Going to be married so
+soon&mdash;well!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t so very soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; not so very soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious heartache within him. He
+rested his elbow upon the mantelpiece and his face upon his hand. When Thomasin
+entered the room he did not tell her of what he had heard. The old longing for
+Eustacia had reappeared in his soul&mdash;and it was mainly because he had
+discovered that it was another man&rsquo;s intention to possess her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered; to care for the
+remote, to dislike the near; it was Wildeve&rsquo;s nature always. This is the
+true mark of the man of sentiment. Though Wildeve&rsquo;s fevered feeling had
+not been elaborated to real poetical compass, it was of the standard sort. His
+might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>VII.<br />
+The Morning and the Evening of a Day</h2>
+
+<p>
+The wedding morning came. Nobody would have imagined from appearances that
+Blooms-End had any interest in Mistover that day. A solemn stillness prevailed
+around the house of Clym&rsquo;s mother, and there was no more animation
+indoors. Mrs. Yeobright, who had declined to attend the ceremony, sat by the
+breakfast table in the old room which communicated immediately with the porch,
+her eyes listlessly directed towards the open door. It was the room in which,
+six months earlier, the merry Christmas party had met, to which Eustacia came
+secretly and as a stranger. The only living thing that entered now was a
+sparrow; and seeing no movements to cause alarm, he hopped boldly round the
+room, endeavoured to go out by the window, and fluttered among the pot-flowers.
+This roused the lonely sitter, who got up, released the bird, and went to the
+door. She was expecting Thomasin, who had written the night before to state
+that the time had come when she would wish to have the money and that she would
+if possible call this day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet Thomasin occupied Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s thoughts but slightly as she
+looked up the valley of the heath, alive with butterflies, and with
+grasshoppers whose husky noises on every side formed a whispered chorus. A
+domestic drama, for which the preparations were now being made a mile or two
+off, was but little less vividly present to her eyes than if enacted before
+her. She tried to dismiss the vision, and walked about the garden plot; but her
+eyes ever and anon sought out the direction of the parish church to which
+Mistover belonged, and her excited fancy clove the hills which divided the
+building from her eyes. The morning wore away. Eleven o&rsquo;clock
+struck&mdash;could it be that the wedding was then in progress? It must be so.
+She went on imagining the scene at the church, which he had by this time
+approached with his bride. She pictured the little group of children by the
+gate as the pony carriage drove up in which, as Thomasin had learnt, they were
+going to perform the short journey. Then she saw them enter and proceed to the
+chancel and kneel; and the service seemed to go on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She covered her face with her hands. &ldquo;O, it is a mistake!&rdquo; she
+groaned. &ldquo;And he will rue it some day, and think of me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While she remained thus, overcome by her forebodings, the old clock indoors
+whizzed forth twelve strokes. Soon after, faint sounds floated to her ear from
+afar over the hills. The breeze came from that quarter, and it had brought with
+it the notes of distant bells, gaily starting off in a peal: one, two, three,
+four, five. The ringers at East Egdon were announcing the nuptials of Eustacia
+and her son.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it is over,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;Well, well! and life too
+will be over soon. And why should I go on scalding my face like this? Cry about
+one thing in life, cry about all; one thread runs through the whole piece. And
+yet we say, &lsquo;a time to laugh!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Towards evening Wildeve came. Since Thomasin&rsquo;s marriage Mrs. Yeobright
+had shown him that grim friendliness which at last arises in all such cases of
+undesired affinity. The vision of what ought to have been is thrown aside in
+sheer weariness, and browbeaten human endeavour listlessly makes the best of
+the fact that is. Wildeve, to do him justice, had behaved very courteously to
+his wife&rsquo;s aunt; and it was with no surprise that she saw him enter now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thomasin has not been able to come, as she promised to do,&rdquo; he
+replied to her inquiry, which had been anxious, for she knew that her niece was
+badly in want of money. &ldquo;The captain came down last night and personally
+pressed her to join them today. So, not to be unpleasant, she determined to go.
+They fetched her in the pony-chaise, and are going to bring her back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it is done,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright. &ldquo;Have they gone to
+their new home?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. I have had no news from Mistover since Thomasin left
+to go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You did not go with her?&rdquo; said she, as if there might be good
+reasons why.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could not,&rdquo; said Wildeve, reddening slightly. &ldquo;We could
+not both leave the house; it was rather a busy morning, on account of Anglebury
+Great Market. I believe you have something to give to Thomasin? If you like, I
+will take it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright hesitated, and wondered if Wildeve knew what the something was.
+&ldquo;Did she tell you of this?&rdquo; she inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not particularly. She casually dropped a remark about having arranged to
+fetch some article or other.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is hardly necessary to send it. She can have it whenever she chooses
+to come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That won&rsquo;t be yet. In the present state of her health she must not
+go on walking so much as she has done.&rdquo; He added, with a faint twang of
+sarcasm, &ldquo;What wonderful thing is it that I cannot be trusted to
+take?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing worth troubling you with.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One would think you doubted my honesty,&rdquo; he said, with a laugh,
+though his colour rose in a quick resentfulness frequent with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need think no such thing,&rdquo; said she drily. &ldquo;It is simply
+that I, in common with the rest of the world, feel that there are certain
+things which had better be done by certain people than by others.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As you like, as you like,&rdquo; said Wildeve laconically. &ldquo;It is
+not worth arguing about. Well, I think I must turn homeward again, as the inn
+must not be left long in charge of the lad and the maid only.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went his way, his farewell being scarcely so courteous as his greeting. But
+Mrs. Yeobright knew him thoroughly by this time, and took little notice of his
+manner, good or bad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Wildeve was gone Mrs. Yeobright stood and considered what would be the
+best course to adopt with regard to the guineas, which she had not liked to
+entrust to Wildeve. It was hardly credible that Thomasin had told him to ask
+for them, when the necessity for them had arisen from the difficulty of
+obtaining money at his hands. At the same time Thomasin really wanted them, and
+might be unable to come to Blooms-End for another week at least. To take or
+send the money to her at the inn would be impolite, since Wildeve would pretty
+surely be present, or would discover the transaction; and if, as her aunt
+suspected, he treated her less kindly than she deserved to be treated, he might
+then get the whole sum out of her gentle hands. But on this particular evening
+Thomasin was at Mistover, and anything might be conveyed to her there without
+the knowledge of her husband. Upon the whole the opportunity was worth taking
+advantage of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her son, too, was there, and was now married. There could be no more proper
+moment to render him his share of the money than the present. And the chance
+that would be afforded her, by sending him this gift, of showing how far she
+was from bearing him ill-will, cheered the sad mother&rsquo;s heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went upstairs and took from a locked drawer a little box, out of which she
+poured a hoard of broad unworn guineas that had lain there many a year. There
+were a hundred in all, and she divided them into two heaps, fifty in each.
+Tying up these in small canvas bags, she went down to the garden and called to
+Christian Cantle, who was loitering about in hope of a supper which was not
+really owed him. Mrs. Yeobright gave him the moneybags, charged him to go to
+Mistover, and on no account to deliver them into any one&rsquo;s hands save her
+son&rsquo;s and Thomasin&rsquo;s. On further thought she deemed it advisable to
+tell Christian precisely what the two bags contained, that he might be fully
+impressed with their importance. Christian pocketed the moneybags, promised the
+greatest carefulness, and set out on his way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need not hurry,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright. &ldquo;It will be better
+not to get there till after dusk, and then nobody will notice you. Come back
+here to supper, if it is not too late.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was nearly nine o&rsquo;clock when he began to ascend the vale towards
+Mistover; but the long days of summer being at their climax, the first
+obscurity of evening had only just begun to tan the landscape. At this point of
+his journey Christian heard voices, and found that they proceeded from a
+company of men and women who were traversing a hollow ahead of him, the tops
+only of their heads being visible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused and thought of the money he carried. It was almost too early even for
+Christian seriously to fear robbery; nevertheless he took a precaution which
+ever since his boyhood he had adopted whenever he carried more than two or
+three shillings upon his person&mdash;a precaution somewhat like that of the
+owner of the Pitt Diamond when filled with similar misgivings. He took off his
+boots, untied the guineas, and emptied the contents of one little bag into the
+right boot, and of the other into the left, spreading them as flatly as
+possible over the bottom of each, which was really a spacious coffer by no
+means limited to the size of the foot. Pulling them on again and lacing them to
+the very top, he proceeded on his way, more easy in his head than under his
+soles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His path converged towards that of the noisy company, and on coming nearer he
+found to his relief that they were several Egdon people whom he knew very well,
+while with them walked Fairway, of Blooms-End.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! Christian going too?&rdquo; said Fairway as soon as he recognized
+the newcomer. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got no young woman nor wife to your name to
+gie a gown-piece to, I&rsquo;m sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What d&rsquo;ye mean?&rdquo; said Christian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, the raffle. The one we go to every year. Going to the raffle as
+well as ourselves?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never knew a word o&rsquo;t. Is it like cudgel playing or other sportful
+forms of bloodshed? I don&rsquo;t want to go, thank you, Mister Fairway, and no
+offence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Christian don&rsquo;t know the fun o&rsquo;t, and &rsquo;twould be a
+fine sight for him,&rdquo; said a buxom woman. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no danger
+at all, Christian. Every man puts in a shilling apiece, and one wins a
+gown-piece for his wife or sweetheart if he&rsquo;s got one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as that&rsquo;s not my fortune there&rsquo;s no meaning in it to
+me. But I should like to see the fun, if there&rsquo;s nothing of the black art
+in it, and if a man may look on without cost or getting into any dangerous
+wrangle?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There will be no uproar at all,&rdquo; said Timothy. &ldquo;Sure,
+Christian, if you&rsquo;d like to come we&rsquo;ll see there&rsquo;s no harm
+done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And no ba&rsquo;dy gaieties, I suppose? You see, neighbours, if so, it
+would be setting father a bad example, as he is so light moral&rsquo;d. But a
+gown-piece for a shilling, and no black art&mdash;&rsquo;tis worth looking in
+to see, and it wouldn&rsquo;t hinder me half an hour. Yes, I&rsquo;ll come, if
+you&rsquo;ll step a little way towards Mistover with me afterwards, supposing
+night should have closed in, and nobody else is going that way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One or two promised; and Christian, diverging from his direct path, turned
+round to the right with his companions towards the Quiet Woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they entered the large common room of the inn they found assembled there
+about ten men from among the neighbouring population, and the group was
+increased by the new contingent to double that number. Most of them were
+sitting round the room in seats divided by wooden elbows like those of crude
+cathedral stalls, which were carved with the initials of many an illustrious
+drunkard of former times who had passed his days and his nights between them,
+and now lay as an alcoholic cinder in the nearest churchyard. Among the cups on
+the long table before the sitters lay an open parcel of light drapery&mdash;the
+gown-piece, as it was called&mdash;which was to be raffled for. Wildeve was
+standing with his back to the fireplace smoking a cigar; and the promoter of
+the raffle, a packman from a distant town, was expatiating upon the value of
+the fabric as material for a summer dress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, gentlemen,&rdquo; he continued, as the newcomers drew up to the
+table, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s five have entered, and we want four more to make up
+the number. I think, by the faces of those gentlemen who have just come in,
+that they are shrewd enough to take advantage of this rare opportunity of
+beautifying their ladies at a very trifling expense.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fairway, Sam, and another placed their shillings on the table, and the man
+turned to Christian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; said Christian, drawing back, with a quick gaze of
+misgiving. &ldquo;I am only a poor chap come to look on, an it please ye, sir.
+I don&rsquo;t so much as know how you do it. If so be I was sure of getting it
+I would put down the shilling; but I couldn&rsquo;t otherwise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you might almost be sure,&rdquo; said the pedlar. &ldquo;In
+fact, now I look into your face, even if I can&rsquo;t say you are sure to win,
+I can say that I never saw anything look more like winning in my life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll anyhow have the same chance as the rest of us,&rdquo; said
+Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the extra luck of being the last comer,&rdquo; said another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I was born wi&rsquo; a caul, and perhaps can be no more ruined than
+drowned?&rdquo; Christian added, beginning to give way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ultimately Christian laid down his shilling, the raffle began, and the dice
+went round. When it came to Christian&rsquo;s turn he took the box with a
+trembling hand, shook it fearfully, and threw a pair-royal. Three of the others
+had thrown common low pairs, and all the rest mere points.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The gentleman looked like winning, as I said,&rdquo; observed the
+chapman blandly. &ldquo;Take it, sir; the article is yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Haw-haw-haw!&rdquo; said Fairway. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m damned if this
+isn&rsquo;t the quarest start that ever I knowed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mine?&rdquo; asked Christian, with a vacant stare from his target eyes.
+&ldquo;I&mdash;I haven&rsquo;t got neither maid, wife, nor widder belonging to
+me at all, and I&rsquo;m afeard it will make me laughed at to ha&rsquo;e it,
+Master Traveller. What with being curious to join in I never thought of that!
+What shall I do wi&rsquo; a woman&rsquo;s clothes in <i>my</i> bedroom, and not
+lose my decency!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep &rsquo;em, to be sure,&rdquo; said Fairway, &ldquo;if it is only
+for luck. Perhaps &rsquo;twill tempt some woman that thy poor carcase had no
+power over when standing empty-handed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep it, certainly,&rdquo; said Wildeve, who had idly watched the scene
+from a distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The table was then cleared of the articles, and the men began to drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, to be sure!&rdquo; said Christian, half to himself. &ldquo;To
+think I should have been born so lucky as this, and not have found it out until
+now! What curious creatures these dice be&mdash;powerful rulers of us all, and
+yet at my command! I am sure I never need be afeared of anything after
+this.&rdquo; He handled the dice fondly one by one. &ldquo;Why, sir,&rdquo; he
+said in a confidential whisper to Wildeve, who was near his left hand,
+&ldquo;if I could only use this power that&rsquo;s in me of multiplying money I
+might do some good to a near relation of yours, seeing what I&rsquo;ve got
+about me of hers&mdash;eh?&rdquo; He tapped one of his money-laden boots upon
+the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a secret. Well, I must be going now.&rdquo; He looked
+anxiously towards Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; Wildeve asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To Mistover Knap. I have to see Mrs. Thomasin there&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going there, too, to fetch Mrs. Wildeve. We can walk
+together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve became lost in thought, and a look of inward illumination came into his
+eyes. It was money for his wife that Mrs. Yeobright could not trust him with.
+&ldquo;Yet she could trust this fellow,&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;Why
+doesn&rsquo;t that which belongs to the wife belong to the husband too?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He called to the pot-boy to bring him his hat, and said, &ldquo;Now, Christian,
+I am ready.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Wildeve,&rdquo; said Christian timidly, as he turned to leave the
+room, &ldquo;would you mind lending me them wonderful little things that carry
+my luck inside &rsquo;em, that I might practise a bit by myself, you
+know?&rdquo; He looked wistfully at the dice and box lying on the mantlepiece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; said Wildeve carelessly. &ldquo;They were only cut out
+by some lad with his knife, and are worth nothing.&rdquo; And Christian went
+back and privately pocketed them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve opened the door and looked out. The night was warm and cloudy.
+&ldquo;By Gad! &rsquo;tis dark,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;But I suppose we
+shall find our way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we should lose the path it might be awkward,&rdquo; said Christian.
+&ldquo;A lantern is the only shield that will make it safe for us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s have a lantern by all means.&rdquo; The stable lantern was
+fetched and lighted. Christian took up his gownpiece, and the two set out to
+ascend the hill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Within the room the men fell into chat till their attention was for a moment
+drawn to the chimney-corner. This was large, and, in addition to its proper
+recess, contained within its jambs, like many on Egdon, a receding seat, so
+that a person might sit there absolutely unobserved, provided there was no fire
+to light him up, as was the case now and throughout the summer. From the niche
+a single object protruded into the light from the candles on the table. It was
+a clay pipe, and its colour was reddish. The men had been attracted to this
+object by a voice behind the pipe asking for a light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my life, it fairly startled me when the man spoke!&rdquo; said
+Fairway, handing a candle. &ldquo;Oh&mdash;&rsquo;tis the reddleman!
+You&rsquo;ve kept a quiet tongue, young man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I had nothing to say,&rdquo; observed Venn. In a few minutes he
+arose and wished the company good night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Wildeve and Christian had plunged into the heath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a stagnant, warm, and misty night, full of all the heavy perfumes of new
+vegetation not yet dried by hot sun, and among these particularly the scent of
+the fern. The lantern, dangling from Christian&rsquo;s hand, brushed the
+feathery fronds in passing by, disturbing moths and other winged insects, which
+flew out and alighted upon its horny panes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you have money to carry to Mrs. Wildeve?&rdquo; said
+Christian&rsquo;s companion, after a silence. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think it
+very odd that it shouldn&rsquo;t be given to me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As man and wife be one flesh, &rsquo;twould have been all the same, I
+should think,&rdquo; said Christian. &ldquo;But my strict documents was, to
+give the money into Mrs. Wildeve&rsquo;s hand&mdash;and &rsquo;tis well to do
+things right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; said Wildeve. Any person who had known the
+circumstances might have perceived that Wildeve was mortified by the discovery
+that the matter in transit was money, and not, as he had supposed when at
+Blooms-End, some fancy nick-nack which only interested the two women
+themselves. Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s refusal implied that his honour was not
+considered to be of sufficiently good quality to make him a safer bearer of his
+wife&rsquo;s property.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How very warm it is tonight, Christian!&rdquo; he said, panting, when
+they were nearly under Rainbarrow. &ldquo;Let us sit down for a few minutes,
+for Heaven&rsquo;s sake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve flung himself down on the soft ferns; and Christian, placing the
+lantern and parcel on the ground, perched himself in a cramped position hard
+by, his knees almost touching his chin. He presently thrust one hand into his
+coat-pocket and began shaking it about.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you rattling in there?&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only the dice, sir,&rdquo; said Christian, quickly withdrawing his hand.
+&ldquo;What magical machines these little things be, Mr. Wildeve! &rsquo;Tis a
+game I should never get tired of. Would you mind my taking &rsquo;em out and
+looking at &rsquo;em for a minute, to see how they are made? I didn&rsquo;t
+like to look close before the other men, for fear they should think it bad
+manners in me.&rdquo; Christian took them out and examined them in the hollow
+of his hand by the lantern light. &ldquo;That these little things should carry
+such luck, and such charm, and such a spell, and such power in &rsquo;em,
+passes all I ever heard or zeed,&rdquo; he went on, with a fascinated gaze at
+the dice, which, as is frequently the case in country places, were made of
+wood, the points being burnt upon each face with the end of a wire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are a great deal in a small compass, You think?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Do ye suppose they really be the devil&rsquo;s playthings, Mr.
+Wildeve? If so, &rsquo;tis no good sign that I be such a lucky man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You ought to win some money, now that you&rsquo;ve got them. Any woman
+would marry you then. Now is your time, Christian, and I would recommend you
+not to let it slip. Some men are born to luck, some are not. I belong to the
+latter class.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you ever know anybody who was born to it besides myself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes. I once heard of an Italian, who sat down at a gaming table with
+only a louis, (that&rsquo;s a foreign sovereign), in his pocket. He played on
+for twenty-four hours, and won ten thousand pounds, stripping the bank he had
+played against. Then there was another man who had lost a thousand pounds, and
+went to the broker&rsquo;s next day to sell stock, that he might pay the debt.
+The man to whom he owed the money went with him in a hackney-coach; and to pass
+the time they tossed who should pay the fare. The ruined man won, and the other
+was tempted to continue the game, and they played all the way. When the
+coachman stopped he was told to drive home again: the whole thousand pounds had
+been won back by the man who was going to sell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha&mdash;ha&mdash;splendid!&rdquo; exclaimed Christian. &ldquo;Go
+on&mdash;go on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then there was a man of London, who was only a waiter at White&rsquo;s
+clubhouse. He began playing first half-crown stakes, and then higher and
+higher, till he became very rich, got an appointment in India, and rose to be
+Governor of Madras. His daughter married a member of Parliament, and the Bishop
+of Carlisle stood godfather to one of the children.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wonderful! wonderful!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And once there was a young man in America who gambled till he had lost
+his last dollar. He staked his watch and chain, and lost as before; staked his
+umbrella, lost again; staked his hat, lost again; staked his coat and stood in
+his shirt-sleeves, lost again. Began taking off his breeches, and then a
+looker-on gave him a trifle for his pluck. With this he won. Won back his coat,
+won back his hat, won back his umbrella, his watch, his money, and went out of
+the door a rich man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, &rsquo;tis too good&mdash;it takes away my breath! Mr. Wildeve, I
+think I will try another shilling with you, as I am one of that sort; no danger
+can come o&rsquo;t, and you can afford to lose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Wildeve, rising. Searching about with the
+lantern, he found a large flat stone, which he placed between himself and
+Christian, and sat down again. The lantern was opened to give more light, and
+its rays directed upon the stone. Christian put down a shilling, Wildeve
+another, and each threw. Christian won. They played for two, Christian won
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us try four,&rdquo; said Wildeve. They played for four. This time
+the stakes were won by Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, those little accidents will, of course, sometimes happen, to the
+luckiest man,&rdquo; he observed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now I have no more money!&rdquo; explained Christian excitedly.
+&ldquo;And yet, if I could go on, I should get it back again, and more. I wish
+this was mine.&rdquo; He struck his boot upon the ground, so that the guineas
+chinked within.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! you have not put Mrs. Wildeve&rsquo;s money there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. &rsquo;Tis for safety. Is it any harm to raffle with a married
+lady&rsquo;s money when, if I win, I shall only keep my winnings, and give her
+her own all the same; and if t&rsquo;other man wins, her money will go to the
+lawful owner?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean estimation in
+which he was held by his wife&rsquo;s friends; and it cut his heart severely.
+As the minutes passed he had gradually drifted into a revengeful intention
+without knowing the precise moment of forming it. This was to teach Mrs.
+Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be; in other words, to show her if
+he could that her niece&rsquo;s husband was the proper guardian of her
+niece&rsquo;s money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, here goes!&rdquo; said Christian, beginning to unlace one boot.
+&ldquo;I shall dream of it nights and nights, I suppose; but I shall always
+swear my flesh don&rsquo;t crawl when I think o&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one of poor Thomasin&rsquo;s
+precious guineas, piping hot. Wildeve had already placed a sovereign on the
+stone. The game was then resumed. Wildeve won first, and Christian ventured
+another, winning himself this time. The game fluctuated, but the average was in
+Wildeve&rsquo;s favour. Both men became so absorbed in the game that they took
+no heed of anything but the pigmy objects immediately beneath their eyes, the
+flat stone, the open lantern, the dice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves
+which lay under the light, were the whole world to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length Christian lost rapidly; and presently, to his horror, the whole fifty
+guineas belonging to Thomasin had been handed over to his adversary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care&mdash;I don&rsquo;t care!&rdquo; he moaned, and
+desperately set about untying his left boot to get at the other fifty.
+&ldquo;The devil will toss me into the flames on his three-pronged fork for
+this night&rsquo;s work, I know! But perhaps I shall win yet, and then
+I&rsquo;ll get a wife to sit up with me o&rsquo; nights and I won&rsquo;t be
+afeard, I won&rsquo;t! Here&rsquo;s another for&rsquo;ee, my man!&rdquo; He
+slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and the dice-box was rattled again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Time passed on. Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself. When
+commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than a bitter
+practical joke on Mrs. Yeobright. To win the money, fairly or otherwise, and to
+hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt&rsquo;s presence, had been the
+dim outline of his purpose. But men are drawn from their intentions even in the
+course of carrying them out, and it was extremely doubtful, by the time the
+twentieth guinea had been reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other
+intention than that of winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was
+now no longer gambling for his wife&rsquo;s money, but for Yeobright&rsquo;s;
+though of this fact Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till
+afterwards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was nearly eleven o&rsquo;clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian
+placed Yeobright&rsquo;s last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty seconds
+it had gone the way of its companions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of remorse,
+&ldquo;O, what shall I do with my wretched self?&rdquo; he groaned. &ldquo;What
+shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do? Live on just the same.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t live on just the same! I&rsquo;ll die! I say you are
+a&mdash;a&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man sharper than my neighbour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You&rsquo;ve
+got money that isn&rsquo;t your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr.
+Clym&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I had to gie fifty of &rsquo;em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said
+so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh?... Well, &rsquo;twould have been more graceful of her to have given
+them to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could be heard
+to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and tottered away out of
+sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to return to the house, for he
+deemed it too late to go to Mistover to meet his wife, who was to be driven
+home in the captain&rsquo;s four-wheel. While he was closing the little horn
+door a figure rose from behind a neighbouring bush and came forward into the
+lantern light. It was the reddleman approaching.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap27"></a>VIII.<br />
+A New Force Disturbs the Current</h2>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word being
+spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been seated,
+thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid it on the
+stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have been watching us from behind that bush?&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman nodded. &ldquo;Down with your stake,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Or
+haven&rsquo;t you pluck enough to go on?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily begun with
+full pockets than left off with the same; and though Wildeve in a cooler temper
+might have prudently declined this invitation, the excitement of his recent
+success carried him completely away. He placed one of the guineas on a slab
+beside the reddleman&rsquo;s sovereign. &ldquo;Mine is a guinea,&rdquo; he
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A guinea that&rsquo;s not your own,&rdquo; said Venn sarcastically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is my own,&rdquo; answered Wildeve haughtily. &ldquo;It is my
+wife&rsquo;s, and what is hers is mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well; let&rsquo;s make a beginning.&rdquo; He shook the box, and
+threw eight, ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts amounted to
+forty-five.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down went another of the reddleman&rsquo;s sovereigns against his first one
+which Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no pair. The
+reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed the stakes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here you are again,&rdquo; said Wildeve contemptuously. &ldquo;Double
+the stakes.&rdquo; He laid two of Thomasin&rsquo;s guineas, and the reddleman
+his two pounds. Venn won again. New stakes were laid on the stone, and the
+gamblers proceeded as before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game was beginning to tell
+upon his temper. He writhed, fumed, shifted his seat, and the beating of his
+heart was almost audible. Venn sat with lips impassively closed and eyes
+reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles; he scarcely appeared to breathe. He
+might have been an Arab, or an automaton; he would have been like a red
+sandstone statue but for the motion of his arm with the dice-box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour of the other, without
+any great advantage on the side of either. Nearly twenty minutes were passed
+thus. The light of the candle had by this time attracted heath-flies, moths,
+and other winged creatures of night, which floated round the lantern, flew into
+the flame, or beat about the faces of the two players.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes being
+concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an arena vast and
+important as a battlefield. By this time a change had come over the game; the
+reddleman won continually. At length sixty guineas&mdash;Thomasin&rsquo;s
+fifty, and ten of Clym&rsquo;s&mdash;had passed into his hands. Wildeve was
+reckless, frantic, exasperated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Won back his coat,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Venn slily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another throw, and the money went the same way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Won back his hat,&rsquo;&rdquo; continued Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, oh!&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out of the door
+a rich man,&rsquo;&rdquo; added Venn sentence by sentence, as stake after stake
+passed over to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five more!&rdquo; shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. &ldquo;And
+three casts be hanged&mdash;one shall decide.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded, and followed his
+example. Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and five points. He
+clapped his hands; &ldquo;I have done it this time&mdash;hurrah!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are two playing, and only one has thrown,&rdquo; said the
+reddleman, quietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so
+intently converged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were
+visible, like rays in a fog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes was disclosed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve was full of fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes Wildeve
+seized the dice and hurled them, box and all, into the darkness, uttering a
+fearful imprecation. Then he arose and began stamping up and down like a
+madman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is all over, then?&rdquo; said Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; cried Wildeve. &ldquo;I mean to have another chance yet.
+I must!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my good man, what have you done with the dice?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I threw them away&mdash;it was a momentary irritation. What a fool I am!
+Here&mdash;come and help me to look for them&mdash;we must find them
+again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve snatched up the lantern and began anxiously prowling among the furze
+and fern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are not likely to find them there,&rdquo; said Venn, following.
+&ldquo;What did you do such a crazy thing as that for? Here&rsquo;s the box.
+The dice can&rsquo;t be far off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve turned the light eagerly upon the spot where Venn had found the box,
+and mauled the herbage right and left. In the course of a few minutes one of
+the dice was found. They searched on for some time, but no other was to be
+seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; said Wildeve; &ldquo;let&rsquo;s play with
+one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Agreed,&rdquo; said Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down they sat again, and recommenced with single guinea stakes; and the play
+went on smartly. But Fortune had unmistakably fallen in love with the reddleman
+tonight. He won steadily, till he was the owner of fourteen more of the gold
+pieces. Seventy-nine of the hundred guineas were his, Wildeve possessing only
+twenty-one. The aspect of the two opponents was now singular. Apart from
+motions, a complete diorama of the fluctuations of the game went on in their
+eyes. A diminutive candle-flame was mirrored in each pupil, and it would have
+been possible to distinguish therein between the moods of hope and the moods of
+abandonment, even as regards the reddleman, though his facial muscles betrayed
+nothing at all. Wildeve played on with the recklessness of despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; he suddenly exclaimed, hearing a rustle; and
+they both looked up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were surrounded by dusky forms between four and five feet high, standing a
+few paces beyond the rays of the lantern. A moment&rsquo;s inspection revealed
+that the encircling figures were heath-croppers, their heads being all towards
+the players, at whom they gazed intently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hoosh!&rdquo; said Wildeve, and the whole forty or fifty animals at once
+turned and galloped away. Play was again resumed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ten minutes passed away. Then a large death&rsquo;s head moth advanced from the
+obscure outer air, wheeled twice round the lantern, flew straight at the
+candle, and extinguished it by the force of the blow. Wildeve had just thrown,
+but had not lifted the box to see what he had cast; and now it was impossible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the infernal!&rdquo; he shrieked. &ldquo;Now, what shall we do?
+Perhaps I have thrown six&mdash;have you any matches?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None,&rdquo; said Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Christian had some&mdash;I wonder where he is. Christian!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there was no reply to Wildeve&rsquo;s shout, save a mournful whining from
+the herons which were nesting lower down the vale. Both men looked blankly
+round without rising. As their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness they
+perceived faint greenish points of light among the grass and fern. These lights
+dotted the hillside like stars of a low magnitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;glowworms,&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;Wait a minute. We can
+continue the game.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn sat still, and his companion went hither and thither till he had gathered
+thirteen glowworms&mdash;as many as he could find in a space of four or five
+minutes&mdash;upon a fox-glove leaf which he pulled for the purpose. The
+reddleman vented a low humorous laugh when he saw his adversary return with
+these. &ldquo;Determined to go on, then?&rdquo; he said drily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I always am!&rdquo; said Wildeve angrily. And shaking the glowworms from
+the leaf he ranged them with a trembling hand in a circle on the stone, leaving
+a space in the middle for the descent of the dice-box, over which the thirteen
+tiny lamps threw a pale phosphoric shine. The game was again renewed. It
+happened to be that season of the year at which glowworms put forth their
+greatest brilliancy, and the light they yielded was more than ample for the
+purpose, since it is possible on such nights to read the handwriting of a
+letter by the light of two or three.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The incongruity between the men&rsquo;s deeds and their environment was great.
+Amid the soft juicy vegetation of the hollow in which they sat, the motionless
+and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of guineas, the rattle of
+dice, the exclamations of the reckless players.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve had lifted the box as soon as the lights were obtained, and the
+solitary die proclaimed that the game was still against him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t play any more&mdash;you&rsquo;ve been tampering with the
+dice,&rdquo; he shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How&mdash;when they were your own?&rdquo; said the reddleman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll change the game: the lowest point shall win the
+stake&mdash;it may cut off my ill luck. Do you refuse?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;go on,&rdquo; said Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, there they are again&mdash;damn them!&rdquo; cried Wildeve, looking
+up. The heath-croppers had returned noiselessly, and were looking on with erect
+heads just as before, their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as if they were
+wondering what mankind and candlelight could have to do in these haunts at this
+untoward hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a plague those creatures are&mdash;staring at me so!&rdquo; he
+said, and flung a stone, which scattered them; when the game was continued as
+before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve had now ten guineas left; and each laid five. Wildeve threw three
+points; Venn two, and raked in the coins. The other seized the die, and
+clenched his teeth upon it in sheer rage, as if he would bite it in pieces.
+&ldquo;Never give in&mdash;here are my last five!&rdquo; he cried, throwing
+them down. &ldquo;Hang the glowworms&mdash;they are going out. Why don&rsquo;t
+you burn, you little fools? Stir them up with a thorn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He probed the glowworms with a bit of stick, and rolled them over, till the
+bright side of their tails was upwards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s light enough. Throw on,&rdquo; said Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve brought down the box within the shining circle and looked eagerly. He
+had thrown ace. &ldquo;Well done!&mdash;I said it would turn, and it has
+turned.&rdquo; Venn said nothing; but his hand shook slightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He threw ace also.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O!&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;Curse me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The die smacked the stone a second time. It was ace again. Venn looked gloomy,
+threw&mdash;the die was seen to be lying in two pieces, the cleft sides
+uppermost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve thrown nothing at all,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Serves me right&mdash;I split the die with my teeth. Here&mdash;take
+your money. Blank is less than one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t wish it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take it, I say&mdash;you&rsquo;ve won it!&rdquo; And Wildeve threw the
+stakes against the reddleman&rsquo;s chest. Venn gathered them up, arose, and
+withdrew from the hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the extinguished lantern
+in his hand, went towards the highroad. On reaching it he stood still. The
+silence of night pervaded the whole heath except in one direction; and that was
+towards Mistover. There he could hear the noise of light wheels, and presently
+saw two carriagelamps descending the hill. Wildeve screened himself under a
+bush and waited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The vehicle came on and passed before him. It was a hired carriage, and behind
+the coachman were two persons whom he knew well. There sat Eustacia and
+Yeobright, the arm of the latter being round her waist. They turned the sharp
+corner at the bottom towards the temporary home which Clym had hired and
+furnished, about five miles to the eastward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight of his lost love, whose
+preciousness in his eyes was increasing in geometrical progression with each
+new incident that reminded him of their hopeless division. Brimming with the
+subtilized misery that he was capable of feeling, he followed the opposite way
+towards the inn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About the same moment that Wildeve stepped into the highway Venn also had
+reached it at a point a hundred yards further on; and he, hearing the same
+wheels, likewise waited till the carriage should come up. When he saw who sat
+therein he seemed to be disappointed. Reflecting a minute or two, during which
+interval the carriage rolled on, he crossed the road, and took a short cut
+through the furze and heath to a point where the turnpike road bent round in
+ascending a hill. He was now again in front of the carriage, which presently
+came up at a walking pace. Venn stepped forward and showed himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia started when the lamp shone upon him, and Clym&rsquo;s arm was
+involuntarily withdrawn from her waist. He said, &ldquo;What, Diggory? You are
+having a lonely walk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;I beg your pardon for stopping you,&rdquo; said Venn.
+&ldquo;But I am waiting about for Mrs. Wildeve: I have something to give her
+from Mrs. Yeobright. Can you tell me if she&rsquo;s gone home from the party
+yet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. But she will be leaving soon. You may possibly meet her at the
+corner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn made a farewell obeisance, and walked back to his former position, where
+the byroad from Mistover joined the highway. Here he remained fixed for nearly
+half an hour, and then another pair of lights came down the hill. It was the
+old-fashioned wheeled nondescript belonging to the captain, and Thomasin sat in
+it alone, driven by Charley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reddleman came up as they slowly turned the corner. &ldquo;I beg pardon for
+stopping you, Mrs. Wildeve,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I have something to give
+you privately from Mrs. Yeobright.&rdquo; He handed a small parcel; it
+consisted of the hundred guineas he had just won, roughly twisted up in a piece
+of paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin recovered from her surprise, and took the packet. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+all, ma&rsquo;am&mdash;I wish you good night,&rdquo; he said, and vanished from
+her view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus Venn, in his anxiety to rectify matters, had placed in Thomasin&rsquo;s
+hands not only the fifty guineas which rightly belonged to her, but also the
+fifty intended for her cousin Clym. His mistake had been based upon
+Wildeve&rsquo;s words at the opening of the game, when he indignantly denied
+that the guinea was not his own. It had not been comprehended by the reddleman
+that at halfway through the performance the game was continued with the money
+of another person; and it was an error which afterwards helped to cause more
+misfortune than treble the loss in money value could have done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The night was now somewhat advanced; and Venn plunged deeper into the heath,
+till he came to a ravine where his van was standing&mdash;a spot not more than
+two hundred yards from the site of the gambling bout. He entered this movable
+home of his, lit his lantern, and, before closing his door for the night, stood
+reflecting on the circumstances of the preceding hours. While he stood the dawn
+grew visible in the northeast quarter of the heavens, which, the clouds having
+cleared off, was bright with a soft sheen at this midsummer time, though it was
+only between one and two o&rsquo;clock. Venn, thoroughly weary, then shut his
+door and flung himself down to sleep.
+</p>
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="book04"></a>BOOK FOURTH&mdash;THE CLOSED DOOR</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap28"></a>I.<br />
+The Rencounter by the Pool</h2>
+
+<p>
+The July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson heather to scarlet. It was
+the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season, in which the
+heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the second or noontide
+division in the cycle of those superficial changes which alone were possible
+here; it followed the green or young-fern period, representing the morn, and
+preceded the brown period, when the heathbells and ferns would wear the russet
+tinges of evening; to be in turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter
+period, representing night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym and Eustacia, in their little house at Alderworth, beyond East Egdon, were
+living on with a monotony which was delightful to them. The heath and changes
+of weather were quite blotted out from their eyes for the present. They were
+enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid from them surroundings of any
+inharmonious colour, and gave to all things the character of light. When it
+rained they were charmed, because they could remain indoors together all day
+with such a show of reason; when it was fine they were charmed, because they
+could sit together on the hills. They were like those double stars which
+revolve round and round each other, and from a distance appear to be one. The
+absolute solitude in which they lived intensified their reciprocal thoughts;
+yet some might have said that it had the disadvantage of consuming their mutual
+affections at a fearfully prodigal rate. Yeobright did not fear for his own
+part; but recollection of Eustacia&rsquo;s old speech about the evanescence of
+love, now apparently forgotten by her, sometimes caused him to ask himself a
+question; and he recoiled at the thought that the quality of finiteness was not
+foreign to Eden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When three or four weeks had been passed thus, Yeobright resumed his reading in
+earnest. To make up for lost time he studied indefatigably, for he wished to
+enter his new profession with the least possible delay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, Eustacia&rsquo;s dream had always been that, once married to Clym, she
+would have the power of inducing him to return to Paris. He had carefully
+withheld all promise to do so; but would he be proof against her coaxing and
+argument? She had calculated to such a degree on the probability of success
+that she had represented Paris, and not Budmouth, to her grandfather as in all
+likelihood their future home. Her hopes were bound up in this dream. In the
+quiet days since their marriage, when Yeobright had been poring over her lips,
+her eyes, and the lines of her face, she had mused and mused on the subject,
+even while in the act of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the books,
+indicating a future which was antagonistic to her dream, struck her with a
+positively painful jar. She was hoping for the time when, as the mistress of
+some pretty establishment, however small, near a Parisian Boulevard, she would
+be passing her days on the skirts at least of the gay world, and catching stray
+wafts from those town pleasures she was so well fitted to enjoy. Yet Yeobright
+was as firm in the contrary intention as if the tendency of marriage were
+rather to develop the fantasies of young philanthropy than to sweep them away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something in Clym&rsquo;s
+undeviating manner which made her hesitate before sounding him on the subject.
+At this point in their experience, however, an incident helped her. It occurred
+one evening about six weeks after their union, and arose entirely out of the
+unconscious misapplication of Venn of the fifty guineas intended for Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin had sent a note to her
+aunt to thank her. She had been surprised at the largeness of the amount; but
+as no sum had ever been mentioned she set that down to her late uncle&rsquo;s
+generosity. She had been strictly charged by her aunt to say nothing to her
+husband of this gift; and Wildeve, as was natural enough, had not brought
+himself to mention to his wife a single particular of the midnight scene in the
+heath. Christian&rsquo;s terror, in like manner, had tied his tongue on the
+share he took in that proceeding; and hoping that by some means or other the
+money had gone to its proper destination, he simply asserted as much, without
+giving details.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Therefore, when a week or two had passed away, Mrs. Yeobright began to wonder
+why she never heard from her son of the receipt of the present; and to add
+gloom to her perplexity came the possibility that resentment might be the cause
+of his silence. She could hardly believe as much, but why did he not write? She
+questioned Christian, and the confusion in his answers would at once have led
+her to believe that something was wrong, had not one-half of his story been
+corroborated by Thomasin&rsquo;s note.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright was in this state of uncertainty when she was informed one
+morning that her son&rsquo;s wife was visiting her grandfather at Mistover. She
+determined to walk up the hill, see Eustacia, and ascertain from her
+daughter-in-law&rsquo;s lips whether the family guineas, which were to Mrs.
+Yeobright what family jewels are to wealthier dowagers, had miscarried or not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Christian learnt where she was going his concern reached its height. At
+the moment of her departure he could prevaricate no longer, and, confessing to
+the gambling, told her the truth as far as he knew it&mdash;that the guineas
+had been won by Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, is he going to keep them?&rdquo; Mrs. Yeobright cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope and trust not!&rdquo; moaned Christian. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good
+man, and perhaps will do right things. He said you ought to have gied Mr.
+Clym&rsquo;s share to Eustacia, and that&rsquo;s perhaps what he&rsquo;ll do
+himself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Mrs. Yeobright, as soon as she could calmly reflect, there was much
+likelihood in this, for she could hardly believe that Wildeve would really
+appropriate money belonging to her son. The intermediate course of giving it to
+Eustacia was the sort of thing to please Wildeve&rsquo;s fancy. But it filled
+the mother with anger none the less. That Wildeve should have got command of
+the guineas after all, and should rearrange the disposal of them, placing
+Clym&rsquo;s share in Clym&rsquo;s wife&rsquo;s hands, because she had been his
+own sweetheart, and might be so still, was as irritating a pain as any that
+Mrs. Yeobright had ever borne.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She instantly dismissed the wretched Christian from her employ for his conduct
+in the affair; but, feeling quite helpless and unable to do without him, told
+him afterwards that he might stay a little longer if he chose. Then she
+hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less promising emotion towards her
+daughter-in-law than she had felt half an hour earlier, when planning her
+journey. At that time it was to inquire in a friendly spirit if there had been
+any accidental loss; now it was to ask plainly if Wildeve had privately given
+her money which had been intended as a sacred gift to Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started at two o&rsquo;clock, and her meeting with Eustacia was hastened by
+the appearance of the young lady beside the pool and bank which bordered her
+grandfather&rsquo;s premises, where she stood surveying the scene, and perhaps
+thinking of the romantic enactments it had witnessed in past days. When Mrs.
+Yeobright approached, Eustacia surveyed her with the calm stare of a stranger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mother-in-law was the first to speak. &ldquo;I was coming to see
+you,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said Eustacia with surprise, for Mrs. Yeobright, much to
+the girl&rsquo;s mortification, had refused to be present at the wedding.
+&ldquo;I did not at all expect you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was coming on business only,&rdquo; said the visitor, more coldly than
+at first. &ldquo;Will you excuse my asking this&mdash;Have you received a gift
+from Thomasin&rsquo;s husband?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A gift?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean money!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&mdash;I myself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I meant yourself, privately&mdash;though I was not going to put it
+in that way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Money from Mr. Wildeve? No&mdash;never! Madam, what do you mean by
+that?&rdquo; Eustacia fired up all too quickly, for her own consciousness of
+the old attachment between herself and Wildeve led her to jump to the
+conclusion that Mrs. Yeobright also knew of it, and might have come to accuse
+her of receiving dishonourable presents from him now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I simply ask the question,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright. &ldquo;I have
+been&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You ought to have better opinions of me&mdash;I feared you were against
+me from the first!&rdquo; exclaimed Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. I was simply for Clym,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much
+emphasis in her earnestness. &ldquo;It is the instinct of everyone to look
+after their own.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How can you imply that he required guarding against me?&rdquo; cried
+Eustacia, passionate tears in her eyes. &ldquo;I have not injured him by
+marrying him! What sin have I done that you should think so ill of me? You had
+no right to speak against me to him when I have never wronged you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only did what was fair under the circumstances,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Yeobright more softly. &ldquo;I would rather not have gone into this question
+at present, but you compel me. I am not ashamed to tell you the honest truth. I
+was firmly convinced that he ought not to marry you&mdash;therefore I tried to
+dissuade him by all the means in my power. But it is done now, and I have no
+idea of complaining any more. I am ready to welcome you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, yes, it is very well to see things in that business point of
+view,&rdquo; murmured Eustacia with a smothered fire of feeling. &ldquo;But why
+should you think there is anything between me and Mr. Wildeve? I have a spirit
+as well as you. I am indignant; and so would any woman be. It was a
+condescension in me to be Clym&rsquo;s wife, and not a manœuvre, let me remind
+you; and therefore I will not be treated as a schemer whom it becomes necessary
+to bear with because she has crept into the family.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright, vainly endeavouring to control her
+anger. &ldquo;I have never heard anything to show that my son&rsquo;s lineage
+is not as good as the Vyes&rsquo;&mdash;perhaps better. It is amusing to hear
+you talk of condescension.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was condescension, nevertheless,&rdquo; said Eustacia vehemently.
+&ldquo;And if I had known then what I know now, that I should be living in this
+wild heath a month after my marriage, I&mdash;I should have thought twice
+before agreeing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would be better not to say that; it might not sound truthful. I am
+not aware that any deception was used on his part&mdash;I know there was
+not&mdash;whatever might have been the case on the other side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is too exasperating!&rdquo; answered the younger woman huskily, her
+face crimsoning, and her eyes darting light. &ldquo;How can you dare to speak
+to me like that? I insist upon repeating to you that had I known that my life
+would from my marriage up to this time have been as it is, I should have said
+<i>No</i>. I don&rsquo;t complain. I have never uttered a sound of such a thing
+to him; but it is true. I hope therefore that in the future you will be silent
+on my eagerness. If you injure me now you injure yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Injure you? Do you think I am an evil-disposed person?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You injured me before my marriage, and you have now suspected me of
+secretly favouring another man for money!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could not help what I thought. But I have never spoken of you outside
+my house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You spoke of me within it, to Clym, and you could not do worse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did my duty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll do mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A part of which will possibly be to set him against his mother. It is
+always so. But why should I not bear it as others have borne it before
+me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understand you,&rdquo; said Eustacia, breathless with emotion.
+&ldquo;You think me capable of every bad thing. Who can be worse than a wife
+who encourages a lover, and poisons her husband&rsquo;s mind against his
+relative? Yet that is now the character given to me. Will you not come and drag
+him out of my hands?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright gave back heat for heat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t rage at me, madam! It ill becomes your beauty, and I am not
+worth the injury you may do it on my account, I assure you. I am only a poor
+old woman who has lost a son.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you had treated me honourably you would have had him still.&rdquo;
+Eustacia said, while scalding tears trickled from her eyes. &ldquo;You have
+brought yourself to folly; you have caused a division which can never be
+healed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have done nothing. This audacity from a young woman is more than I can
+bear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was asked for; you have suspected me, and you have made me speak of
+my husband in a way I would not have done. You will let him know that I have
+spoken thus, and it will cause misery between us. Will you go away from me? You
+are no friend!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will go when I have spoken a word. If anyone says I have come here to
+question you without good grounds for it, that person speaks untruly. If anyone
+says that I attempted to stop your marriage by any but honest means, that
+person, too, does not speak the truth. I have fallen on an evil time; God has
+been unjust to me in letting you insult me! Probably my son&rsquo;s happiness
+does not lie on this side of the grave, for he is a foolish man who neglects
+the advice of his parent. You, Eustacia, stand on the edge of a precipice
+without knowing it. Only show my son one-half the temper you have shown me
+today&mdash;and you may before long&mdash;and you will find that though he is
+as gentle as a child with you now, he can be as hard as steel!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The excited mother then withdrew, and Eustacia, panting, stood looking into the
+pool.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap29"></a>II.<br />
+He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song</h2>
+
+<p>
+The result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia, instead of passing
+the afternoon with her grandfather, hastily returned home to Clym, where she
+arrived three hours earlier than she had been expected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes still showing traces of
+her recent excitement. Yeobright looked up astonished; he had never seen her in
+any way approaching to that state before. She passed him by, and would have
+gone upstairs unnoticed, but Clym was so concerned that he immediately followed
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is the matter, Eustacia?&rdquo; he said. She was standing on the
+hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in front of
+her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer; and then she
+replied in a low voice&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A weight fell like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustacia had
+arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a wish that she
+would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her mother-in-law, or adopt any
+other means she might think fit to bring about a reconciliation. She had set
+out gaily; and he had hoped for much.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why is this?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot tell&mdash;I cannot remember. I met your mother. And I will
+never meet her again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now? I won&rsquo;t have wicked opinions
+passed on me by anybody. O! it was too humiliating to be asked if I had
+received any money from him, or encouraged him, or something of the
+sort&mdash;I don&rsquo;t exactly know what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How could she have asked you that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then there must have been some meaning in it. What did my mother say
+besides?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what she said, except in so far as this, that we both
+said words which can never be forgiven!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, there must be some misapprehension. Whose fault was it that her
+meaning was not made clear?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would rather not say. It may have been the fault of the circumstances,
+which were awkward at the very least. O Clym&mdash;I cannot help expressing
+it&mdash;this is an unpleasant position that you have placed me in. But you
+must improve it&mdash;yes, say you will&mdash;for I hate it all now! Yes, take
+me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation, Clym! I don&rsquo;t mind how
+humbly we live there at first, if it can only be Paris, and not Egdon
+Heath.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I have quite given up that idea,&rdquo; said Yeobright, with
+surprise. &ldquo;Surely I never led you to expect such a thing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I own it. Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept out of mind, and
+that one was mine. Must I not have a voice in the matter, now I am your wife
+and the sharer of your doom?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale of discussion;
+and I thought this was specially so, and by mutual agreement.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear,&rdquo; she said in a low voice; and
+her eyes drooped, and she turned away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia&rsquo;s bosom
+disconcerted her husband. It was the first time that he had confronted the fact
+of the indirectness of a woman&rsquo;s movement towards her desire. But his
+intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia well. All the effect that her
+remark had upon him was a resolve to chain himself more closely than ever to
+his books, so as to be the sooner enabled to appeal to substantial results from
+another course in arguing against her whim.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day the mystery of the guineas was explained. Thomasin paid them a hurried
+visit, and Clym&rsquo;s share was delivered up to him by her own hands.
+Eustacia was not present at the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then this is what my mother meant,&rdquo; exclaimed Clym.
+&ldquo;Thomasin, do you know that they have had a bitter quarrel?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin&rsquo;s manner
+towards her cousin. It is the effect of marriage to engender in several
+directions some of the reserve it annihilates in one. &ldquo;Your mother told
+me,&rdquo; she said quietly. &ldquo;She came back to my house after seeing
+Eustacia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass. Was Mother much disturbed
+when she came to you, Thomasin?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very much indeed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered his eyes
+with his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook his head. &ldquo;Not two people with inflammable natures like theirs.
+Well, what must be will be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One thing is cheerful in it&mdash;the guineas are not lost.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would rather have lost them twice over than have had this
+happen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to be
+indispensable&mdash;that he should speedily make some show of progress in his
+scholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hours during many
+nights.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with a strange
+sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon the window-blind, and
+at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obliged him to close his eyelids
+quickly. At every new attempt to look about him the same morbid sensibility to
+light was manifested, and excoriating tears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged
+to tie a bandage over his brow while dressing; and during the day it could not
+be abandoned. Eustacia was thoroughly alarmed. On finding that the case was no
+better the next morning they decided to send to Anglebury for a surgeon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acute inflammation
+induced by Clym&rsquo;s night studies, continued in spite of a cold previously
+caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was so anxious to
+hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shut up in a room from
+which all light was excluded, and his condition would have been one of absolute
+misery had not Eustacia read to him by the glimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped
+that the worst would soon be over; but at the surgeon&rsquo;s third visit he
+learnt to his dismay that although he might venture out of doors with shaded
+eyes in the course of a month, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading
+print of any description, would have to be given up for a long time to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten the gloom of
+the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia, but she carefully
+refrained from uttering them to her husband. Suppose he should become blind,
+or, at all events, never recover sufficient strength of sight to engage in an
+occupation which would be congenial to her feelings, and conduce to her removal
+from this lonely dwelling among the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was
+not likely to cohere into substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day
+after day passed by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this
+mournful groove, and she would go away from him into the garden and weep
+despairing tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought he would
+not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more unhappy; and the
+seclusion of their life was such that she would hardly be likely to learn the
+news except through a special messenger. Endeavouring to take the trouble as
+philosophically as possible, he waited on till the third week had arrived, when
+he went into the open air for the first time since the attack. The surgeon
+visited him again at this stage, and Clym urged him to express a distinct
+opinion. The young man learnt with added surprise that the date at which he
+might expect to resume his labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes being in
+that peculiar state which, though affording him sight enough for walking about,
+would not admit of their being strained upon any definite object without
+incurring the risk of reproducing ophthalmia in its acute form.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quiet firmness,
+and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was not to be blind; that was
+enough. To be doomed to behold the world through smoked glass for an indefinite
+period was bad enough, and fatal to any kind of advance; but Yeobright was an
+absolute stoic in the face of mishaps which only affected his social standing;
+and, apart from Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if it
+could be made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To keep a
+cottage night-school was one such form; and his affliction did not master his
+spirit as it might otherwise have done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon with which
+he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old home. He saw before
+him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron, and advancing, dimly
+perceived that the shine came from the tool of a man who was cutting furze. The
+worker recognized Clym, and Yeobright learnt from the voice that the speaker
+was Humphrey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym&rsquo;s condition, and added, &ldquo;Now,
+if yours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just the
+same.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I could,&rdquo; said Yeobright musingly. &ldquo;How much do you get
+for cutting these faggots?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well on
+the wages.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the whole of Yeobright&rsquo;s walk home to Alderworth he was lost in
+reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up to the house
+Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went across to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Darling,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am much happier. And if my mother were
+reconciled to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fear that will never be,&rdquo; she said, looking afar with her
+beautiful stormy eyes. &ldquo;How <i>can</i> you say &lsquo;I am
+happier,&rsquo; and nothing changed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and get
+a living at, in this time of misfortune.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going to be a furze- and turf-cutter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, Clym!&rdquo; she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in
+her face going off again, and leaving her worse than before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the little
+money we&rsquo;ve got when I can keep down expenditures by an honest
+occupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but that in a
+few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly well
+off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and such
+people!&rdquo; A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia&rsquo;s face, which he did
+not see. There had been nonchalance in his tone, showing her that he felt no
+absolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive horror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey&rsquo;s cottage, and borrowed of
+him leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook, to use till he should be able to
+purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth with his new fellow-labourer
+and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the furze grew thickest he
+struck the first blow in his adopted calling. His sight, like the wings in
+Rasselas, though useless to him for his grand purpose, sufficed for this
+strait, and he found that when a little practice should have hardened his palms
+against blistering he would be able to work with ease.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and went off to
+the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from four o&rsquo;clock in
+the morning till noon; then, when the heat of the day was at its highest, to go
+home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards coming out again and working till
+dusk at nine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements, and by
+the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that his closest friend might
+have passed by without recognizing him. He was a brown spot in the midst of an
+expanse of olive-green gorse, and nothing more. Though frequently depressed in
+spirit when not actually at work, owing to thoughts of Eustacia&rsquo;s
+position and his mother&rsquo;s estrangement, when in the full swing of labour
+he was cheerfully disposed and calm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world being limited
+to a circuit of a few feet from his person. His familiars were creeping and
+winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their band. Bees hummed around
+his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at the heath and furze-flowers at his
+side in such numbers as to weigh them down to the sod. The strange
+amber-coloured butterflies which Egdon produced, and which were never seen
+elsewhere, quivered in the breath of his lips, alighted upon his bowed back,
+and sported with the glittering point of his hook as he flourished it up and
+down. Tribes of emerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet, falling
+awkwardly on their backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance
+might rule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations under the fern-fronds
+with silent ones of homely hue. Huge flies, ignorant of larders and
+wire-netting, and quite in a savage state, buzzed about him without knowing
+that he was a man. In and out of the fern-dells snakes glided in their most
+brilliant blue and yellow guise, it being the season immediately following the
+shedding of their old skins, when their colours are brightest. Litters of young
+rabbits came out from their forms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the hot
+beams blazing through the delicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing
+it to a blood-red transparency in which the veins could be seen. None of them
+feared him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself a pleasure. A
+forced limitation of effort offered a justification of homely courses to an
+unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly have allowed him to remain in
+such obscurity while his powers were unimpeded. Hence Yeobright sometimes sang
+to himself, and when obliged to accompany Humphrey in search of brambles for
+faggot-bonds he would amuse his companion with sketches of Parisian life and
+character, and so while away the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in the direction of
+Yeobright&rsquo;s place of work. He was busily chopping away at the furze, a
+long row of faggots which stretched downward from his position representing the
+labour of the day. He did not observe her approach, and she stood close to him,
+and heard his undercurrent of song. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor
+afflicted man, earning money by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her
+to tears; but to hear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation
+which, however satisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated
+lady-wife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he still went on
+singing:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Le point du jour<br />
+A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;<br />
+Flore est plus belle à son retour;<br />
+L&rsquo;oiseau reprend doux chant d&rsquo;amour;<br />
+Tout célèbre dans la nature<br />
+Le point du jour.<br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;Le point du jour<br />
+Cause parfois, cause douleur extrême;<br />
+Que l&rsquo;espace des nuits est court<br />
+Pour le berger brûlant d&rsquo;amour,<br />
+Forcé de quitter ce qu&rsquo;il aime<br />
+Au point du jour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much about social
+failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in sick despair at
+thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of that mood and condition in
+him. Then she came forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would starve rather than do it!&rdquo; she exclaimed vehemently.
+&ldquo;And you can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving,&rdquo;
+he said gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, and took
+her hand. &ldquo;Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only a little
+old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and now just applies to my
+life with you. Has your love for me all died, then, because my appearance is no
+longer that of a fine gentleman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make me not
+love you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won&rsquo;t give in to mine
+when I wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything you
+dislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am your wife, and why
+will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know what that tone means.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What tone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The tone in which you said, &lsquo;Your wife indeed.&rsquo; It meant,
+&lsquo;Your wife, worse luck.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may have reason,
+though she is not without heart, and if I felt &lsquo;worse luck,&rsquo; it was
+no ignoble feeling&mdash;it was only too natural. There, you see that at any
+rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how, before we were married, I
+warned you that I had not good wifely qualities?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noble
+course would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me, Eustacia,
+though I may no longer be king of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are my husband. Does not that content you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not unless you are my wife without regret.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a serious matter
+on your hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I saw that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen any such
+thing; you are too severe upon me, Clym&mdash;I won&rsquo;t like your speaking
+so at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I married you in spite of it, and don&rsquo;t regret doing so. How
+cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was a warmer
+heart than yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I fear we are cooling&mdash;I see it as well as you,&rdquo; she
+sighed mournfully. &ldquo;And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never
+tired of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have thought
+then that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright to yours, nor your
+lips so very sweet to mine? Two months&mdash;is it possible? Yes, &rsquo;tis
+too true!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that&rsquo;s a hopeful
+sign.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. I don&rsquo;t sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh
+for, or any other woman in my place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste an unfortunate
+man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity as
+much as you. As much?&mdash;I think I deserve it more. For you can sing! It
+would be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a cloud as
+this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would astonish and
+confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you felt careless about your
+own affliction, you might have refrained from singing out of sheer pity for
+mine. God! if I were a man in such a position I would curse rather than
+sing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. &ldquo;Now, don&rsquo;t you suppose, my
+inexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion, against
+the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam and smoke of that sort
+than you have ever heard of. But the more I see of life the more do I perceive
+that there is nothing particularly great in its greatest walks, and therefore
+nothing particularly small in mine of furze-cutting. If I feel that the
+greatest blessings vouchsafed to us are not very valuable, how can I feel it to
+be any great hardship when they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time.
+Have you indeed lost all tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a few cheerful
+moments?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have still some tenderness left for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with good
+fortune!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot listen to this, Clym&mdash;it will end bitterly,&rdquo; she
+said in a broken voice. &ldquo;I will go home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap30"></a>III.<br />
+She Goes Out to Battle against Depression</h2>
+
+<p>
+A few days later, before the month of August had expired, Eustacia and
+Yeobright sat together at their early dinner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia&rsquo;s manner had become of late almost apathetic. There was a
+forlorn look about her beautiful eyes which, whether she deserved it or not,
+would have excited pity in the breast of anyone who had known her during the
+full flush of her love for Clym. The feelings of husband and wife varied, in
+some measure, inversely with their positions. Clym, the afflicted man, was
+cheerful; and he even tried to comfort her, who had never felt a moment of
+physical suffering in her whole life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, brighten up, dearest; we shall be all right again. Some day
+perhaps I shall see as well as ever. And I solemnly promise that I&rsquo;ll
+leave off cutting furze as soon as I have the power to do anything better. You
+cannot seriously wish me to stay idling at home all day?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But it is so dreadful&mdash;a furze-cutter! and you a man who have lived
+about the world, and speak French, and German, and who are fit for what is so
+much better than this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose when you first saw me and heard about me I was wrapped in a
+sort of golden halo to your eyes&mdash;a man who knew glorious things, and had
+mixed in brilliant scenes&mdash;in short, an adorable, delightful, distracting
+hero?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, sobbing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now I am a poor fellow in brown leather.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t taunt me. But enough of this. I will not be depressed any
+more. I am going from home this afternoon, unless you greatly object. There is
+to be a village picnic&mdash;a gipsying, they call it&mdash;at East Egdon, and
+I shall go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To dance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not? You can sing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, as you will. Must I come to fetch you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you return soon enough from your work. But do not inconvenience
+yourself about it. I know the way home, and the heath has no terror for
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And can you cling to gaiety so eagerly as to walk all the way to a
+village festival in search of it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, you don&rsquo;t like my going alone! Clym, you are not
+jealous?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. But I would come with you if it could give you any pleasure; though,
+as things stand, perhaps you have too much of me already. Still, I somehow wish
+that you did not want to go. Yes, perhaps I am jealous; and who could be
+jealous with more reason than I, a half-blind man, over such a woman as
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think like it. Let me go, and don&rsquo;t take all my
+spirits away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would rather lose all my own, my sweet wife. Go and do whatever you
+like. Who can forbid your indulgence in any whim? You have all my heart yet, I
+believe; and because you bear with me, who am in truth a drag upon you, I owe
+you thanks. Yes, go alone and shine. As for me, I will stick to my doom. At
+that kind of meeting people would shun me. My hook and gloves are like the St.
+Lazarus rattle of the leper, warning the world to get out of the way of a sight
+that would sadden them.&rdquo; He kissed her, put on his leggings, and went
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he was gone she rested her head upon her hands and said to herself,
+&ldquo;Two wasted lives&mdash;his and mine. And I am come to this! Will it
+drive me out of my mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She cast about for any possible course which offered the least improvement on
+the existing state of things, and could find none. She imagined how all those
+Budmouth ones who should learn what had become of her would say, &ldquo;Look at
+the girl for whom nobody was good enough!&rdquo; To Eustacia the situation
+seemed such a mockery of her hopes that death appeared the only door of relief
+if the satire of Heaven should go much further.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll shake it off.
+Yes, I <i>will</i> shake it off! No one shall know my suffering. I&rsquo;ll be
+bitterly merry, and ironically gay, and I&rsquo;ll laugh in derision. And
+I&rsquo;ll begin by going to this dance on the green.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She ascended to her bedroom and dressed herself with scrupulous care. To an
+onlooker her beauty would have made her feelings almost seem reasonable. The
+gloomy corner into which accident as much as indiscretion had brought this
+woman might have led even a moderate partisan to feel that she had cogent
+reasons for asking the Supreme Power by what right a being of such exquisite
+finish had been placed in circumstances calculated to make of her charms a
+curse rather than a blessing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was five in the afternoon when she came out from the house ready for her
+walk. There was material enough in the picture for twenty new conquests. The
+rebellious sadness that was rather too apparent when she sat indoors without a
+bonnet was cloaked and softened by her outdoor attire, which always had a sort
+of nebulousness about it, devoid of harsh edges anywhere; so that her face
+looked from its environment as from a cloud, with no noticeable lines of
+demarcation between flesh and clothes. The heat of the day had scarcely
+declined as yet, and she went along the sunny hills at a leisurely pace, there
+being ample time for her idle expedition. Tall ferns buried her in their
+leafage whenever her path lay through them, which now formed miniature forests,
+though not one stem of them would remain to bud the next year.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The site chosen for the village festivity was one of the lawnlike oases which
+were occasionally, yet not often, met with on the plateaux of the heath
+district. The brakes of furze and fern terminated abruptly round the margin,
+and the grass was unbroken. A green cattletrack skirted the spot, without,
+however, emerging from the screen of fern, and this path Eustacia followed, in
+order to reconnoitre the group before joining it. The lusty notes of the East
+Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and she now beheld the musicians
+themselves, sitting in a blue wagon with red wheels scrubbed as bright as new,
+and arched with sticks, to which boughs and flowers were tied. In front of this
+was the grand central dance of fifteen or twenty couples, flanked by minor
+dances of inferior individuals whose gyrations were not always in strict
+keeping with the tune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a flush on their faces
+footed it to the girls, who, with the excitement and the exercise, blushed
+deeper than the pink of their numerous ribbons. Fair ones with long curls, fair
+ones with short curls, fair ones with lovelocks, fair ones with braids, flew
+round and round; and a beholder might well have wondered how such a
+prepossessing set of young women of like size, age, and disposition, could have
+been collected together where there were only one or two villages to choose
+from. In the background was one happy man dancing by himself, with closed eyes,
+totally oblivious of all the rest. A fire was burning under a pollard thorn a
+few paces off, over which three kettles hung in a row. Hard by was a table
+where elderly dames prepared tea, but Eustacia looked among them in vain for
+the cattle-dealer&rsquo;s wife who had suggested that she should come, and had
+promised to obtain a courteous welcome for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This unexpected absence of the only local resident whom Eustacia knew
+considerably damaged her scheme for an afternoon of reckless gaiety. Joining in
+became a matter of difficulty, notwithstanding that, were she to advance,
+cheerful dames would come forward with cups of tea and make much of her as a
+stranger of superior grace and knowledge to themselves. Having watched the
+company through the figures of two dances, she decided to walk a little
+further, to a cottage where she might get some refreshment, and then return
+homeward in the shady time of evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This she did, and by the time that she retraced her steps towards the scene of
+the gipsying, which it was necessary to repass on her way to Alderworth, the
+sun was going down. The air was now so still that she could hear the band afar
+off, and it seemed to be playing with more spirit, if that were possible, than
+when she had come away. On reaching the hill the sun had quite disappeared; but
+this made little difference either to Eustacia or to the revellers, for a round
+yellow moon was rising before her, though its rays had not yet outmastered
+those from the west. The dance was going on just the same, but strangers had
+arrived and formed a ring around the figure, so that Eustacia could stand among
+these without a chance of being recognized.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A whole village-full of sensuous emotion, scattered abroad all the year long,
+surged here in a focus for an hour. The forty hearts of those waving couples
+were beating as they had not done since, twelve months before, they had come
+together in similar jollity. For the time paganism was revived in their hearts,
+the pride of life was all in all, and they adored none other than themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How many of those impassioned but temporary embraces were destined to become
+perpetual was possibly the wonder of some of those who indulged in them, as
+well as of Eustacia who looked on. She began to envy those pirouetters, to
+hunger for the hope and happiness which the fascination of the dance seemed to
+engender within them. Desperately fond of dancing herself, one of
+Eustacia&rsquo;s expectations of Paris had been the opportunity it might afford
+her of indulgence in this favourite pastime. Unhappily, that expectation was
+now extinct within her for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whilst she abstractedly watched them spinning and fluctuating in the increasing
+moonlight she suddenly heard her name whispered by a voice over her shoulder.
+Turning in surprise, she beheld at her elbow one whose presence instantly
+caused her to flush to the temples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Wildeve. Till this moment he had not met her eye since the morning of
+his marriage, when she had been loitering in the church, and had startled him
+by lifting her veil and coming forward to sign the register as witness. Yet why
+the sight of him should have instigated that sudden rush of blood she could not
+tell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before she could speak he whispered, &ldquo;Do you like dancing as much as
+ever?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I do,&rdquo; she replied in a low voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you dance with me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would be a great change for me; but will it not seem strange?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What strangeness can there be in relations dancing together?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;yes, relations. Perhaps none.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Still, if you don&rsquo;t like to be seen, pull down your veil; though
+there is not much risk of being known by this light. Lots of strangers are
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did as he suggested; and the act was a tacit acknowledgment that she
+accepted his offer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve gave her his arm and took her down on the outside of the ring to the
+bottom of the dance, which they entered. In two minutes more they were involved
+in the figure and began working their way upwards to the top. Till they had
+advanced halfway thither Eustacia wished more than once that she had not
+yielded to his request; from the middle to the top she felt that, since she had
+come out to seek pleasure, she was only doing a natural thing to obtain it.
+Fairly launched into the ceaseless glides and whirls which their new position
+as top couple opened up to them, Eustacia&rsquo;s pulses began to move too
+quickly for long rumination of any kind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the length of five-and-twenty couples they threaded their giddy way,
+and a new vitality entered her form. The pale ray of evening lent a fascination
+to the experience. There is a certain degree and tone of light which tends to
+disturb the equilibrium of the senses, and to promote dangerously the tenderer
+moods; added to movement, it drives the emotions to rankness, the reason
+becoming sleepy and unperceiving in inverse proportion; and this light fell now
+upon these two from the disc of the moon. All the dancing girls felt the
+symptoms, but Eustacia most of all. The grass under their feet became trodden
+away, and the hard, beaten surface of the sod, when viewed aslant towards the
+moonlight, shone like a polished table. The air became quite still, the flag
+above the wagon which held the musicians clung to the pole, and the players
+appeared only in outline against the sky; except when the circular mouths of
+the trombone, ophicleide, and French horn gleamed out like huge eyes from the
+shade of their figures. The pretty dresses of the maids lost their subtler day
+colours and showed more or less of a misty white. Eustacia floated round and
+round on Wildeve&rsquo;s arm, her face rapt and statuesque; her soul had passed
+away from and forgotten her features, which were left empty and quiescent, as
+they always are when feeling goes beyond their register.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How near she was to Wildeve! it was terrible to think of. She could feel his
+breathing, and he, of course, could feel hers. How badly she had treated him!
+yet, here they were treading one measure. The enchantment of the dance
+surprised her. A clear line of difference divided like a tangible fence her
+experience within this maze of motion from her experience without it. Her
+beginning to dance had been like a change of atmosphere; outside, she had been
+steeped in arctic frigidity by comparison with the tropical sensations here.
+She had entered the dance from the troubled hours of her late life as one might
+enter a brilliant chamber after a night walk in a wood. Wildeve by himself
+would have been merely an agitation; Wildeve added to the dance, and the
+moonlight, and the secrecy, began to be a delight. Whether his personality
+supplied the greater part of this sweetly compounded feeling, or whether the
+dance and the scene weighed the more therein, was a nice point upon which
+Eustacia herself was entirely in a cloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+People began to say &ldquo;Who are they?&rdquo; but no invidious inquiries were
+made. Had Eustacia mingled with the other girls in their ordinary daily walks
+the case would have been different: here she was not inconvenienced by
+excessive inspection, for all were wrought to their brightest grace by the
+occasion. Like the planet Mercury surrounded by the lustre of sunset, her
+permanent brilliancy passed without much notice in the temporary glory of the
+situation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Wildeve, his feelings are easy to guess. Obstacles were a ripening sun
+to his love, and he was at this moment in a delirium of exquisite misery. To
+clasp as his for five minutes what was another man&rsquo;s through all the rest
+of the year was a kind of thing he of all men could appreciate. He had long
+since begun to sigh again for Eustacia; indeed, it may be asserted that signing
+the marriage register with Thomasin was the natural signal to his heart to
+return to its first quarters, and that the extra complication of
+Eustacia&rsquo;s marriage was the one addition required to make that return
+compulsory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus, for different reasons, what was to the rest an exhilarating movement was
+to these two a riding upon the whirlwind. The dance had come like an
+irresistible attack upon whatever sense of social order there was in their
+minds, to drive them back into old paths which were now doubly irregular.
+Through three dances in succession they spun their way; and then, fatigued with
+the incessant motion, Eustacia turned to quit the circle in which she had
+already remained too long. Wildeve led her to a grassy mound a few yards
+distant, where she sat down, her partner standing beside her. From the time
+that he addressed her at the beginning of the dance till now they had not
+exchanged a word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The dance and the walking have tired you?&rdquo; he said tenderly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; not greatly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is strange that we should have met here of all places, after missing
+each other so long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. But you began that proceeding&mdash;by breaking a promise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is scarcely worth while to talk of that now. We have formed other
+ties since then&mdash;you no less than I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry to hear that your husband is ill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is not ill&mdash;only incapacitated.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;that is what I mean. I sincerely sympathize with you in your
+trouble. Fate has treated you cruelly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was silent awhile. &ldquo;Have you heard that he has chosen to work as a
+furze-cutter?&rdquo; she said in a low, mournful voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has been mentioned to me,&rdquo; answered Wildeve hesitatingly.
+&ldquo;But I hardly believed it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is true. What do you think of me as a furze-cutter&rsquo;s
+wife?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think the same as ever of you, Eustacia. Nothing of that sort can
+degrade you&mdash;you ennoble the occupation of your husband.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I could feel it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there any chance of Mr. Yeobright getting better?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He thinks so. I doubt it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was quite surprised to hear that he had taken a cottage. I thought, in
+common with other people, that he would have taken you off to a home in Paris
+immediately after you had married him. &lsquo;What a gay, bright future she has
+before her!&rsquo; I thought. He will, I suppose, return there with you, if his
+sight gets strong again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Observing that she did not reply he regarded her more closely. She was almost
+weeping. Images of a future never to be enjoyed, the revived sense of her
+bitter disappointment, the picture of the neighbour&rsquo;s suspended ridicule
+which was raised by Wildeve&rsquo;s words, had been too much for proud
+Eustacia&rsquo;s equanimity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve could hardly control his own too forward feelings when he saw her
+silent perturbation. But he affected not to notice this, and she soon recovered
+her calmness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You do not intend to walk home by yourself?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes,&rdquo; said Eustacia. &ldquo;What could hurt me on this heath,
+who have nothing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By diverging a little I can make my way home the same as yours. I shall
+be glad to keep you company as far as Throope Corner.&rdquo; Seeing that
+Eustacia sat on in hesitation he added, &ldquo;Perhaps you think it unwise to
+be seen in the same road with me after the events of last summer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed I think no such thing,&rdquo; she said haughtily. &ldquo;I shall
+accept whose company I choose, for all that may be said by the miserable
+inhabitants of Egdon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then let us walk on&mdash;if you are ready. Our nearest way is towards
+that holly bush with the dark shadow that you see down there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia arose, and walked beside him in the direction signified, brushing her
+way over the damping heath and fern, and followed by the strains of the
+merrymakers, who still kept up the dance. The moon had now waxed bright and
+silvery, but the heath was proof against such illumination, and there was to be
+observed the striking scene of a dark, rayless tract of country under an
+atmosphere charged from its zenith to its extremities with whitest light. To an
+eye above them their two faces would have appeared amid the expanse like two
+pearls on a table of ebony.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On this account the irregularities of the path were not visible, and Wildeve
+occasionally stumbled; whilst Eustacia found it necessary to perform some
+graceful feats of balancing whenever a small tuft of heather or root of furze
+protruded itself through the grass of the narrow track and entangled her feet.
+At these junctures in her progress a hand was invariably stretched forward to
+steady her, holding her firmly until smooth ground was again reached, when the
+hand was again withdrawn to a respectful distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They performed the journey for the most part in silence, and drew near to
+Throope Corner, a few hundred yards from which a short path branched away to
+Eustacia&rsquo;s house. By degrees they discerned coming towards them a pair of
+human figures, apparently of the male sex.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they came a little nearer Eustacia broke the silence by saying, &ldquo;One
+of those men is my husband. He promised to come to meet me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the other is my greatest enemy,&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It looks like Diggory Venn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is the man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is an awkward meeting,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;but such is my
+fortune. He knows too much about me, unless he could know more, and so prove to
+himself that what he now knows counts for nothing. Well, let it be&mdash;you
+must deliver me up to them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will think twice before you direct me to do that. Here is a man who
+has not forgotten an item in our meetings at Rainbarrow&mdash;he is in company
+with your husband. Which of them, seeing us together here, will believe that
+our meeting and dancing at the gipsy party was by chance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; she whispered gloomily. &ldquo;Leave me before they
+come up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve bade her a tender farewell, and plunged across the fern and furze,
+Eustacia slowly walking on. In two or three minutes she met her husband and his
+companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My journey ends here for tonight, reddleman,&rdquo; said Yeobright as
+soon as he perceived her. &ldquo;I turn back with this lady. Good night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good night, Mr. Yeobright,&rdquo; said Venn. &ldquo;I hope to see you
+better soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moonlight shone directly upon Venn&rsquo;s face as he spoke, and revealed
+all its lines to Eustacia. He was looking suspiciously at her. That
+Venn&rsquo;s keen eye had discerned what Yeobright&rsquo;s feeble vision had
+not&mdash;a man in the act of withdrawing from Eustacia&rsquo;s side&mdash;was
+within the limits of the probable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If Eustacia had been able to follow the reddleman she would soon have found
+striking confirmation of her thought. No sooner had Clym given her his arm and
+led her off the scene than the reddleman turned back from the beaten track
+towards East Egdon, whither he had been strolling merely to accompany Clym in
+his walk, Diggory&rsquo;s van being again in the neighbourhood. Stretching out
+his long legs, he crossed the pathless portion of the heath somewhat in the
+direction which Wildeve had taken. Only a man accustomed to nocturnal rambles
+could at this hour have descended those shaggy slopes with Venn&rsquo;s
+velocity without falling headlong into a pit, or snapping off his leg by
+jamming his foot into some rabbit burrow. But Venn went on without much
+inconvenience to himself, and the course of his scamper was towards the Quiet
+Woman Inn. This place he reached in about half an hour, and he was well aware
+that no person who had been near Throope Corner when he started could have got
+down here before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lonely inn was not yet closed, though scarcely an individual was there, the
+business done being chiefly with travellers who passed the inn on long
+journeys, and these had now gone on their way. Venn went to the public room,
+called for a mug of ale, and inquired of the maid in an indifferent tone if Mr.
+Wildeve was at home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin sat in an inner room and heard Venn&rsquo;s voice. When customers were
+present she seldom showed herself, owing to her inherent dislike for the
+business; but perceiving that no one else was there tonight she came out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is not at home yet, Diggory,&rdquo; she said pleasantly. &ldquo;But I
+expected him sooner. He has been to East Egdon to buy a horse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he wear a light wideawake?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I saw him at Throope Corner, leading one home,&rdquo; said Venn
+drily. &ldquo;A beauty, with a white face and a mane as black as night. He will
+soon be here, no doubt.&rdquo; Rising and looking for a moment at the pure,
+sweet face of Thomasin, over which a shadow of sadness had passed since the
+time when he had last seen her, he ventured to add, &ldquo;Mr. Wildeve seems to
+be often away at this time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes,&rdquo; cried Thomasin in what was intended to be a tone of
+gaiety. &ldquo;Husbands will play the truant, you know. I wish you could tell
+me of some secret plan that would help me to keep him home at my will in the
+evenings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will consider if I know of one,&rdquo; replied Venn in that same light
+tone which meant no lightness. And then he bowed in a manner of his own
+invention and moved to go. Thomasin offered him her hand; and without a sigh,
+though with food for many, the reddleman went out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Wildeve returned, a quarter of an hour later Thomasin said simply, and in
+the abashed manner usual with her now, &ldquo;Where is the horse, Damon?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, I have not bought it, after all. The man asks too much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But somebody saw you at Throope Corner leading it home&mdash;a beauty,
+with a white face and a mane as black as night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Wildeve, fixing his eyes upon her; &ldquo;who told you
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Venn the reddleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The expression of Wildeve&rsquo;s face became curiously condensed. &ldquo;That
+is a mistake&mdash;it must have been someone else,&rdquo; he said slowly and
+testily, for he perceived that Venn&rsquo;s countermoves had begun again.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap31"></a>IV.<br />
+Rough Coercion Is Employed</h2>
+
+<p>
+Those words of Thomasin, which seemed so little, but meant so much, remained in
+the ears of Diggory Venn: &ldquo;Help me to keep him home in the
+evenings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On this occasion Venn had arrived on Egdon Heath only to cross to the other
+side&mdash;he had no further connection with the interests of the Yeobright
+family, and he had a business of his own to attend to. Yet he suddenly began to
+feel himself drifting into the old track of manœuvring on Thomasin&rsquo;s
+account.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat in his van and considered. From Thomasin&rsquo;s words and manner he had
+plainly gathered that Wildeve neglected her. For whom could he neglect her if
+not for Eustacia? Yet it was scarcely credible that things had come to such a
+head as to indicate that Eustacia systematically encouraged him. Venn resolved
+to reconnoitre somewhat carefully the lonely road which led along the vale from
+Wildeve&rsquo;s dwelling to Clym&rsquo;s house at Alderworth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this time, as has been seen, Wildeve was quite innocent of any predetermined
+act of intrigue, and except at the dance on the green he had not once met
+Eustacia since her marriage. But that the spirit of intrigue was in him had
+been shown by a recent romantic habit of his&mdash;a habit of going out after
+dark and strolling towards Alderworth, there looking at the moon and stars,
+looking at Eustacia&rsquo;s house, and walking back at leisure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly, when watching on the night after the festival, the reddleman saw
+him ascend by the little path, lean over the front gate of Clym&rsquo;s garden,
+sigh, and turn to go back again. It was plain that Wildeve&rsquo;s intrigue was
+rather ideal than real. Venn retreated before him down the hill to a place
+where the path was merely a deep groove between the heather; here he
+mysteriously bent over the ground for a few minutes, and retired. When Wildeve
+came on to that spot his ankle was caught by something, and he fell headlong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as he had recovered the power of respiration he sat up and listened.
+There was not a sound in the gloom beyond the spiritless stir of the summer
+wind. Feeling about for the obstacle which had flung him down, he discovered
+that two tufts of heath had been tied together across the path, forming a loop,
+which to a traveller was certain overthrow. Wildeve pulled off the string that
+bound them, and went on with tolerable quickness. On reaching home he found the
+cord to be of a reddish colour. It was just what he had expected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although his weaknesses were not specially those akin to physical fear, this
+species of coup-de-Jarnac from one he knew too well troubled the mind of
+Wildeve. But his movements were unaltered thereby. A night or two later he
+again went along the vale to Alderworth, taking the precaution of keeping out
+of any path. The sense that he was watched, that craft was employed to
+circumvent his errant tastes, added piquancy to a journey so entirely
+sentimental, so long as the danger was of no fearful sort. He imagined that
+Venn and Mrs. Yeobright were in league, and felt that there was a certain
+legitimacy in combating such a coalition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heath tonight appeared to be totally deserted; and Wildeve, after looking
+over Eustacia&rsquo;s garden gate for some little time, with a cigar in his
+mouth, was tempted by the fascination that emotional smuggling had for his
+nature to advance towards the window, which was not quite closed, the blind
+being only partly drawn down. He could see into the room, and Eustacia was
+sitting there alone. Wildeve contemplated her for a minute, and then retreating
+into the heath beat the ferns lightly, whereupon moths flew out alarmed.
+Securing one, he returned to the window, and holding the moth to the chink,
+opened his hand. The moth made towards the candle upon Eustacia&rsquo;s table,
+hovered round it two or three times, and flew into the flame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia started up. This had been a well-known signal in old times when
+Wildeve had used to come secretly wooing to Mistover. She at once knew that
+Wildeve was outside, but before she could consider what to do her husband came
+in from upstairs. Eustacia&rsquo;s face burnt crimson at the unexpected
+collision of incidents, and filled it with an animation that it too frequently
+lacked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have a very high colour, dearest,&rdquo; said Yeobright, when he
+came close enough to see it. &ldquo;Your appearance would be no worse if it
+were always so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am warm,&rdquo; said Eustacia. &ldquo;I think I will go into the air
+for a few minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I go with you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no. I am only going to the gate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She arose, but before she had time to get out of the room a loud rapping began
+upon the front door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go&mdash;I&rsquo;ll go,&rdquo; said Eustacia in an unusually
+quick tone for her; and she glanced eagerly towards the window whence the moth
+had flown; but nothing appeared there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You had better not at this time of the evening,&rdquo; he said. Clym
+stepped before her into the passage, and Eustacia waited, her somnolent manner
+covering her inner heat and agitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She listened, and Clym opened the door. No words were uttered outside, and
+presently he closed it and came back, saying, &ldquo;Nobody was there. I wonder
+what that could have meant?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was left to wonder during the rest of the evening, for no explanation
+offered itself, and Eustacia said nothing, the additional fact that she knew of
+only adding more mystery to the performance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile a little drama had been acted outside which saved Eustacia from all
+possibility of compromising herself that evening at least. Whilst Wildeve had
+been preparing his moth-signal another person had come behind him up to the
+gate. This man, who carried a gun in his hand, looked on for a moment at the
+other&rsquo;s operation by the window, walked up to the house, knocked at the
+door, and then vanished round the corner and over the hedge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Damn him!&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;He has been watching me
+again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As his signal had been rendered futile by this uproarious rapping Wildeve
+withdrew, passed out at the gate, and walked quickly down the path without
+thinking of anything except getting away unnoticed. Halfway down the hill the
+path ran near a knot of stunted hollies, which in the general darkness of the
+scene stood as the pupil in a black eye. When Wildeve reached this point a
+report startled his ear, and a few spent gunshots fell among the leaves around
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no doubt that he himself was the cause of that gun&rsquo;s discharge;
+and he rushed into the clump of hollies, beating the bushes furiously with his
+stick; but nobody was there. This attack was a more serious matter than the
+last, and it was some time before Wildeve recovered his equanimity. A new and
+most unpleasant system of menace had begun, and the intent appeared to be to do
+him grievous bodily harm. Wildeve had looked upon Venn&rsquo;s first attempt as
+a species of horseplay, which the reddleman had indulged in for want of knowing
+better; but now the boundary line was passed which divides the annoying from
+the perilous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had Wildeve known how thoroughly in earnest Venn had become he might have been
+still more alarmed. The reddleman had been almost exasperated by the sight of
+Wildeve outside Clym&rsquo;s house, and he was prepared to go to any lengths
+short of absolutely shooting him, to terrify the young innkeeper out of his
+recalcitrant impulses. The doubtful legitimacy of such rough coercion did not
+disturb the mind of Venn. It troubles few such minds in such cases, and
+sometimes this is not to be regretted. From the impeachment of Strafford to
+Farmer Lynch&rsquo;s short way with the scamps of Virginia there have been many
+triumphs of justice which are mockeries of law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About half a mile below Clym&rsquo;s secluded dwelling lay a hamlet where lived
+one of the two constables who preserved the peace in the parish of Alderworth,
+and Wildeve went straight to the constable&rsquo;s cottage. Almost the first
+thing that he saw on opening the door was the constable&rsquo;s truncheon
+hanging to a nail, as if to assure him that here were the means to his purpose.
+On inquiry, however, of the constable&rsquo;s wife he learnt that the constable
+was not at home. Wildeve said he would wait.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The minutes ticked on, and the constable did not arrive. Wildeve cooled down
+from his state of high indignation to a restless dissatisfaction with himself,
+the scene, the constable&rsquo;s wife, and the whole set of circumstances. He
+arose and left the house. Altogether, the experience of that evening had had a
+cooling, not to say a chilling, effect on misdirected tenderness, and Wildeve
+was in no mood to ramble again to Alderworth after nightfall in hope of a stray
+glance from Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus far the reddleman had been tolerably successful in his rude contrivances
+for keeping down Wildeve&rsquo;s inclination to rove in the evening. He had
+nipped in the bud the possible meeting between Eustacia and her old lover this
+very night. But he had not anticipated that the tendency of his action would be
+to divert Wildeve&rsquo;s movement rather than to stop it. The gambling with
+the guineas had not conduced to make him a welcome guest to Clym; but to call
+upon his wife&rsquo;s relative was natural, and he was determined to see
+Eustacia. It was necessary to choose some less untoward hour than ten
+o&rsquo;clock at night. &ldquo;Since it is unsafe to go in the evening,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go by day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Venn had left the heath and gone to call upon Mrs. Yeobright, with
+whom he had been on friendly terms since she had learnt what a providential
+countermove he had made towards the restitution of the family guineas. She
+wondered at the lateness of his call, but had no objection to see him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He gave her a full account of Clym&rsquo;s affliction, and of the state in
+which he was living; then, referring to Thomasin, touched gently upon the
+apparent sadness of her days. &ldquo;Now, ma&rsquo;am, depend upon it,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;you couldn&rsquo;t do a better thing for either of &rsquo;em
+than to make yourself at home in their houses, even if there should be a little
+rebuff at first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Both she and my son disobeyed me in marrying; therefore I have no
+interest in their households. Their troubles are of their own making.&rdquo;
+Mrs. Yeobright tried to speak severely; but the account of her son&rsquo;s
+state had moved her more than she cared to show.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your visits would make Wildeve walk straighter than he is inclined to
+do, and might prevent unhappiness down the heath.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw something tonight out there which I didn&rsquo;t like at all. I
+wish your son&rsquo;s house and Mr. Wildeve&rsquo;s were a hundred miles apart
+instead of four or five.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then there <i>was</i> an understanding between him and Clym&rsquo;s wife
+when he made a fool of Thomasin!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll hope there&rsquo;s no understanding now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And our hope will probably be very vain. O Clym! O Thomasin!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no harm done yet. In fact, I&rsquo;ve persuaded Wildeve to
+mind his own business.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, not by talking&mdash;by a plan of mine called the silent
+system.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;ll succeed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall if you help me by calling and making friends with your son.
+You&rsquo;ll have a chance then of using your eyes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, since it has come to this,&rdquo; said Mrs. Yeobright sadly,
+&ldquo;I will own to you, reddleman, that I thought of going. I should be much
+happier if we were reconciled. The marriage is unalterable, my life may be cut
+short, and I should wish to die in peace. He is my only son; and since sons are
+made of such stuff I am not sorry I have no other. As for Thomasin, I never
+expected much from her; and she has not disappointed me. But I forgave her long
+ago; and I forgive him now. I&rsquo;ll go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this very time of the reddleman&rsquo;s conversation with Mrs. Yeobright at
+Blooms-End another conversation on the same subject was languidly proceeding at
+Alderworth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the day Clym had borne himself as if his mind were too full of its own
+matter to allow him to care about outward things, and his words now showed what
+had occupied his thoughts. It was just after the mysterious knocking that he
+began the theme. &ldquo;Since I have been away today, Eustacia, I have
+considered that something must be done to heal up this ghastly breach between
+my dear mother and myself. It troubles me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you propose to do?&rdquo; said Eustacia abstractedly, for she
+could not clear away from her the excitement caused by Wildeve&rsquo;s recent
+manœuvre for an interview.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You seem to take a very mild interest in what I propose, little or
+much,&rdquo; said Clym, with tolerable warmth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mistake me,&rdquo; she answered, reviving at his reproach. &ldquo;I
+am only thinking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What of?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Partly of that moth whose skeleton is getting burnt up in the wick of
+the candle,&rdquo; she said slowly. &ldquo;But you know I always take an
+interest in what you say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, dear. Then I think I must go and call upon her.&rdquo; ...He
+went on with tender feeling: &ldquo;It is a thing I am not at all too proud to
+do, and only a fear that I might irritate her has kept me away so long. But I
+must do something. It is wrong in me to allow this sort of thing to go
+on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have you to blame yourself about?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is getting old, and her life is lonely, and I am her only
+son.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She has Thomasin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thomasin is not her daughter; and if she were that would not excuse me.
+But this is beside the point. I have made up my mind to go to her, and all I
+wish to ask you is whether you will do your best to help me&mdash;that is,
+forget the past; and if she shows her willingness to be reconciled, meet her
+halfway by welcoming her to our house, or by accepting a welcome to
+hers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first Eustacia closed her lips as if she would rather do anything on the
+whole globe than what he suggested. But the lines of her mouth softened with
+thought, though not so far as they might have softened, and she said, &ldquo;I
+will put nothing in your way; but after what has passed it is asking too much
+that I go and make advances.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You never distinctly told me what did pass between you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could not do it then, nor can I now. Sometimes more bitterness is sown
+in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that may be the
+case here.&rdquo; She paused a few moments, and added, &ldquo;If you had never
+returned to your native place, Clym, what a blessing it would have been for
+you!... It has altered the destinies of&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three people.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five,&rdquo; Eustacia thought; but she kept that in.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap32"></a>V.<br />
+The Journey across the Heath</h2>
+
+<p>
+Thursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series of days during which
+snug houses were stifling, and when cool draughts were treats; when cracks
+appeared in clayey gardens, and were called &ldquo;earthquakes&rdquo; by
+apprehensive children; when loose spokes were discovered in the wheels of carts
+and carriages; and when stinging insects haunted the air, the earth, and every
+drop of water that was to be found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s garden large-leaved plants of a tender kind flagged
+by ten o&rsquo;clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward at eleven; and even
+stiff cabbages were limp by noon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about eleven o&rsquo;clock on this day that Mrs. Yeobright started
+across the heath towards her son&rsquo;s house, to do her best in getting
+reconciled with him and Eustacia, in conformity with her words to the
+reddleman. She had hoped to be well advanced in her walk before the heat of the
+day was at its highest, but after setting out she found that this was not to be
+done. The sun had branded the whole heath with its mark, even the purple
+heath-flowers having put on a brownness under the dry blazes of the few
+preceding days. Every valley was filled with air like that of a kiln, and the
+clean quartz sand of the winter water-courses, which formed summer paths, had
+undergone a species of incineration since the drought had set in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In cool, fresh weather Mrs. Yeobright would have found no inconvenience in
+walking to Alderworth, but the present torrid attack made the journey a heavy
+undertaking for a woman past middle age; and at the end of the third mile she
+wished that she had hired Fairway to drive her a portion at least of the
+distance. But from the point at which she had arrived it was as easy to reach
+Clym&rsquo;s house as to get home again. So she went on, the air around her
+pulsating silently, and oppressing the earth with lassitude. She looked at the
+sky overhead, and saw that the sapphirine hue of the zenith in spring and early
+summer had been replaced by a metallic violet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Occasionally she came to a spot where independent worlds of ephemerons were
+passing their time in mad carousal, some in the air, some on the hot ground and
+vegetation, some in the tepid and stringy water of a nearly dried pool. All the
+shallower ponds had decreased to a vaporous mud amid which the maggoty shapes
+of innumerable obscure creatures could be indistinctly seen, heaving and
+wallowing with enjoyment. Being a woman not disinclined to philosophize she
+sometimes sat down under her umbrella to rest and to watch their happiness, for
+a certain hopefulness as to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind, and
+between important thoughts left it free to dwell on any infinitesimal matter
+which caught her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright had never before been to her son&rsquo;s house, and its exact
+position was unknown to her. She tried one ascending path and another, and
+found that they led her astray. Retracing her steps, she came again to an open
+level, where she perceived at a distance a man at work. She went towards him
+and inquired the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The labourer pointed out the direction, and added, &ldquo;Do you see that
+furze-cutter, ma&rsquo;am, going up that footpath yond?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright strained her eyes, and at last said that she did perceive him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if you follow him you can make no mistake. He&rsquo;s going to the
+same place, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She followed the figure indicated. He appeared of a russet hue, not more
+distinguishable from the scene around him than the green caterpillar from the
+leaf it feeds on. His progress when actually walking was more rapid than Mrs.
+Yeobright&rsquo;s; but she was enabled to keep at an equable distance from him
+by his habit of stopping whenever he came to a brake of brambles, where he
+paused awhile. On coming in her turn to each of these spots she found half a
+dozen long limp brambles which he had cut from the bush during his halt and
+laid out straight beside the path. They were evidently intended for
+furze-faggot bonds which he meant to collect on his return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The silent being who thus occupied himself seemed to be of no more account in
+life than an insect. He appeared as a mere parasite of the heath, fretting its
+surface in his daily labour as a moth frets a garment, entirely engrossed with
+its products, having no knowledge of anything in the world but fern, furze,
+heath, lichens, and moss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The furze-cutter was so absorbed in the business of his journey that he never
+turned his head; and his leather-legged and gauntleted form at length became to
+her as nothing more than a moving handpost to show her the way. Suddenly she
+was attracted to his individuality by observing peculiarities in his walk. It
+was a gait she had seen somewhere before; and the gait revealed the man to her,
+as the gait of Ahimaaz in the distant plain made him known to the watchman of
+the king. &ldquo;His walk is exactly as my husband&rsquo;s used to be,&rdquo;
+she said; and then the thought burst upon her that the furze-cutter was her
+son.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was scarcely able to familiarize herself with this strange reality. She had
+been told that Clym was in the habit of cutting furze, but she had supposed
+that he occupied himself with the labour only at odd times, by way of useful
+pastime; yet she now beheld him as a furze-cutter and nothing
+more&mdash;wearing the regulation dress of the craft, and thinking the
+regulation thoughts, to judge by his motions. Planning a dozen hasty schemes
+for at once preserving him and Eustacia from this mode of life, she throbbingly
+followed the way, and saw him enter his own door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At one side of Clym&rsquo;s house was a knoll, and on the top of the knoll a
+clump of fir trees so highly thrust up into the sky that their foliage from a
+distance appeared as a black spot in the air above the crown of the hill. On
+reaching this place Mrs. Yeobright felt distressingly agitated, weary, and
+unwell. She ascended, and sat down under their shade to recover herself, and to
+consider how best to break the ground with Eustacia, so as not to irritate a
+woman underneath whose apparent indolence lurked passions even stronger and
+more active than her own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The trees beneath which she sat were singularly battered, rude, and wild, and
+for a few minutes Mrs. Yeobright dismissed thoughts of her own storm-broken and
+exhausted state to contemplate theirs. Not a bough in the nine trees which
+composed the group but was splintered, lopped, and distorted by the fierce
+weather that there held them at its mercy whenever it prevailed. Some were
+blasted and split as if by lightning, black stains as from fire marking their
+sides, while the ground at their feet was strewn with dead fir-needles and
+heaps of cones blown down in the gales of past years. The place was called the
+Devil&rsquo;s Bellows, and it was only necessary to come there on a March or
+November night to discover the forcible reasons for that name. On the present
+heated afternoon, when no perceptible wind was blowing, the trees kept up a
+perpetual moan which one could hardly believe to be caused by the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here she sat for twenty minutes or more ere she could summon resolution to go
+down to the door, her courage being lowered to zero by her physical lassitude.
+To any other person than a mother it might have seemed a little humiliating
+that she, the elder of the two women, should be the first to make advances. But
+Mrs. Yeobright had well considered all that, and she only thought how best to
+make her visit appear to Eustacia not abject but wise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From her elevated position the exhausted woman could perceive the roof of the
+house below, and the garden and the whole enclosure of the little domicile. And
+now, at the moment of rising, she saw a second man approaching the gate. His
+manner was peculiar, hesitating, and not that of a person come on business or
+by invitation. He surveyed the house with interest, and then walked round and
+scanned the outer boundary of the garden, as one might have done had it been
+the birthplace of Shakespeare, the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Château of
+Hougomont. After passing round and again reaching the gate he went in. Mrs.
+Yeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on finding her son and his wife by
+themselves; but a moment&rsquo;s thought showed her that the presence of an
+acquaintance would take off the awkwardness of her first appearance in the
+house, by confining the talk to general matters until she had begun to feel
+comfortable with them. She came down the hill to the gate, and looked into the
+hot garden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There lay the cat asleep on the bare gravel of the path, as if beds, rugs, and
+carpets were unendurable. The leaves of the hollyhocks hung like half-closed
+umbrellas, the sap almost simmered in the stems, and foliage with a smooth
+surface glared like metallic mirrors. A small apple tree, of the sort called
+Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate, the only one which throve in the garden,
+by reason of the lightness of the soil; and among the fallen apples on the
+ground beneath were wasps rolling drunk with the juice, or creeping about the
+little caves in each fruit which they had eaten out before stupefied by its
+sweetness. By the door lay Clym&rsquo;s furze-hook and the last handful of
+faggot-bonds she had seen him gather; they had plainly been thrown down there
+as he entered the house.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap33"></a>VI.<br />
+A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian</h2>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve, as has been stated, was determined to visit Eustacia boldly, by day,
+and on the easy terms of a relation, since the reddleman had spied out and
+spoilt his walks to her by night. The spell that she had thrown over him in the
+moonlight dance made it impossible for a man having no strong puritanic force
+within him to keep away altogether. He merely calculated on meeting her and her
+husband in an ordinary manner, chatting a little while, and leaving again.
+Every outward sign was to be conventional; but the one great fact would be
+there to satisfy him&mdash;he would see her. He did not even desire
+Clym&rsquo;s absence, since it was just possible that Eustacia might resent any
+situation which could compromise her dignity as a wife, whatever the state of
+her heart towards him. Women were often so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went accordingly; and it happened that the time of his arrival coincided
+with that of Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s pause on the hill near the house. When he
+had looked round the premises in the manner she had noticed he went and knocked
+at the door. There was a few minutes&rsquo; interval, and then the key turned
+in the lock, the door opened, and Eustacia herself confronted him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody could have imagined from her bearing now that here stood the woman who
+had joined with him in the impassioned dance of the week before, unless indeed
+he could have penetrated below the surface and gauged the real depth of that
+still stream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you reached home safely?&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes,&rdquo; she carelessly returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And were you not tired the next day? I feared you might be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was rather. You need not speak low&mdash;nobody will over-hear us. My
+small servant is gone on an errand to the village.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then Clym is not at home?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, he is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O! I thought that perhaps you had locked the door because you were alone
+and were afraid of tramps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;here is my husband.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had been standing in the entry. Closing the front door and turning the
+key, as before, she threw open the door of the adjoining room and asked him to
+walk in. Wildeve entered, the room appearing to be empty; but as soon as he had
+advanced a few steps he started. On the hearthrug lay Clym asleep. Beside him
+were the leggings, thick boots, leather gloves, and sleeve-waistcoat in which
+he worked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may go in; you will not disturb him,&rdquo; she said, following
+behind. &ldquo;My reason for fastening the door is that he may not be intruded
+upon by any chance comer while lying here, if I should be in the garden or
+upstairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why is he sleeping there?&rdquo; said Wildeve in low tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is very weary. He went out at half-past four this morning, and has
+been working ever since. He cuts furze because it is the only thing he can do
+that does not put any strain upon his poor eyes.&rdquo; The contrast between
+the sleeper&rsquo;s appearance and Wildeve&rsquo;s at this moment was painfully
+apparent to Eustacia, Wildeve being elegantly dressed in a new summer suit and
+light hat; and she continued: &ldquo;Ah! you don&rsquo;t know how differently
+he appeared when I first met him, though it is such a little while ago. His
+hands were as white and soft as mine; and look at them now, how rough and brown
+they are! His complexion is by nature fair, and that rusty look he has now, all
+of a colour with his leather clothes, is caused by the burning of the
+sun.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why does he go out at all!&rdquo; Wildeve whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because he hates to be idle; though what he earns doesn&rsquo;t add much
+to our exchequer. However, he says that when people are living upon their
+capital they must keep down current expenses by turning a penny where they
+can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fates have not been kind to you, Eustacia Yeobright.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have nothing to thank them for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor has he&mdash;except for their one great gift to him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve looked her in the eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia blushed for the first time that day. &ldquo;Well, I am a questionable
+gift,&rdquo; she said quietly. &ldquo;I thought you meant the gift of
+content&mdash;which he has, and I have not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can understand content in such a case&mdash;though how the outward
+situation can attract him puzzles me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s because you don&rsquo;t know him. He&rsquo;s an enthusiast
+about ideas, and careless about outward things. He often reminds me of the
+Apostle Paul.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am glad to hear that he&rsquo;s so grand in character as that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; but the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent as a man in
+the Bible he would hardly have done in real life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their voices had instinctively dropped lower, though at first they had taken no
+particular care to avoid awakening Clym. &ldquo;Well, if that means that your
+marriage is a misfortune to you, you know who is to blame,&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The marriage is no misfortune in itself,&rdquo; she retorted with some
+little petulance. &ldquo;It is simply the accident which has happened since
+that has been the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for figs in a
+worldly sense, but how could I tell what time would bring forth?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sometimes, Eustacia, I think it is a judgment upon you. You rightly
+belonged to me, you know; and I had no idea of losing you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, it was not my fault! Two could not belong to you; and remember that,
+before I was aware, you turned aside to another woman. It was cruel levity in
+you to do that. I never dreamt of playing such a game on my side till you began
+it on yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I meant nothing by it,&rdquo; replied Wildeve. &ldquo;It was a mere
+interlude. Men are given to the trick of having a passing fancy for somebody
+else in the midst of a permanent love, which reasserts itself afterwards just
+as before. On account of your rebellious manner to me I was tempted to go
+further than I should have done; and when you still would keep playing the same
+tantalizing part I went further still, and married her.&rdquo; Turning and
+looking again at the unconscious form of Clym, he murmured, &ldquo;I am afraid
+that you don&rsquo;t value your prize, Clym.... He ought to be happier than I
+in one thing at least. He may know what it is to come down in the world, and to
+be afflicted with a great personal calamity; but he probably doesn&rsquo;t know
+what it is to lose the woman he loved.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is not ungrateful for winning her,&rdquo; whispered Eustacia,
+&ldquo;and in that respect he is a good man. Many women would go far for such a
+husband. But do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called
+life&mdash;music, poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that
+are going on in the great arteries of the world? That was the shape of my
+youthful dream; but I did not get it. Yet I thought I saw the way to it in my
+Clym.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you only married him on that account?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I
+won&rsquo;t say that I didn&rsquo;t love him partly because I thought I saw a
+promise of that life in him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have dropped into your old mournful key.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I am not going to be depressed,&rdquo; she cried perversely.
+&ldquo;I began a new system by going to that dance, and I mean to stick to it.
+Clym can sing merrily; why should not I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve looked thoughtfully at her. &ldquo;It is easier to say you will sing
+than to do it; though if I could I would encourage you in your attempt. But as
+life means nothing to me, without one thing which is now impossible, you will
+forgive me for not being able to encourage you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Damon, what is the matter with you, that you speak like that?&rdquo; she
+asked, raising her deep shady eyes to his.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a thing I shall never tell plainly; and perhaps if I try to
+tell you in riddles you will not care to guess them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia remained silent for a minute, and she said, &ldquo;We are in a strange
+relationship today. You mince matters to an uncommon nicety. You mean, Damon,
+that you still love me. Well, that gives me sorrow, for I am not made so
+entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing to spurn you for the
+information, as I ought to do. But we have said too much about this. Do you
+mean to wait until my husband is awake?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought to speak to him; but it is unnecessary, Eustacia, if I offend
+you by not forgetting you, you are right to mention it; but do not talk of
+spurning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not reply, and they stood looking musingly at Clym as he slept on in
+that profound sleep which is the result of physical labour carried on in
+circumstances that wake no nervous fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;I have
+not slept like that since I was a boy&mdash;years and years ago.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible, and a knock came
+to the door. Eustacia went to a window and looked out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her countenance changed. First she became crimson, and then the red subsided
+till it even partially left her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I go away?&rdquo; said Wildeve, standing up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hardly know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Yeobright. O, what she said to me that day! I cannot understand
+this visit&mdash;what does she mean? And she suspects that past time of
+ours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am in your hands. If you think she had better not see me here
+I&rsquo;ll go into the next room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes&mdash;go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve at once withdrew; but before he had been half a minute in the adjoining
+apartment Eustacia came after him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;we won&rsquo;t have any of this. If she
+comes in she must see you&mdash;and think if she likes there&rsquo;s something
+wrong! But how can I open the door to her, when she dislikes me&mdash;wishes to
+see not me, but her son? I won&rsquo;t open the door!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright knocked again more loudly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Her knocking will, in all likelihood, awaken him,&rdquo; continued
+Eustacia, &ldquo;and then he will let her in himself. Ah&mdash;listen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if disturbed by the knocking,
+and he uttered the word &ldquo;Mother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;he is awake&mdash;he will go to the door,&rdquo; she said,
+with a breath of relief. &ldquo;Come this way. I have a bad name with her, and
+you must not be seen. Thus I am obliged to act by stealth, not because I do
+ill, but because others are pleased to say so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time she had taken him to the back door, which was open, disclosing a
+path leading down the garden. &ldquo;Now, one word, Damon,&rdquo; she remarked
+as he stepped forth. &ldquo;This is your first visit here; let it be your last.
+We have been hot lovers in our time, but it won&rsquo;t do now.
+Good-bye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;I have had all I came for, and I
+am satisfied.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A sight of you. Upon my eternal honour I came for no more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve kissed his hand to the beautiful girl he addressed, and passed into the
+garden, where she watched him down the path, over the stile at the end, and
+into the ferns outside, which brushed his hips as he went along till he became
+lost in their thickets. When he had quite gone she slowly turned, and directed
+her attention to the interior of the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was possible that her presence might not be desired by Clym and his
+mother at this moment of their first meeting, or that it would be superfluous.
+At all events, she was in no hurry to meet Mrs. Yeobright. She resolved to wait
+till Clym came to look for her, and glided back into the garden. Here she idly
+occupied herself for a few minutes, till finding no notice was taken of her she
+retraced her steps through the house to the front, where she listened for
+voices in the parlour. But hearing none she opened the door and went in. To her
+astonishment Clym lay precisely as Wildeve and herself had left him, his sleep
+apparently unbroken. He had been disturbed and made to dream and murmur by the
+knocking, but he had not awakened. Eustacia hastened to the door, and in spite
+of her reluctance to open it to a woman who had spoken of her so bitterly, she
+unfastened it and looked out. Nobody was to be seen. There, by the scraper, lay
+Clym&rsquo;s hook and the handful of faggot-bonds he had brought home; in front
+of her were the empty path, the garden gate standing slightly ajar; and,
+beyond, the great valley of purple heath thrilling silently in the sun. Mrs.
+Yeobright was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym&rsquo;s mother was at this time following a path which lay hidden from
+Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill. Her walk thither from the garden gate had
+been hasty and determined, as of a woman who was now no less anxious to escape
+from the scene than she had previously been to enter it. Her eyes were fixed on
+the ground; within her two sights were graven&mdash;that of Clym&rsquo;s hook
+and brambles at the door, and that of a woman&rsquo;s face at a window. Her
+lips trembled, becoming unnaturally thin as she murmured, &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis too
+much&mdash;Clym, how can he bear to do it! He is at home; and yet he lets her
+shut the door against me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house she had diverged from
+the straightest path homeward, and while looking about to regain it she came
+upon a little boy gathering whortleberries in a hollow. The boy was Johnny
+Nunsuch, who had been Eustacia&rsquo;s stoker at the bonfire, and, with the
+tendency of a minute body to gravitate towards a greater, he began hovering
+round Mrs. Yeobright as soon as she appeared, and trotted on beside her without
+perceptible consciousness of his act.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke to him as one in a mesmeric sleep. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a
+long way home, my child, and we shall not get there till evening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall,&rdquo; said her small companion. &ldquo;I am going to play
+marnels afore supper, and we go to supper at six o&rsquo;clock, because Father
+comes home. Does your father come home at six too?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, he never comes; nor my son either, nor anybody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have made you so down? Have you seen a ooser?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have seen what&rsquo;s worse&mdash;a woman&rsquo;s face looking at me
+through a windowpane.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that a bad sight?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. It is always a bad sight to see a woman looking out at a weary
+wayfarer and not letting her in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once when I went to Throope Great Pond to catch effets I seed myself
+looking up at myself, and I was frightened and jumped back like
+anything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+...&ldquo;If they had only shown signs of meeting my advances halfway how well
+it might have been done! But there is no chance. Shut out! She must have set
+him against me. Can there be beautiful bodies without hearts inside? I think
+so. I would not have done it against a neighbour&rsquo;s cat on such a fiery
+day as this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it you say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never again&mdash;never! Not even if they send for me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must be a very curious woman to talk like that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, not at all,&rdquo; she said, returning to the boy&rsquo;s prattle.
+&ldquo;Most people who grow up and have children talk as I do. When you grow up
+your mother will talk as I do too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope she won&rsquo;t; because &rsquo;tis very bad to talk
+nonsense.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, child; it is nonsense, I suppose. Are you not nearly spent with the
+heat?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. But not so much as you be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your face is white and wet, and your head is hanging-down-like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, I am exhausted from inside.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you, every time you take a step, go like this?&rdquo; The child
+in speaking gave to his motion the jerk and limp of an invalid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I have a burden which is more than I can bear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little boy remained silently pondering, and they tottered on side by side
+until more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when Mrs. Yeobright, whose
+weakness plainly increased, said to him, &ldquo;I must sit down here to
+rest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she had seated herself he looked long in her face and said, &ldquo;How
+funny you draw your breath&mdash;like a lamb when you drive him till he&rsquo;s
+nearly done for. Do you always draw your breath like that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not always.&rdquo; Her voice was now so low as to be scarcely above a
+whisper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will go to sleep there, I suppose, won&rsquo;t you? You have shut
+your eyes already.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. I shall not sleep much till&mdash;another day, and then I hope to
+have a long, long one&mdash;very long. Now can you tell me if Rimsmoor Pond is
+dry this summer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rimsmoor Pond is, but Oker&rsquo;s Pool isn&rsquo;t, because he is deep,
+and is never dry&mdash;&rsquo;tis just over there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is the water clear?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, middling&mdash;except where the heath-croppers walk into it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, take this, and go as fast as you can, and dip me up the clearest
+you can find. I am very faint.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She drew from the small willow reticule that she carried in her hand an
+old-fashioned china teacup without a handle; it was one of half a dozen of the
+same sort lying in the reticule, which she had preserved ever since her
+childhood, and had brought with her today as a small present for Clym and
+Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy started on his errand, and soon came back with the water, such as it
+was. Mrs. Yeobright attempted to drink, but it was so warm as to give her
+nausea, and she threw it away. Afterwards she still remained sitting, with her
+eyes closed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy waited, played near her, caught several of the little brown butterflies
+which abounded, and then said as he waited again, &ldquo;I like going on better
+than biding still. Will you soon start again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I might go on by myself,&rdquo; he resumed, fearing, apparently,
+that he was to be pressed into some unpleasant service. &ldquo;Do you want me
+any more, please?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright made no reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What shall I tell Mother?&rdquo; the boy continued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell her you have seen a broken-hearted woman cast off by her
+son.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before quite leaving her he threw upon her face a wistful glance, as if he had
+misgivings on the generosity of forsaking her thus. He gazed into her face in a
+vague, wondering manner, like that of one examining some strange old manuscript
+the key to whose characters is undiscoverable. He was not so young as to be
+absolutely without a sense that sympathy was demanded, he was not old enough to
+be free from the terror felt in childhood at beholding misery in adult quarters
+hitherto deemed impregnable; and whether she were in a position to cause
+trouble or to suffer from it, whether she and her affliction were something to
+pity or something to fear, it was beyond him to decide. He lowered his eyes and
+went on without another word. Before he had gone half a mile he had forgotten
+all about her, except that she was a woman who had sat down to rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Yeobright&rsquo;s exertions, physical and emotional, had well-nigh
+prostrated her; but she continued to creep along in short stages with long
+breaks between. The sun had now got far to the west of south and stood directly
+in her face, like some merciless incendiary, brand in hand, waiting to consume
+her. With the departure of the boy all visible animation disappeared from the
+landscape, though the intermittent husky notes of the male grasshoppers from
+every tuft of furze were enough to show that amid the prostration of the larger
+animal species an unseen insect world was busy in all the fullness of life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In two hours she reached a slope about three-fourths the whole distance from
+Alderworth to her own home, where a little patch of shepherd&rsquo;s-thyme
+intruded upon the path; and she sat down upon the perfumed mat it formed there.
+In front of her a colony of ants had established a thoroughfare across the way,
+where they toiled a never-ending and heavy-laden throng. To look down upon them
+was like observing a city street from the top of a tower. She remembered that
+this bustle of ants had been in progress for years at the same
+spot&mdash;doubtless those of the old times were the ancestors of these which
+walked there now. She leant back to obtain more thorough rest, and the soft
+eastern portion of the sky was as great a relief to her eyes as the thyme was
+to her head. While she looked a heron arose on that side of the sky and flew on
+with his face towards the sun. He had come dripping wet from some pool in the
+valleys, and as he flew the edges and lining of his wings, his thighs and his
+breast were so caught by the bright sunbeams that he appeared as if formed of
+burnished silver. Up in the zenith where he was seemed a free and happy place,
+away from all contact with the earthly ball to which she was pinioned; and she
+wished that she could arise uncrushed from its surface and fly as he flew then.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, being a mother, it was inevitable that she should soon cease to ruminate
+upon her own condition. Had the track of her next thought been marked by a
+streak in the air, like the path of a meteor, it would have shown a direction
+contrary to the heron&rsquo;s, and have descended to the eastward upon the roof
+of Clym&rsquo;s house.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap34"></a>VII.<br />
+The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends</h2>
+
+<p>
+He in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up, and looked around.
+Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard by him, and though she held a book in her
+hand she had not looked into it for some time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, indeed!&rdquo; said Clym, brushing his eyes with his hands.
+&ldquo;How soundly I have slept! I have had such a tremendous dream,
+too&mdash;one I shall never forget.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you had been dreaming,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. It was about my mother. I dreamt that I took you to her house to
+make up differences, and when we got there we couldn&rsquo;t get in, though she
+kept on crying to us for help. However, dreams are dreams. What o&rsquo;clock
+is it, Eustacia?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Half-past two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So late, is it? I didn&rsquo;t mean to stay so long. By the time I have
+had something to eat it will be after three.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ann is not come back from the village, and I thought I would let you
+sleep on till she returned.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym went to the window and looked out. Presently he said, musingly,
+&ldquo;Week after week passes, and yet Mother does not come. I thought I should
+have heard something from her long before this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Misgiving, regret, fear, resolution, ran their swift course of expression in
+Eustacia&rsquo;s dark eyes. She was face to face with a monstrous difficulty,
+and she resolved to get free of it by postponement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must certainly go to Blooms-End soon,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;and
+I think I had better go alone.&rdquo; He picked up his leggings and gloves,
+threw them down again, and added, &ldquo;As dinner will be so late today I will
+not go back to the heath, but work in the garden till the evening, and then,
+when it will be cooler, I will walk to Blooms-End. I am quite sure that if I
+make a little advance Mother will be willing to forget all. It will be rather
+late before I can get home, as I shall not be able to do the distance either
+way in less than an hour and a half. But you will not mind for one evening,
+dear? What are you thinking of to make you look so abstracted?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot tell you,&rdquo; she said heavily. &ldquo;I wish we
+didn&rsquo;t live here, Clym. The world seems all wrong in this place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;if we make it so. I wonder if Thomasin has been to Blooms-End
+lately. I hope so. But probably not, as she is, I believe, expecting to be
+confined in a month or so. I wish I had thought of that before. Poor Mother
+must indeed be very lonely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like you going tonight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not tonight?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something may be said which will terribly injure me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My mother is not vindictive,&rdquo; said Clym, his colour faintly
+rising.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I wish you would not go,&rdquo; Eustacia repeated in a low tone.
+&ldquo;If you agree not to go tonight I promise to go by myself to her house
+tomorrow, and make it up with her, and wait till you fetch me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you want to do that at this particular time, when at every
+previous time that I have proposed it you have refused?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot explain further than that I should like to see her alone before
+you go,&rdquo; she answered, with an impatient move of her head, and looking at
+him with an anxiety more frequently seen upon those of a sanguine temperament
+than upon such as herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it is very odd that just when I had decided to go myself you
+should want to do what I proposed long ago. If I wait for you to go tomorrow
+another day will be lost; and I know I shall be unable to rest another night
+without having been. I want to get this settled, and will. You must visit her
+afterwards&mdash;it will be all the same.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could even go with you now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You could scarcely walk there and back without a longer rest than I
+shall take. No, not tonight, Eustacia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let it be as you say, then,&rdquo; she replied in the quiet way of one
+who, though willing to ward off evil consequences by a mild effort, would let
+events fall out as they might sooner than wrestle hard to direct them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym then went into the garden; and a thoughtful languor stole over Eustacia
+for the remainder of the afternoon, which her husband attributed to the heat of
+the weather.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the evening he set out on the journey. Although the heat of summer was yet
+intense the days had considerably shortened, and before he had advanced a mile
+on his way all the heath purples, browns, and greens had merged in a uniform
+dress without airiness or graduation, and broken only by touches of white where
+the little heaps of clean quartz sand showed the entrance to a rabbit burrow,
+or where the white flints of a footpath lay like a thread over the slopes. In
+almost every one of the isolated and stunted thorns which grew here and there a
+nighthawk revealed his presence by whirring like the clack of a mill as long as
+he could hold his breath, then stopping, flapping his wings, wheeling round the
+bush, alighting, and after a silent interval of listening beginning to whirr
+again. At each brushing of Clym&rsquo;s feet white millermoths flew into the
+air just high enough to catch upon their dusty wings the mellowed light from
+the west, which now shone across the depressions and levels of the ground
+without falling thereon to light them up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright walked on amid this quiet scene with a hope that all would soon be
+well. Three miles on he came to a spot where a soft perfume was wafted across
+his path, and he stood still for a moment to inhale the familiar scent. It was
+the place at which, four hours earlier, his mother had sat down exhausted on
+the knoll covered with shepherd&rsquo;s-thyme. While he stood a sound between a
+breathing and a moan suddenly reached his ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked to where the sound came from; but nothing appeared there save the
+verge of the hillock stretching against the sky in an unbroken line. He moved a
+few steps in that direction, and now he perceived a recumbent figure almost
+close to his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among the different possibilities as to the person&rsquo;s individuality there
+did not for a moment occur to Yeobright that it might be one of his own family.
+Sometimes furze-cutters had been known to sleep out of doors at these times, to
+save a long journey homeward and back again; but Clym remembered the moan and
+looked closer, and saw that the form was feminine; and a distress came over him
+like cold air from a cave. But he was not absolutely certain that the woman was
+his mother till he stooped and beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry of anguish which would
+have escaped him died upon his lips. During the momentary interval that elapsed
+before he became conscious that something must be done all sense of time and
+place left him, and it seemed as if he and his mother were as when he was a
+child with her many years ago on this heath at hours similar to the present.
+Then he awoke to activity; and bending yet lower he found that she still
+breathed, and that her breath though feeble was regular, except when disturbed
+by an occasional gasp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, what is it! Mother, are you very ill&mdash;you are not dying?&rdquo;
+he cried, pressing his lips to her face. &ldquo;I am your Clym. How did you
+come here? What does it all mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment the chasm in their lives which his love for Eustacia had caused
+was not remembered by Yeobright, and to him the present joined continuously
+with that friendly past that had been their experience before the division.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She moved her lips, appeared to know him, but could not speak; and then Clym
+strove to consider how best to move her, as it would be necessary to get her
+away from the spot before the dews were intense. He was able-bodied, and his
+mother was thin. He clasped his arms round her, lifted her a little, and said,
+&ldquo;Does that hurt you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head, and he lifted her up; then, at a slow pace, went onward
+with his load. The air was now completely cool; but whenever he passed over a
+sandy patch of ground uncarpeted with vegetation there was reflected from its
+surface into his face the heat which it had imbibed during the day. At the
+beginning of his undertaking he had thought but little of the distance which
+yet would have to be traversed before Blooms-End could be reached; but though
+he had slept that afternoon he soon began to feel the weight of his burden.
+Thus he proceeded, like Æneas with his father; the bats circling round his
+head, nightjars flapping their wings within a yard of his face, and not a human
+being within call.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother exhibited signs of
+restlessness under the constraint of being borne along, as if his arms were
+irksome to her. He lowered her upon his knees and looked around. The point they
+had now reached, though far from any road, was not more than a mile from the
+Blooms-End cottages occupied by Fairway, Sam, Humphrey, and the Cantles.
+Moreover, fifty yards off stood a hut, built of clods and covered with thin
+turves, but now entirely disused. The simple outline of the lonely shed was
+visible, and thither he determined to direct his steps. As soon as he arrived
+he laid her down carefully by the entrance, and then ran and cut with his
+pocketknife an armful of the dryest fern. Spreading this within the shed, which
+was entirely open on one side, he placed his mother thereon; then he ran with
+all his might towards the dwelling of Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, disturbed only by the broken breathing
+of the sufferer, when moving figures began to animate the line between heath
+and sky. In a few moments Clym arrived with Fairway, Humphrey, and Susan
+Nunsuch; Olly Dowden, who had chanced to be at Fairway&rsquo;s, Christian and
+Grandfer Cantle following helter-skelter behind. They had brought a lantern and
+matches, water, a pillow, and a few other articles which had occurred to their
+minds in the hurry of the moment. Sam had been despatched back again for
+brandy, and a boy brought Fairway&rsquo;s pony, upon which he rode off to the
+nearest medical man, with directions to call at Wildeve&rsquo;s on his way, and
+inform Thomasin that her aunt was unwell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered by the light of the
+lantern; after which she became sufficiently conscious to signify by signs that
+something was wrong with her foot. Olly Dowden at length understood her
+meaning, and examined the foot indicated. It was swollen and red. Even as they
+watched the red began to assume a more livid colour, in the midst of which
+appeared a scarlet speck, smaller than a pea, and it was found to consist of a
+drop of blood, which rose above the smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know what it is,&rdquo; cried Sam. &ldquo;She has been stung by an
+adder!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Clym instantly. &ldquo;I remember when I was a child
+seeing just such a bite. O, my poor mother!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was my father who was bit,&rdquo; said Sam. &ldquo;And there&rsquo;s
+only one way to cure it. You must rub the place with the fat of other adders,
+and the only way to get that is by frying them. That&rsquo;s what they did for
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis an old remedy,&rdquo; said Clym distrustfully, &ldquo;and I
+have doubts about it. But we can do nothing else till the doctor comes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a sure cure,&rdquo; said Olly Dowden, with emphasis.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve used it when I used to go out nursing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them,&rdquo; said Clym
+gloomily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will see what I can do,&rdquo; said Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took a green hazel which he had used as a walking stick, split it at the
+end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand went out into
+the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and despatched Susan Nunsuch
+for a frying pan. Before she had returned Sam came in with three adders, one
+briskly coiling and uncoiling in the cleft of the stick, and the other two
+hanging dead across it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to
+be,&rdquo; said Sam. &ldquo;These limp ones are two I killed today at work; but
+as they don&rsquo;t die till the sun goes down they can&rsquo;t be very stale
+meat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its small
+black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back seemed to
+intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature, and the creature
+saw her&mdash;she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look at that,&rdquo; murmured Christian Cantle. &ldquo;Neighbours, how
+do we know but that something of the old serpent in God&rsquo;s garden, that
+gied the apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and
+snakes still? Look at his eye&mdash;for all the world like a villainous sort of
+black currant. &rsquo;Tis to be hoped he can&rsquo;t ill-wish us! There&rsquo;s
+folks in heath who&rsquo;ve been overlooked already. I will never kill another
+adder as long as I live.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, &rsquo;tis right to be afeard of things, if folks can&rsquo;t help
+it,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle. &ldquo;&rsquo;Twould have saved me many a
+brave danger in my time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fancy I heard something outside the shed,&rdquo; said Christian.
+&ldquo;I wish troubles would come in the daytime, for then a man could show his
+courage, and hardly beg for mercy of the most broomstick old woman he should
+see, if he was a brave man, and able to run out of her sight!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even such an ignorant fellow as I should know better than do
+that,&rdquo; said Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;s calamities where we least expect it, whether or no.
+Neighbours, if Mrs. Yeobright were to die, d&rsquo;ye think we should be took
+up and tried for the manslaughter of a woman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, they couldn&rsquo;t bring it in as that,&rdquo; said Sam,
+&ldquo;unless they could prove we had been poachers at some time of our lives.
+But she&rsquo;ll fetch round.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, if I had been stung by ten adders I should hardly have lost a
+day&rsquo;s work for&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle. &ldquo;Such is my
+spirit when I am on my mettle. But perhaps &rsquo;tis natural in a man trained
+for war. Yes, I&rsquo;ve gone through a good deal; but nothing ever came amiss
+to me after I joined the Locals in four.&rdquo; He shook his head and smiled at
+a mental picture of himself in uniform. &ldquo;I was always first in the most
+galliantest scrapes in my younger days!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose that was because they always used to put the biggest fool
+afore,&rdquo; said Fairway from the fire, beside which he knelt, blowing it
+with his breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;D&rsquo;ye think so, Timothy?&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, coming
+forward to Fairway&rsquo;s side with sudden depression in his face. &ldquo;Then
+a man may feel for years that he is good solid company, and be wrong about
+himself after all?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind that question, Grandfer. Stir your stumps and get some more
+sticks. &rsquo;Tis very nonsense of an old man to prattle so when life and
+death&rsquo;s in mangling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, with melancholy conviction.
+&ldquo;Well, this is a bad night altogether for them that have done well in
+their time; and if I were ever such a dab at the hautboy or tenor viol, I
+shouldn&rsquo;t have the heart to play tunes upon &rsquo;em now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Susan now arrived with the frying pan, when the live adder was killed and the
+heads of the three taken off. The remainders, being cut into lengths and split
+open, were tossed into the pan, which began hissing and crackling over the
+fire. Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from the carcases, whereupon Clym
+dipped the corner of his handkerchief into the liquid and anointed the wound.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap35"></a>VIII.<br />
+Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil</h2>
+
+<p>
+In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth, had become
+considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The consequences which might
+result from Clym&rsquo;s discovery that his mother had been turned from his
+door that day were likely to be disagreeable, and this was a quality in events
+which she hated as much as the dreadful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome to her at any time, and
+this evening it was more irksome than usual by reason of the excitements of the
+past hours. The two visits had stirred her into restlessness. She was not
+wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness by the probability of appearing in an
+ill light in the discussion between Clym and his mother, but she was wrought to
+vexation, and her slumbering activities were quickened to the extent of wishing
+that she had opened the door. She had certainly believed that Clym was awake,
+and the excuse would be an honest one as far as it went; but nothing could save
+her from censure in refusing to answer at the first knock. Yet, instead of
+blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders of some
+indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who had framed her situation and
+ruled her lot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by night than by day, and
+when Clym had been absent about an hour she suddenly resolved to go out in the
+direction of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting him on his return. When she
+reached the garden gate she heard wheels approaching, and looking round beheld
+her grandfather coming up in his car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stay a minute, thank ye,&rdquo; he answered to her
+greeting. &ldquo;I am driving to East Egdon; but I came round here just to tell
+you the news. Perhaps you have heard&mdash;about Mr. Wildeve&rsquo;s
+fortune?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Eustacia blankly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand pounds&mdash;uncle
+died in Canada, just after hearing that all his family, whom he was sending
+home, had gone to the bottom in the Cassiopeia; so Wildeve has come into
+everything, without in the least expecting it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia stood motionless awhile. &ldquo;How long has he known of this?&rdquo;
+she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew it at ten
+o&rsquo;clock, when Charley came back. Now, he is what I call a lucky man. What
+a fool you were, Eustacia!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what way?&rdquo; she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, in not sticking to him when you had him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had him, indeed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not know there had ever been anything between you till lately;
+and, faith, I should have been hot and strong against it if I had known; but
+since it seems that there was some sniffing between ye, why the deuce
+didn&rsquo;t you stick to him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could say as much upon that
+subject as he if she chose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how is your poor purblind husband?&rdquo; continued the old man.
+&ldquo;Not a bad fellow either, as far as he goes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is quite well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a good thing for his cousin what-d&rsquo;ye-call-her? By George,
+you ought to have been in that galley, my girl! Now I must drive on. Do you
+want any assistance? What&rsquo;s mine is yours, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you, Grandfather, we are not in want at present,&rdquo; she said
+coldly. &ldquo;Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly as a useful pastime,
+because he can do nothing else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is paid for his pastime, isn&rsquo;t he? Three shillings a hundred, I
+heard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clym has money,&rdquo; she said, colouring, &ldquo;but he likes to earn
+a little.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well; good night.&rdquo; And the captain drove on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When her grandfather was gone Eustacia went on her way mechanically; but her
+thoughts were no longer concerning her mother-in-law and Clym. Wildeve,
+notwithstanding his complaints against his fate, had been seized upon by
+destiny and placed in the sunshine once more. Eleven thousand pounds! From
+every Egdon point of view he was a rich man. In Eustacia&rsquo;s eyes, too, it
+was an ample sum&mdash;one sufficient to supply those wants of hers which had
+been stigmatized by Clym in his more austere moods as vain and luxurious.
+Though she was no lover of money she loved what money could bring; and the new
+accessories she imagined around him clothed Wildeve with a great deal of
+interest. She recollected now how quietly well-dressed he had been that
+morning&mdash;he had probably put on his newest suit, regardless of damage by
+briars and thorns. And then she thought of his manner towards herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O I see it, I see it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;How much he wishes he had
+me now, that he might give me all I desire!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In recalling the details of his glances and words&mdash;at the time scarcely
+regarded&mdash;it became plain to her how greatly they had been dictated by his
+knowledge of this new event. &ldquo;Had he been a man to bear a jilt ill-will
+he would have told me of his good fortune in crowing tones; instead of doing
+that he mentioned not a word, in deference to my misfortunes, and merely
+implied that he loved me still, as one superior to him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve&rsquo;s silence that day on what had happened to him was just the kind
+of behaviour calculated to make an impression on such a woman. Those delicate
+touches of good taste were, in fact, one of the strong points in his demeanour
+towards the other sex. The peculiarity of Wildeve was that, while at one time
+passionate, upbraiding, and resentful towards a woman, at another he would
+treat her with such unparalleled grace as to make previous neglect appear as no
+discourtesy, injury as no insult, interference as a delicate attention, and the
+ruin of her honour as excess of chivalry. This man, whose admiration today
+Eustacia had disregarded, whose good wishes she had scarcely taken the trouble
+to accept, whom she had shown out of the house by the back door, was the
+possessor of eleven thousand pounds&mdash;a man of fair professional education,
+and one who had served his articles with a civil engineer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So intent was Eustacia upon Wildeve&rsquo;s fortunes that she forgot how much
+closer to her own course were those of Clym; and instead of walking on to meet
+him at once she sat down upon a stone. She was disturbed in her reverie by a
+voice behind, and turning her head beheld the old lover and fortunate inheritor
+of wealth immediately beside her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look might have told any
+man who knew her so well as Wildeve that she was thinking of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How did you come here?&rdquo; she said in her clear low tone. &ldquo;I
+thought you were at home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I went on to the village after leaving your garden; and now I have come
+back again&mdash;that&rsquo;s all. Which way are you walking, may I ask?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. &ldquo;I am going to meet my
+husband. I think I may possibly have got into trouble whilst you were with me
+today.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How could that be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope that visit of mine did you no harm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None. It was not your fault,&rdquo; she said quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on together,
+without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia broke silence by
+saying, &ldquo;I assume I must congratulate you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since I
+didn&rsquo;t get something else, I must be content with getting that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me today
+when you came?&rdquo; she said in the tone of a neglected person. &ldquo;I
+heard of it quite by accident.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did mean to tell you,&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;But I&mdash;well, I
+will speak frankly&mdash;I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia,
+that your star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard
+work, as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you
+would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I could not
+help feeling too that in many respects he was a richer man than I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, &ldquo;What, would you
+exchange with him&mdash;your fortune for me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I certainly would,&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change the
+subject?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you care
+to hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds, keep one
+thousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand travel for a year or
+so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then I
+shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot weather comes
+on. In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a plan not yet settled, I
+shall go to Australia and round to India. By that time I shall have begun to
+have had enough of it. Then I shall probably come back to Paris again, and
+there I shall stay as long as I can afford to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Back to Paris again,&rdquo; she murmured in a voice that was nearly a
+sigh. She had never once told Wildeve of the Parisian desires which
+Clym&rsquo;s description had sown in her; yet here was he involuntarily in a
+position to gratify them. &ldquo;You think a good deal of Paris?&rdquo; she
+added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot of the world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And in mine! And Thomasin will go with you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, if she cares to. She may prefer to stay at home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose you will. But we know whose fault that is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not blaming you,&rdquo; she said quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I thought you were. If ever you <i>should</i> be inclined to blame
+me, think of a certain evening by Rainbarrow, when you promised to meet me and
+did not. You sent me a letter; and my heart ached to read that as I hope yours
+never will. That was one point of divergence. I then did something in haste....
+But she is a good woman, and I will say no more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know that the blame was on my side that time,&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+&ldquo;But it had not always been so. However, it is my misfortune to be too
+sudden in feeling. O, Damon, don&rsquo;t reproach me any more&mdash;I
+can&rsquo;t bear that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went on silently for a distance of two or three miles, when Eustacia said
+suddenly, &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you come out of your way, Mr. Wildeve?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My way is anywhere tonight. I will go with you as far as the hill on
+which we can see Blooms-End, as it is getting late for you to be alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t trouble. I am not obliged to be out at all. I think I would
+rather you did not accompany me further. This sort of thing would have an odd
+look if known.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, I will leave you.&rdquo; He took her hand unexpectedly, and
+kissed it&mdash;for the first time since her marriage. &ldquo;What light is
+that on the hill?&rdquo; he added, as it were to hide the caress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding from the open side of a
+hovel a little way before them. The hovel, which she had hitherto always found
+empty, seemed to be inhabited now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Since you have come so far,&rdquo; said Eustacia, &ldquo;will you see me
+safely past that hut? I thought I should have met Clym somewhere about here,
+but as he doesn&rsquo;t appear I will hasten on and get to Blooms-End before he
+leaves.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They advanced to the turf-shed, and when they got near it the firelight and the
+lantern inside showed distinctly enough the form of a woman reclining on a bed
+of fern, a group of heath men and women standing around her. Eustacia did not
+recognize Mrs. Yeobright in the reclining figure, nor Clym as one of the
+standers-by till she came close. Then she quickly pressed her hand up on
+Wildeve&rsquo;s arm and signified to him to come back from the open side of the
+shed into the shadow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is my husband and his mother,&rdquo; she whispered in an agitated
+voice. &ldquo;What can it mean? Will you step forward and tell me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve left her side and went to the back wall of the hut. Presently Eustacia
+perceived that he was beckoning to her, and she advanced and joined him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a serious case,&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From their position they could hear what was proceeding inside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot think where she could have been going,&rdquo; said Clym to
+someone. &ldquo;She had evidently walked a long way, but even when she was able
+to speak just now she would not tell me where. What do you really think of
+her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a great deal to fear,&rdquo; was gravely answered, in a voice
+which Eustacia recognized as that of the only surgeon in the district.
+&ldquo;She has suffered somewhat from the bite of the adder; but it is
+exhaustion which has overpowered her. My impression is that her walk must have
+been exceptionally long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I used to tell her not to overwalk herself this weather,&rdquo; said
+Clym, with distress. &ldquo;Do you think we did well in using the adder&rsquo;s
+fat?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it is a very ancient remedy&mdash;the old remedy of the
+viper-catchers, I believe,&rdquo; replied the doctor. &ldquo;It is mentioned as
+an infallible ointment by Hoffman, Mead, and I think the Abbé Fontana.
+Undoubtedly it was as good a thing as you could do; though I question if some
+other oils would not have been equally efficacious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come here, come here!&rdquo; was then rapidly said in anxious female
+tones, and Clym and the doctor could be heard rushing forward from the back
+part of the shed to where Mrs. Yeobright lay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, what is it?&rdquo; whispered Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas Thomasin who spoke,&rdquo; said Wildeve. &ldquo;Then they
+have fetched her. I wonder if I had better go in&mdash;yet it might do
+harm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a long time there was utter silence among the group within; and it was
+broken at last by Clym saying, in an agonized voice, &ldquo;O Doctor, what does
+it mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor did not reply at once; ultimately he said, &ldquo;She is sinking
+fast. Her heart was previously affected, and physical exhaustion has dealt the
+finishing blow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there was a weeping of women, then waiting, then hushed exclamations, then
+a strange gasping sound, then a painful stillness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is all over,&rdquo; said the doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Further back in the hut the cotters whispered, &ldquo;Mrs. Yeobright is
+dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost at the same moment the two watchers observed the form of a small
+old-fashioned child entering at the open side of the shed. Susan Nunsuch, whose
+boy it was, went forward to the opening and silently beckoned to him to go
+back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got something to tell &rsquo;ee, Mother,&rdquo; he cried in a
+shrill tone. &ldquo;That woman asleep there walked along with me today; and she
+said I was to say that I had seed her, and she was a broken-hearted woman and
+cast off by her son, and then I came on home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A confused sob as from a man was heard within, upon which Eustacia gasped
+faintly, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s Clym&mdash;I must go to him&mdash;yet dare I do
+it? No&mdash;come away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they had withdrawn from the neighbourhood of the shed she said huskily,
+&ldquo;I am to blame for this. There is evil in store for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was she not admitted to your house after all?&rdquo; Wildeve inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, and that&rsquo;s where it all lies! Oh, what shall I do! I shall not
+intrude upon them&mdash;I shall go straight home. Damon, good-bye! I cannot
+speak to you any more now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They parted company; and when Eustacia had reached the next hill she looked
+back. A melancholy procession was wending its way by the light of the lantern
+from the hut towards Blooms-End. Wildeve was nowhere to be seen.
+</p>
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="book05"></a>BOOK FIFTH&mdash;THE DISCOVERY</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap36"></a>I.<br />
+&ldquo;Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+One evening, about three weeks after the funeral of Mrs. Yeobright, when the
+silver face of the moon sent a bundle of beams directly upon the floor of
+Clym&rsquo;s house at Alderworth, a woman came forth from within. She reclined
+over the garden gate as if to refresh herself awhile. The pale lunar touches
+which make beauties of hags lent divinity to this face, already beautiful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had not long been there when a man came up the road and with some
+hesitation said to her, &ldquo;How is he tonight, ma&rsquo;am, if you
+please?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is better, though still very unwell, Humphrey,&rdquo; replied
+Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he light-headed, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. He is quite sensible now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do he rave about his mother just the same, poor fellow?&rdquo; continued
+Humphrey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just as much, though not quite so wildly,&rdquo; she said in a low
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was very unfortunate, ma&rsquo;am, that the boy Johnny should ever
+ha&rsquo; told him his mother&rsquo;s dying words, about her being
+broken-hearted and cast off by her son. &rsquo;Twas enough to upset any man
+alive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia made no reply beyond that of a slight catch in her breath, as of one
+who fain would speak but could not; and Humphrey, declining her invitation to
+come in, went away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia turned, entered the house, and ascended to the front bedroom, where a
+shaded light was burning. In the bed lay Clym, pale, haggard, wide awake,
+tossing to one side and to the other, his eyes lit by a hot light, as if the
+fire in their pupils were burning up their substance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it you, Eustacia?&rdquo; he said as she sat down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Clym. I have been down to the gate. The moon is shining
+beautifully, and there is not a leaf stirring.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shining, is it? What&rsquo;s the moon to a man like me? Let it
+shine&mdash;let anything be, so that I never see another day!... Eustacia, I
+don&rsquo;t know where to look&mdash;my thoughts go through me like swords. O,
+if any man wants to make himself immortal by painting a picture of
+wretchedness, let him come here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you say so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot help feeling that I did my best to kill her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, Clym.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it was so; it is useless to excuse me! My conduct to her was too
+hideous&mdash;I made no advances; and she could not bring herself to forgive
+me. Now she is dead! If I had only shown myself willing to make it up with her
+sooner, and we had been friends, and then she had died, it wouldn&rsquo;t be so
+hard to bear. But I never went near her house, so she never came near mine, and
+didn&rsquo;t know how welcome she would have been&mdash;that&rsquo;s what
+troubles me. She did not know I was going to her house that very night, for she
+was too insensible to understand me. If she had only come to see me! I longed
+that she would. But it was not to be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There escaped from Eustacia one of those shivering sighs which used to shake
+her like a pestilent blast. She had not yet told.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Yeobright was too deeply absorbed in the ramblings incidental to his
+remorseful state to notice her. During his illness he had been continually
+talking thus. Despair had been added to his original grief by the unfortunate
+disclosure of the boy who had received the last words of Mrs.
+Yeobright&mdash;words too bitterly uttered in an hour of misapprehension. Then
+his distress had overwhelmed him, and he longed for death as a field labourer
+longs for the shade. It was the pitiful sight of a man standing in the very
+focus of sorrow. He continually bewailed his tardy journey to his
+mother&rsquo;s house, because it was an error which could never be rectified,
+and insisted that he must have been horribly perverted by some fiend not to
+have thought before that it was his duty to go to her, since she did not come
+to him. He would ask Eustacia to agree with him in his self-condemnation; and
+when she, seared inwardly by a secret she dared not tell, declared that she
+could not give an opinion, he would say, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s because you
+didn&rsquo;t know my mother&rsquo;s nature. She was always ready to forgive if
+asked to do so; but I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that made
+her unyielding. Yet not unyielding&mdash;she was proud and reserved, no
+more.... Yes, I can understand why she held out against me so long. She was
+waiting for me. I dare say she said a hundred times in her sorrow, &lsquo;What
+a return he makes for all the sacrifices I have made for him!&rsquo; I never
+went to her! When I set out to visit her it was too late. To think of that is
+nearly intolerable!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes his condition had been one of utter remorse, unsoftened by a single
+tear of pure sorrow: and then he writhed as he lay, fevered far more by thought
+than by physical ills. &ldquo;If I could only get one assurance that she did
+not die in a belief that I was resentful,&rdquo; he said one day when in this
+mood, &ldquo;it would be better to think of than a hope of heaven. But that I
+cannot do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You give yourself up too much to this wearying despair,&rdquo; said
+Eustacia. &ldquo;Other men&rsquo;s mothers have died.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t make the loss of mine less. Yet it is less the loss
+than the circumstances of the loss. I sinned against her, and on that account
+there is no light for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She sinned against you, I think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, she did not. I committed the guilt; and may the whole burden be upon
+my head!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you might consider twice before you say that,&rdquo; Eustacia
+replied. &ldquo;Single men have, no doubt, a right to curse themselves as much
+as they please; but men with wives involve two in the doom they pray
+down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am in too sorry a state to understand what you are refining on,&rdquo;
+said the wretched man. &ldquo;Day and night shout at me, &lsquo;You have helped
+to kill her.&rsquo; But in loathing myself I may, I own, be unjust to you, my
+poor wife. Forgive me for it, Eustacia, for I scarcely know what I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia was always anxious to avoid the sight of her husband in such a state
+as this, which had become as dreadful to her as the trial scene was to Judas
+Iscariot. It brought before her eyes the spectre of a worn-out woman knocking
+at a door which she would not open; and she shrank from contemplating it. Yet
+it was better for Yeobright himself when he spoke openly of his sharp regret,
+for in silence he endured infinitely more, and would sometimes remain so long
+in a tense, brooding mood, consuming himself by the gnawing of his thought,
+that it was imperatively necessary to make him talk aloud, that his grief might
+in some degree expend itself in the effort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia had not been long indoors after her look at the moonlight when a soft
+footstep came up to the house, and Thomasin was announced by the woman
+downstairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, Thomasin! Thank you for coming tonight,&rdquo; said Clym when she
+entered the room. &ldquo;Here am I, you see. Such a wretched spectacle am I,
+that I shrink from being seen by a single friend, and almost from you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must not shrink from me, dear Clym,&rdquo; said Thomasin earnestly,
+in that sweet voice of hers which came to a sufferer like fresh air into a
+Black Hole. &ldquo;Nothing in you can ever shock me or drive me away. I have
+been here before, but you don&rsquo;t remember it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I do; I am not delirious, Thomasin, nor have I been so at all.
+Don&rsquo;t you believe that if they say so. I am only in great misery at what
+I have done, and that, with the weakness, makes me seem mad. But it has not
+upset my reason. Do you think I should remember all about my mother&rsquo;s
+death if I were out of my mind? No such good luck. Two months and a half,
+Thomasin, the last of her life, did my poor mother live alone, distracted and
+mourning because of me; yet she was unvisited by me, though I was living only
+six miles off. Two months and a half&mdash;seventy-five days did the sun rise
+and set upon her in that deserted state which a dog didn&rsquo;t deserve! Poor
+people who had nothing in common with her would have cared for her, and visited
+her had they known her sickness and loneliness; but I, who should have been all
+to her, stayed away like a cur. If there is any justice in God let Him kill me
+now. He has nearly blinded me, but that is not enough. If He would only strike
+me with more pain I would believe in Him forever!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush, hush! O, pray, Clym, don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t say it!&rdquo;
+implored Thomasin, affrighted into sobs and tears; while Eustacia, at the other
+side of the room, though her pale face remained calm, writhed in her chair.
+Clym went on without heeding his cousin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I am not worth receiving further proof even of Heaven&rsquo;s
+reprobation. Do you think, Thomasin, that she knew me&mdash;that she did not
+die in that horrid mistaken notion about my not forgiving her, which I
+can&rsquo;t tell you how she acquired? If you could only assure me of that! Do
+you think so, Eustacia? Do speak to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I can assure you that she knew better at last,&rdquo; said
+Thomasin. The pallid Eustacia said nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t she come to my house? I would have taken her in and
+showed her how I loved her in spite of all. But she never came; and I
+didn&rsquo;t go to her, and she died on the heath like an animal kicked out,
+nobody to help her till it was too late. If you could have seen her, Thomasin,
+as I saw her&mdash;a poor dying woman, lying in the dark upon the bare ground,
+moaning, nobody near, believing she was utterly deserted by all the world, it
+would have moved you to anguish, it would have moved a brute. And this poor
+woman my mother! No wonder she said to the child, &lsquo;You have seen a
+broken-hearted woman.&rsquo; What a state she must have been brought to, to say
+that! and who can have done it but I? It is too dreadful to think of, and I
+wish I could be punished more heavily than I am. How long was I what they
+called out of my senses?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A week, I think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then I became calm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, for four days.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now I have left off being calm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But try to be quiet&mdash;please do, and you will soon be strong. If you
+could remove that impression from your mind&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; he said impatiently. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t want to
+get strong. What&rsquo;s the use of my getting well? It would be better for me
+if I die, and it would certainly be better for Eustacia. Is Eustacia
+there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would be better for you, Eustacia, if I were to die?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t press such a question, dear Clym.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it really is but a shadowy supposition; for unfortunately I am
+going to live. I feel myself getting better. Thomasin, how long are you going
+to stay at the inn, now that all this money has come to your husband?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another month or two, probably; until my illness is over. We cannot get
+off till then. I think it will be a month or more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes. Of course. Ah, Cousin Tamsie, you will get over your
+trouble&mdash;one little month will take you through it, and bring something to
+console you; but I shall never get over mine, and no consolation will
+come!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clym, you are unjust to yourself. Depend upon it, Aunt thought kindly of
+you. I know that, if she had lived, you would have been reconciled with
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But she didn&rsquo;t come to see me, though I asked her, before I
+married, if she would come. Had she come, or had I gone there, she would never
+have died saying, &lsquo;I am a broken-hearted woman, cast off by my
+son.&rsquo; My door has always been open to her&mdash;a welcome here has always
+awaited her. But that she never came to see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You had better not talk any more now, Clym,&rdquo; said Eustacia faintly
+from the other part of the room, for the scene was growing intolerable to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me talk to you instead for the little time I shall be here,&rdquo;
+Thomasin said soothingly. &ldquo;Consider what a one-sided way you have of
+looking at the matter, Clym. When she said that to the little boy you had not
+found her and taken her into your arms; and it might have been uttered in a
+moment of bitterness. It was rather like Aunt to say things in haste. She
+sometimes used to speak so to me. Though she did not come I am convinced that
+she thought of coming to see you. Do you suppose a man&rsquo;s mother could
+live two or three months without one forgiving thought? She forgave me; and why
+should she not have forgiven you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You laboured to win her round; I did nothing. I, who was going to teach
+people the higher secrets of happiness, did not know how to keep out of that
+gross misery which the most untaught are wise enough to avoid.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Damon set me down at the end of the lane. He has driven into East Egdon
+on business, and he will come and pick me up by-and-by.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels. Wildeve had come, and
+was waiting outside with his horse and gig.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes,&rdquo; said
+Thomasin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will run down myself,&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went down. Wildeve had alighted, and was standing before the horse&rsquo;s
+head when Eustacia opened the door. He did not turn for a moment, thinking the
+comer Thomasin. Then he looked, startled ever so little, and said one word:
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not yet told him,&rdquo; she replied in a whisper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then don&rsquo;t do so till he is well&mdash;it will be fatal. You are
+ill yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am wretched.... O Damon,&rdquo; she said, bursting into tears,
+&ldquo;I&mdash;I can&rsquo;t tell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly bear this.
+I can tell nobody of my trouble&mdash;nobody knows of it but you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor girl!&rdquo; said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress, and at
+last led on so far as to take her hand. &ldquo;It is hard, when you have done
+nothing to deserve it, that you should have got involved in such a web as this.
+You were not made for these sad scenes. I am to blame most. If I could only
+have saved you from it all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour after
+hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her death, and to
+know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all, drives me into cold
+despair. I don&rsquo;t know what to do. Should I tell him or should I not tell
+him? I always am asking myself that. O, I want to tell him; and yet I am
+afraid. If he finds it out he must surely kill me, for nothing else will be in
+proportion to his feelings now. &lsquo;Beware the fury of a patient man&rsquo;
+sounds day by day in my ears as I watch him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance. And when you tell,
+you must only tell part&mdash;for his own sake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which part should I keep back?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve paused. &ldquo;That I was in the house at the time,&rdquo; he said in a
+low tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has been whispered. How much
+easier are hasty actions than speeches that will excuse them!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he were only to die&mdash;&rdquo; Wildeve murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not think of it! I would not buy hope of immunity by so cowardly a
+desire even if I hated him. Now I am going up to him again. Thomasin bade me
+tell you she would be down in a few minutes. Good-bye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She returned, and Thomasin soon appeared. When she was seated in the gig with
+her husband, and the horse was turning to go off, Wildeve lifted his eyes to
+the bedroom windows. Looking from one of them he could discern a pale, tragic
+face watching him drive away. It was Eustacia&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap37"></a>II.<br />
+A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding</h2>
+
+<p>
+Clym&rsquo;s grief became mitigated by wearing itself out. His strength
+returned, and a month after the visit of Thomasin he might have been seen
+walking about the garden. Endurance and despair, equanimity and gloom, the
+tints of health and the pallor of death, mingled weirdly in his face. He was
+now unnaturally silent upon all of the past that related to his mother; and
+though Eustacia knew that he was thinking of it none the less, she was only too
+glad to escape the topic ever to bring it up anew. When his mind had been
+weaker his heart had led him to speak out; but reason having now somewhat
+recovered itself he sank into taciturnity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening when he was thus standing in the garden, abstractedly spudding up a
+weed with his stick, a bony figure turned the corner of the house and came up
+to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Christian, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;I am glad you have
+found me out. I shall soon want you to go to Blooms-End and assist me in
+putting the house in order. I suppose it is all locked up as I left it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Mister Clym.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, without a drop o&rsquo; rain, thank God. But I was coming to tell
+&rsquo;ee of something else which is quite different from what we have lately
+had in the family. I am sent by the rich gentleman at the Woman, that we used
+to call the landlord, to tell &rsquo;ee that Mrs. Wildeve is doing well of a
+girl, which was born punctually at one o&rsquo;clock at noon, or a few minutes
+more or less; and &rsquo;tis said that expecting of this increase is what have
+kept &rsquo;em there since they came into their money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she is getting on well, you say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. Only Mr. Wildeve is twanky because &rsquo;tisn&rsquo;t a
+boy&mdash;that&rsquo;s what they say in the kitchen, but I was not supposed to
+notice that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Christian, now listen to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sure, Mr. Yeobright.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you see my mother the day before she died?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I did not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright&rsquo;s face expressed disappointment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I zeed her the morning of the same day she died.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym&rsquo;s look lighted up. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s nearer still to my
+meaning,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I know &rsquo;twas the same day; for she said, &lsquo;I be going to
+see him, Christian; so I shall not want any vegetables brought in for
+dinner.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See whom?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See you. She was going to your house, you understand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright regarded Christian with intense surprise. &ldquo;Why did you never
+mention this?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Are you sure it was my house she was
+coming to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes. I didn&rsquo;t mention it because I&rsquo;ve never zeed you
+lately. And as she didn&rsquo;t get there it was all nought, and nothing to
+tell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I have been wondering why she should have walked in the heath on
+that hot day! Well, did she say what she was coming for? It is a thing,
+Christian, I am very anxious to know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Mister Clym. She didn&rsquo;t say it to me, though I think she did
+to one here and there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know one person to whom she spoke of it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is one man, please, sir, but I hope you won&rsquo;t mention my
+name to him, as I have seen him in strange places, particular in dreams. One
+night last summer he glared at me like Famine and Sword, and it made me feel so
+low that I didn&rsquo;t comb out my few hairs for two days. He was standing, as
+it might be, Mister Yeobright, in the middle of the path to Mistover, and your
+mother came up, looking as pale&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, when was that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Last summer, in my dream.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pooh! Who&rsquo;s the man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Diggory, the reddleman. He called upon her and sat with her the evening
+before she set out to see you. I hadn&rsquo;t gone home from work when he came
+up to the gate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must see Venn&mdash;I wish I had known it before,&rdquo; said Clym
+anxiously. &ldquo;I wonder why he has not come to tell me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not be likely to know
+you wanted him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Christian,&rdquo; said Clym, &ldquo;you must go and find Venn. I am
+otherwise engaged, or I would go myself. Find him at once, and tell him I want
+to speak to him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day,&rdquo; said Christian,
+looking dubiously round at the declining light; &ldquo;but as to night-time,
+never is such a bad hand as I, Mister Yeobright.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Search the heath when you will, so that you bring him soon. Bring him
+tomorrow, if you can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian then departed. The morrow came, but no Venn. In the evening Christian
+arrived, looking very weary. He had been searching all day, and had heard
+nothing of the reddleman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Inquire as much as you can tomorrow without neglecting your work,&rdquo;
+said Yeobright. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t come again till you have found him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day Yeobright set out for the old house at Blooms-End, which, with the
+garden, was now his own. His severe illness had hindered all preparations for
+his removal thither; but it had become necessary that he should go and overlook
+its contents, as administrator to his mother&rsquo;s little property; for which
+purpose he decided to pass the next night on the premises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He journeyed onward, not quickly or decisively, but in the slow walk of one who
+has been awakened from a stupefying sleep. It was early afternoon when he
+reached the valley. The expression of the place, the tone of the hour, were
+precisely those of many such occasions in days gone by; and these antecedent
+similarities fostered the illusion that she, who was there no longer, would
+come out to welcome him. The garden gate was locked and the shutters were
+closed, just as he himself had left them on the evening after the funeral. He
+unlocked the gate, and found that a spider had already constructed a large web,
+tying the door to the lintel, on the supposition that it was never to be opened
+again. When he had entered the house and flung back the shutters he set about
+his task of overhauling the cupboards and closets, burning papers, and
+considering how best to arrange the place for Eustacia&rsquo;s reception, until
+such time as he might be in a position to carry out his long-delayed scheme,
+should that time ever arrive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined for the alterations which
+would have to be made in the time-honoured furnishing of his parents and
+grandparents, to suit Eustacia&rsquo;s modern ideas. The gaunt oak-cased clock,
+with the picture of the Ascension on the door panel and the Miraculous Draught
+of Fishes on the base; his grandmother&rsquo;s corner cupboard with the glass
+door, through which the spotted china was visible; the dumb-waiter; the wooden
+tea trays; the hanging fountain with the brass tap&mdash;whither would these
+venerable articles have to be banished?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He noticed that the flowers in the window had died for want of water, and he
+placed them out upon the ledge, that they might be taken away. While thus
+engaged he heard footsteps on the gravel without, and somebody knocked at the
+door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright opened it, and Venn was standing before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good morning,&rdquo; said the reddleman. &ldquo;Is Mrs. Yeobright at
+home?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright looked upon the ground. &ldquo;Then you have not seen Christian or
+any of the Egdon folks?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. I have only just returned after a long stay away. I called here the
+day before I left.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you have heard nothing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My mother is&mdash;dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dead!&rdquo; said Venn mechanically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Her home now is where I shouldn&rsquo;t mind having mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn regarded him, and then said, &ldquo;If I didn&rsquo;t see your face I
+could never believe your words. Have you been ill?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had an illness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, the change! When I parted from her a month ago everything seemed
+to say that she was going to begin a new life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what seemed came true.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say right, no doubt. Trouble has taught you a deeper vein of talk
+than mine. All I meant was regarding her life here. She has died too
+soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps through my living too long. I have had a bitter experience on
+that score this last month, Diggory. But come in; I have been wanting to see
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He conducted the reddleman into the large room where the dancing had taken
+place the previous Christmas, and they sat down in the settle together.
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s the cold fireplace, you see,&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;When
+that half-burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive! Little has
+been changed here yet. I can do nothing. My life creeps like a snail.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How came she to die?&rdquo; said Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright gave him some particulars of her illness and death, and continued:
+&ldquo;After this no kind of pain will ever seem more than an indisposition to
+me. I began saying that I wanted to ask you something, but I stray from
+subjects like a drunken man. I am anxious to know what my mother said to you
+when she last saw you. You talked with her a long time, I think?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I talked with her more than half an hour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. And it must have been on account of what we said that she was on
+the heath. Without question she was coming to see you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why should she come to see me if she felt so bitterly against me?
+There&rsquo;s the mystery.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yet I know she quite forgave &rsquo;ee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, Diggory&mdash;would a woman, who had quite forgiven her son, say,
+when she felt herself ill on the way to his house, that she was broken-hearted
+because of his ill-usage? Never!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What I know is that she didn&rsquo;t blame you at all. She blamed
+herself for what had happened, and only herself. I had it from her own
+lips.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You had it from her lips that I had <i>not</i> ill-treated her; and at
+the same time another had it from her lips that I <i>had</i> ill-treated her?
+My mother was no impulsive woman who changed her opinion every hour without
+reason. How can it be, Venn, that she should have told such different stories
+in close succession?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot say. It is certainly odd, when she had forgiven you, and had
+forgiven your wife, and was going to see ye on purpose to make friends.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this
+incomprehensible thing!... Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only allowed
+to hold conversation with the dead&mdash;just once, a bare minute, even through
+a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison&mdash;what we might learn! How
+many who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And this mystery&mdash;I
+should then be at the bottom of it at once. But the grave has forever shut her
+in; and how shall it be found out now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No reply was returned by his companion, since none could be given; and when
+Venn left, a few minutes later, Clym had passed from the dullness of sorrow to
+the fluctuation of carking incertitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He continued in the same state all the afternoon. A bed was made up for him in
+the same house by a neighbour, that he might not have to return again the next
+day; and when he retired to rest in the deserted place it was only to remain
+awake hour after hour thinking the same thoughts. How to discover a solution to
+this riddle of death seemed a query of more importance than highest problems of
+the living. There was housed in his memory a vivid picture of the face of a
+little boy as he entered the hovel where Clym&rsquo;s mother lay. The round
+eyes, eager gaze, the piping voice which enunciated the words, had operated
+like stilettos on his brain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A visit to the boy suggested itself as a means of gleaning new particulars;
+though it might be quite unproductive. To probe a child&rsquo;s mind after the
+lapse of six weeks, not for facts which the child had seen and understood, but
+to get at those which were in their nature beyond him, did not promise much;
+yet when every obvious channel is blocked we grope towards the small and
+obscure. There was nothing else left to do; after that he would allow the
+enigma to drop into the abyss of undiscoverable things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about daybreak when he had reached this decision, and he at once arose.
+He locked up the house and went out into the green patch which merged in
+heather further on. In front of the white garden-palings the path branched into
+three like a broad arrow. The road to the right led to the Quiet Woman and its
+neighbourhood; the middle track led to Mistover Knap; the left-hand track led
+over the hill to another part of Mistover, where the child lived. On inclining
+into the latter path Yeobright felt a creeping chilliness, familiar enough to
+most people, and probably caused by the unsunned morning air. In after days he
+thought of it as a thing of singular significance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Yeobright reached the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, the mother of the boy he
+sought, he found that the inmates were not yet astir. But in upland hamlets the
+transition from a-bed to abroad is surprisingly swift and easy. There no dense
+partition of yawns and toilets divides humanity by night from humanity by day.
+Yeobright tapped at the upper windowsill, which he could reach with his walking
+stick; and in three or four minutes the woman came down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not till this moment that Clym recollected her to be the person who had
+behaved so barbarously to Eustacia. It partly explained the insuavity with
+which the woman greeted him. Moreover, the boy had been ailing again; and Susan
+now, as ever since the night when he had been pressed into Eustacia&rsquo;s
+service at the bonfire, attributed his indispositions to Eustacia&rsquo;s
+influence as a witch. It was one of those sentiments which lurk like moles
+underneath the visible surface of manners, and may have been kept alive by
+Eustacia&rsquo;s entreaty to the captain, at the time that he had intended to
+prosecute Susan for the pricking in church, to let the matter drop; which he
+accordingly had done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright overcame his repugnance, for Susan had at least borne his mother no
+ill-will. He asked kindly for the boy; but her manner did not improve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish to see him,&rdquo; continued Yeobright, with some hesitation,
+&ldquo;to ask him if he remembers anything more of his walk with my mother than
+what he has previously told.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She regarded him in a peculiar and criticizing manner. To anybody but a
+half-blind man it would have said, &ldquo;You want another of the knocks which
+have already laid you so low.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She called the boy downstairs, asked Clym to sit down on a stool, and
+continued, &ldquo;Now, Johnny, tell Mr. Yeobright anything you can call to
+mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have not forgotten how you walked with the poor lady on that hot
+day?&rdquo; said Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what she said to you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy repeated the exact words he had used on entering the hut. Yeobright
+rested his elbow on the table and shaded his face with his hand; and the mother
+looked as if she wondered how a man could want more of what had stung him so
+deeply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was going to Alderworth when you first met her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; she was coming away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That can&rsquo;t be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; she walked along with me. I was coming away, too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then where did you first see her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At your house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Attend, and speak the truth!&rdquo; said Clym sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; at your house was where I seed her first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym started up, and Susan smiled in an expectant way which did not embellish
+her face; it seemed to mean, &ldquo;Something sinister is coming!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did she do at my house?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She went and sat under the trees at the Devil&rsquo;s Bellows.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God! this is all news to me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You never told me this before?&rdquo; said Susan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, Mother; because I didn&rsquo;t like to tell &rsquo;ee I had been so
+far. I was picking blackhearts, and went further than I meant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did she do then?&rdquo; said Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Looked at a man who came up and went into your house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was myself&mdash;a furze-cutter, with brambles in his hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; &rsquo;twas not you. &rsquo;Twas a gentleman. You had gone in
+afore.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who was he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now tell me what happened next.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The poor lady went and knocked at your door, and the lady with black
+hair looked out of the side window at her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy&rsquo;s mother turned to Clym and said, &ldquo;This is something you
+didn&rsquo;t expect?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright took no more notice of her than if he had been of stone. &ldquo;Go
+on, go on,&rdquo; he said hoarsely to the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And when she saw the young lady look out of the window the old lady
+knocked again; and when nobody came she took up the furze-hook and looked at
+it, and put it down again, and then she looked at the faggot-bonds; and then
+she went away, and walked across to me, and blowed her breath very hard, like
+this. We walked on together, she and I, and I talked to her and she talked to
+me a bit, but not much, because she couldn&rsquo;t blow her breath.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O!&rdquo; murmured Clym, in a low tone, and bowed his head.
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s have more,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She couldn&rsquo;t talk much, and she couldn&rsquo;t walk; and her face
+was, O so queer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How was her face?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like yours is now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman looked at Yeobright, and beheld him colourless, in a cold sweat.
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t there meaning in it?&rdquo; she said stealthily. &ldquo;What
+do you think of her now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Silence!&rdquo; said Clym fiercely. And, turning to the boy, &ldquo;And
+then you left her to die?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the woman, quickly and angrily. &ldquo;He did not leave
+her to die! She sent him away. Whoever says he forsook her says what&rsquo;s
+not true.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Trouble no more about that,&rdquo; answered Clym, with a quivering
+mouth. &ldquo;What he did is a trifle in comparison with what he saw. Door kept
+shut, did you say? Kept shut, she looking out of window? Good heart of
+God!&mdash;what does it mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child shrank away from the gaze of his questioner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He said so,&rdquo; answered the mother, &ldquo;and Johnny&rsquo;s a
+God-fearing boy and tells no lies.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Cast off by my son!&rsquo; No, by my best life, dear mother, it
+is not so! But by your son&rsquo;s, your son&rsquo;s&mdash;May all murderesses
+get the torment they deserve!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With these words Yeobright went forth from the little dwelling. The pupils of
+his eyes, fixed steadfastly on blankness, were vaguely lit with an icy shine;
+his mouth had passed into the phase more or less imaginatively rendered in
+studies of Oedipus. The strangest deeds were possible to his mood. But they
+were not possible to his situation. Instead of there being before him the pale
+face of Eustacia, and a masculine shape unknown, there was only the
+imperturbable countenance of the heath, which, having defied the cataclysmal
+onsets of centuries, reduced to insignificance by its seamed and antique
+features the wildest turmoil of a single man.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap38"></a>III.<br />
+Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning</h2>
+
+<p>
+A consciousness of a vast impassivity in all which lay around him took
+possession even of Yeobright in his wild walk towards Alderworth. He had once
+before felt in his own person this overpowering of the fervid by the inanimate;
+but then it had tended to enervate a passion far sweeter than that which at
+present pervaded him. It was once when he stood parting from Eustacia in the
+moist still levels beyond the hills.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But dismissing all this he went onward home, and came to the front of his
+house. The blinds of Eustacia&rsquo;s bedroom were still closely drawn, for she
+was no early riser. All the life visible was in the shape of a solitary thrush
+cracking a small snail upon the door-stone for his breakfast, and his tapping
+seemed a loud noise in the general silence which prevailed; but on going to the
+door Clym found it unfastened, the young girl who attended upon Eustacia being
+astir in the back part of the premises. Yeobright entered and went straight to
+his wife&rsquo;s room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The noise of his arrival must have aroused her, for when he opened the door she
+was standing before the looking glass in her nightdress, the ends of her hair
+gathered into one hand, with which she was coiling the whole mass round her
+head, previous to beginning toilette operations. She was not a woman given to
+speaking first at a meeting, and she allowed Clym to walk across in silence,
+without turning her head. He came behind her, and she saw his face in the
+glass. It was ashy, haggard, and terrible. Instead of starting towards him in
+sorrowful surprise, as even Eustacia, undemonstrative wife as she was, would
+have done in days before she burdened herself with a secret, she remained
+motionless, looking at him in the glass. And while she looked the carmine flush
+with which warmth and sound sleep had suffused her cheeks and neck dissolved
+from view, and the deathlike pallor in his face flew across into hers. He was
+close enough to see this, and the sight instigated his tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know what is the matter,&rdquo; he said huskily. &ldquo;I see it in
+your face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her hand relinquished the rope of hair and dropped to her side, and the pile of
+tresses, no longer supported, fell from the crown of her head about her
+shoulders and over the white nightgown. She made no reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Speak to me,&rdquo; said Yeobright peremptorily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The blanching process did not cease in her, and her lips now became as white as
+her face. She turned to him and said, &ldquo;Yes, Clym, I&rsquo;ll speak to
+you. Why do you return so early? Can I do anything for you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you can listen to me. It seems that my wife is not very
+well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your face, my dear; your face. Or perhaps it is the pale morning light
+which takes your colour away? Now I am going to reveal a secret to you.
+Ha-ha!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, that is ghastly!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your laugh.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s reason for ghastliness. Eustacia, you have held my
+happiness in the hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it
+down!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started back from the dressing-table, retreated a few steps from him, and
+looked him in the face. &ldquo;Ah! you think to frighten me,&rdquo; she said,
+with a slight laugh. &ldquo;Is it worth while? I am undefended, and
+alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How extraordinary!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As there is ample time I will tell you, though you know well enough. I
+mean that it is extraordinary that you should be alone in my absence. Tell me,
+now, where is he who was with you on the afternoon of the thirty-first of
+August? Under the bed? Up the chimney?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A shudder overcame her and shook the light fabric of her nightdress throughout.
+&ldquo;I do not remember dates so exactly,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I cannot
+recollect that anybody was with me besides yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The day I mean,&rdquo; said Yeobright, his voice growing louder and
+harsher, &ldquo;was the day you shut the door against my mother and killed her.
+O, it is too much&mdash;too bad!&rdquo; He leant over the footpiece of the
+bedstead for a few moments, with his back towards her; then rising
+again&mdash;&ldquo;Tell me, tell me! tell me&mdash;do you hear?&rdquo; he
+cried, rushing up to her and seizing her by the loose folds of her sleeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The superstratum of timidity which often overlies those who are daring and
+defiant at heart had been passed through, and the mettlesome substance of the
+woman was reached. The red blood inundated her face, previously so pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you going to do?&rdquo; she said in a low voice, regarding him
+with a proud smile. &ldquo;You will not alarm me by holding on so; but it would
+be a pity to tear my sleeve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of letting go he drew her closer to him. &ldquo;Tell me the particulars
+of&mdash;my mother&rsquo;s death,&rdquo; he said in a hard, panting whisper;
+&ldquo;or&mdash;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clym,&rdquo; she answered slowly, &ldquo;do you think you dare do
+anything to me that I dare not bear? But before you strike me listen. You will
+get nothing from me by a blow, even though it should kill me, as it probably
+will. But perhaps you do not wish me to speak&mdash;killing may be all you
+mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kill you! Do you expect it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No less degree of rage against me will match your previous grief for
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Phew&mdash;I shall not kill you,&rdquo; he said contemptuously, as if
+under a sudden change of purpose. &ldquo;I did think of it; but&mdash;I shall
+not. That would be making a martyr of you, and sending you to where she is; and
+I would keep you away from her till the universe come to an end, if I
+could.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I almost wish you would kill me,&rdquo; said she with gloomy bitterness.
+&ldquo;It is with no strong desire, I assure you, that I play the part I have
+lately played on earth. You are no blessing, my husband.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shut the door&mdash;you looked out of the window upon her&mdash;you
+had a man in the house with you&mdash;you sent her away to die. The
+inhumanity&mdash;the treachery&mdash;I will not touch you&mdash;stand away from
+me&mdash;and confess every word!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never! I&rsquo;ll hold my tongue like the very death that I don&rsquo;t
+mind meeting, even though I can clear myself of half you believe by speaking.
+Yes. I will! Who of any dignity would take the trouble to clear cobwebs from a
+wild man&rsquo;s mind after such language as this? No; let him go on, and think
+his narrow thoughts, and run his head into the mire. I have other cares.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis too much&mdash;but I must spare you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor charity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By my wretched soul you sting me, Eustacia! I can keep it up, and hotly
+too. Now, then, madam, tell me his name!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never, I am resolved.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How often does he write to you? Where does he put his letters&mdash;when
+does he meet you? Ah, his letters! Do you tell me his name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll find it myself.&rdquo; His eyes had fallen upon a small
+desk that stood near, on which she was accustomed to write her letters. He went
+to it. It was locked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Unlock this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have no right to say it. That&rsquo;s mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without another word he seized the desk and dashed it to the floor. The hinge
+burst open, and a number of letters tumbled out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stay!&rdquo; said Eustacia, stepping before him with more excitement
+than she had hitherto shown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come! stand away! I must see them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at the letters as they lay, checked her feeling and moved
+indifferently aside; when he gathered them up, and examined them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By no stretch of meaning could any but a harmless construction be placed upon a
+single one of the letters themselves. The solitary exception was an empty
+envelope directed to her, and the handwriting was Wildeve&rsquo;s. Yeobright
+held it up. Eustacia was doggedly silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you read, madam? Look at this envelope. Doubtless we shall find more
+soon, and what was inside them. I shall no doubt be gratified by learning in
+good time what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a certain trade my lady
+is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you say it to me&mdash;do you?&rdquo; she gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He searched further, but found nothing more. &ldquo;What was in this
+letter?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ask the writer. Am I your hound that you should talk to me in this
+way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you brave me? do you stand me out, mistress? Answer. Don&rsquo;t look
+at me with those eyes if you would bewitch me again! Sooner than that I die.
+You refuse to answer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t tell you after this, if I were as innocent as the
+sweetest babe in heaven!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which you are not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly I am not absolutely,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;I have not
+done what you suppose; but if to have done no harm at all is the only innocence
+recognized, I am beyond forgiveness. But I require no help from your
+conscience.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can resist, and resist again! Instead of hating you I could, I
+think, mourn for and pity you, if you were contrite, and would confess all.
+Forgive you I never can. I don&rsquo;t speak of your lover&mdash;I will give
+you the benefit of the doubt in that matter, for it only affects me personally.
+But the other&mdash;had you half-killed <i>me</i>, had it been that you
+wilfully took the sight away from these feeble eyes of mine, I could have
+forgiven you. But <i>that&rsquo;s</i> too much for nature!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say no more. I will do without your pity. But I would have saved you
+from uttering what you will regret.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going away now. I shall leave you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need not go, as I am going myself. You will keep just as far away
+from me by staying here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Call her to mind&mdash;think of her&mdash;what goodness there was in
+her&mdash;it showed in every line of her face! Most women, even when but
+slightly annoyed, show a flicker of evil in some curl of the mouth or some
+corner of the cheek; but as for her, never in her angriest moments was there
+anything malicious in her look. She was angered quickly, but she forgave just
+as readily, and underneath her pride there was the meekness of a child. What
+came of it?&mdash;what cared you? You hated her just as she was learning to
+love you. O! couldn&rsquo;t you see what was best for you, but must bring a
+curse upon me, and agony and death upon her, by doing that cruel deed! What was
+the fellow&rsquo;s name who was keeping you company and causing you to add
+cruelty to her to your wrong to me? Was it Wildeve? Was it poor
+Thomasin&rsquo;s husband? Heaven, what wickedness! Lost your voice, have you?
+It is natural after detection of that most noble trick.... Eustacia,
+didn&rsquo;t any tender thought of your own mother lead you to think of being
+gentle to mine at such a time of weariness? Did not one grain of pity enter
+your heart as she turned away? Think what a vast opportunity was then lost of
+beginning a forgiving and honest course. Why did not you kick him out, and let
+her in, and say I&rsquo;ll be an honest wife and a noble woman from this hour?
+Had I told you to go and quench eternally our last flickering chance of
+happiness here you could have done no worse. Well, she&rsquo;s asleep now; and
+have you a hundred gallants, neither they nor you can insult her any
+more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You exaggerate fearfully,&rdquo; she said in a faint, weary voice;
+&ldquo;but I cannot enter into my defence&mdash;it is not worth doing. You are
+nothing to me in future, and the past side of the story may as well remain
+untold. I have lost all through you, but I have not complained. Your blunders
+and misfortunes may have been a sorrow to you, but they have been a wrong to
+me. All persons of refinement have been scared away from me since I sank into
+the mire of marriage. Is this your cherishing&mdash;to put me into a hut like
+this, and keep me like the wife of a hind? You deceived me&mdash;not by words,
+but by appearances, which are less seen through than words. But the place will
+serve as well as any other&mdash;as somewhere to pass from&mdash;into my
+grave.&rdquo; Her words were smothered in her throat, and her head drooped
+down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you mean by that. Am I the cause of your
+sin?&rdquo; (Eustacia made a trembling motion towards him.) &ldquo;What, you
+can begin to shed tears and offer me your hand? Good God! can you? No, not I.
+I&rsquo;ll not commit the fault of taking that.&rdquo; (The hand she had
+offered dropped nervelessly, but the tears continued flowing.) &ldquo;Well,
+yes, I&rsquo;ll take it, if only for the sake of my own foolish kisses that
+were wasted there before I knew what I cherished. How bewitched I was! How
+could there be any good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, O, O!&rdquo; she cried, breaking down at last; and, shaking with sobs
+which choked her, she sank upon her knees. &ldquo;O, will you have done! O, you
+are too relentless&mdash;there&rsquo;s a limit to the cruelty of savages! I
+have held out long&mdash;but you crush me down. I beg for mercy&mdash;I cannot
+bear this any longer&mdash;it is inhuman to go further with this! If I
+had&mdash;killed your&mdash;mother with my own hand&mdash;I should not deserve
+such a scourging to the bone as this. O, O! God have mercy upon a miserable
+woman!... You have beaten me in this game&mdash;I beg you to stay your hand in
+pity!... I confess that I&mdash;wilfully did not undo the door the first time
+she knocked&mdash;but&mdash;I should have unfastened it the second&mdash;if I
+had not thought you had gone to do it yourself. When I found you had not I
+opened it, but she was gone. That&rsquo;s the extent of my crime&mdash;towards
+<i>her</i>. Best natures commit bad faults sometimes, don&rsquo;t they?&mdash;I
+think they do. Now I will leave you&mdash;for ever and ever!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell all, and I <i>will</i> pity you. Was the man in the house with you
+Wildeve?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot tell,&rdquo; she said desperately through her sobbing.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t insist further&mdash;I cannot tell. I am going from this
+house. We cannot both stay here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need not go&mdash;I will go. You can stay here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I will dress, and then I will go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where I came from, or <i>else</i>where.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She hastily dressed herself, Yeobright moodily walking up and down the room the
+whole of the time. At last all her things were on. Her little hands quivered so
+violently as she held them to her chin to fasten her bonnet that she could not
+tie the strings, and after a few moments she relinquished the attempt. Seeing
+this he moved forward and said, &ldquo;Let me tie them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She assented in silence, and lifted her chin. For once at least in her life she
+was totally oblivious of the charm of her attitude. But he was not, and he
+turned his eyes aside, that he might not be tempted to softness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The strings were tied; she turned from him. &ldquo;Do you still prefer going
+away yourself to my leaving you?&rdquo; he inquired again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well&mdash;let it be. And when you will confess to the man I may
+pity you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She flung her shawl about her and went downstairs, leaving him standing in the
+room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia had not long been gone when there came a knock at the door of the
+bedroom; and Yeobright said, &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the servant; and she replied, &ldquo;Somebody from Mrs. Wildeve&rsquo;s
+have called to tell &rsquo;ee that the mis&rsquo;ess and the baby are getting
+on wonderful well, and the baby&rsquo;s name is to be Eustacia
+Clementine.&rdquo; And the girl retired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a mockery!&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;This unhappy marriage of mine
+to be perpetuated in that child&rsquo;s name!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap39"></a>IV.<br />
+The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One</h2>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia&rsquo;s journey was at first as vague in direction as that of
+thistledown on the wind. She did not know what to do. She wished it had been
+night instead of morning, that she might at least have borne her misery without
+the possibility of being seen. Tracing mile after mile along between the dying
+ferns and the wet white spiders&rsquo; webs, she at length turned her steps
+towards her grandfather&rsquo;s house. She found the front door closed and
+locked. Mechanically she went round to the end where the stable was, and on
+looking in at the stable door she saw Charley standing within.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Captain Vye is not at home?&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said the lad in a flutter of feeling;
+&ldquo;he&rsquo;s gone to Weatherbury, and won&rsquo;t be home till night. And
+the servant is gone home for a holiday. So the house is locked up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia&rsquo;s face was not visible to Charley as she stood at the doorway,
+her back being to the sky, and the stable but indifferently lighted; but the
+wildness of her manner arrested his attention. She turned and walked away
+across the enclosure to the gate, and was hidden by the bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she had disappeared Charley, with misgiving in his eyes, slowly came from
+the stable door, and going to another point in the bank he looked over.
+Eustacia was leaning against it on the outside, her face covered with her
+hands, and her head pressing the dewy heather which bearded the bank&rsquo;s
+outer side. She appeared to be utterly indifferent to the circumstance that her
+bonnet, hair, and garments were becoming wet and disarranged by the moisture of
+her cold, harsh pillow. Clearly something was wrong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charley had always regarded Eustacia as Eustacia had regarded Clym when she
+first beheld him&mdash;as a romantic and sweet vision, scarcely incarnate. He
+had been so shut off from her by the dignity of her look and the pride of her
+speech, except at that one blissful interval when he was allowed to hold her
+hand, that he had hardly deemed her a woman, wingless and earthly, subject to
+household conditions and domestic jars. The inner details of her life he had
+only conjectured. She had been a lovely wonder, predestined to an orbit in
+which the whole of his own was but a point; and this sight of her leaning like
+a helpless, despairing creature against a wild wet bank filled him with an
+amazed horror. He could no longer remain where he was. Leaping over, he came
+up, touched her with his finger, and said tenderly, &ldquo;You are poorly,
+ma&rsquo;am. What can I do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia started up, and said, &ldquo;Ah, Charley&mdash;you have followed me.
+You did not think when I left home in the summer that I should come back like
+this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not, dear ma&rsquo;am. Can I help you now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid not. I wish I could get into the house. I feel
+giddy&mdash;that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lean on my arm, ma&rsquo;am, till we get to the porch, and I will try to
+open the door.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He supported her to the porch, and there depositing her on a seat hastened to
+the back, climbed to a window by the help of a ladder, and descending inside
+opened the door. Next he assisted her into the room, where there was an
+old-fashioned horsehair settee as large as a donkey wagon. She lay down here,
+and Charley covered her with a cloak he found in the hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I get you something to eat and drink?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you please, Charley. But I suppose there is no fire?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can light it, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He vanished, and she heard a splitting of wood and a blowing of bellows; and
+presently he returned, saying, &ldquo;I have lighted a fire in the kitchen, and
+now I&rsquo;ll light one here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He lit the fire, Eustacia dreamily observing him from her couch. When it was
+blazing up he said, &ldquo;Shall I wheel you round in front of it, ma&rsquo;am,
+as the morning is chilly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, if you like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I go and bring the victuals now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, do,&rdquo; she murmured languidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he had gone, and the dull sounds occasionally reached her ears of his
+movements in the kitchen, she forgot where she was, and had for a moment to
+consider by an effort what the sounds meant. After an interval which seemed
+short to her whose thoughts were elsewhere, he came in with a tray on which
+steamed tea and toast, though it was nearly lunch-time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Place it on the table,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall be ready
+soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did so, and retired to the door; when, however, he perceived that she did
+not move he came back a few steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me hold it to you, if you don&rsquo;t wish to get up,&rdquo; said
+Charley. He brought the tray to the front of the couch, where he knelt down,
+adding, &ldquo;I will hold it for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia sat up and poured out a cup of tea. &ldquo;You are very kind to me,
+Charley,&rdquo; she murmured as she sipped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I ought to be,&rdquo; said he diffidently, taking great trouble
+not to rest his eyes upon her, though this was their only natural position,
+Eustacia being immediately before him. &ldquo;You have been kind to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How have I?&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You let me hold your hand when you were a maiden at home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, so I did. Why did I do that? My mind is lost&mdash;it had to do with
+the mumming, had it not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you wanted to go in my place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I remember. I do indeed remember&mdash;too well!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She again became utterly downcast; and Charley, seeing that she was not going
+to eat or drink any more, took away the tray.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Afterwards he occasionally came in to see if the fire was burning, to ask her
+if she wanted anything, to tell her that the wind had shifted from south to
+west, to ask her if she would like him to gather her some blackberries; to all
+which inquiries she replied in the negative or with indifference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She remained on the settee some time longer, when she aroused herself and went
+upstairs. The room in which she had formerly slept still remained much as she
+had left it, and the recollection that this forced upon her of her own greatly
+changed and infinitely worsened situation again set on her face the
+undetermined and formless misery which it had worn on her first arrival. She
+peeped into her grandfather&rsquo;s room, through which the fresh autumn air
+was blowing from the open window. Her eye was arrested by what was a familiar
+sight enough, though it broke upon her now with a new significance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a brace of pistols, hanging near the head of her grandfather&rsquo;s
+bed, which he always kept there loaded, as a precaution against possible
+burglars, the house being very lonely. Eustacia regarded them long, as if they
+were the page of a book in which she read a new and a strange matter. Quickly,
+like one afraid of herself, she returned downstairs and stood in deep thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I could only do it!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It would be doing much
+good to myself and all connected with me, and no harm to a single one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The idea seemed to gather force within her, and she remained in a fixed
+attitude nearly ten minutes, when a certain finality was expressed in her gaze,
+and no longer the blankness of indecision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned and went up the second time&mdash;softly and stealthily
+now&mdash;and entered her grandfather&rsquo;s room, her eyes at once seeking
+the head of the bed. The pistols were gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The instant quashing of her purpose by their absence affected her brain as a
+sudden vacuum affects the body&mdash;she nearly fainted. Who had done this?
+There was only one person on the premises besides herself. Eustacia
+involuntarily turned to the open window which overlooked the garden as far as
+the bank that bounded it. On the summit of the latter stood Charley,
+sufficiently elevated by its height to see into the room. His gaze was directed
+eagerly and solicitously upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went downstairs to the door and beckoned to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have taken them away?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why did you do it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw you looking at them too long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What has that to do with it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have been heart-broken all the morning, as if you did not want to
+live.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I could not bear to leave them in your way. There was meaning in
+your look at them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are they now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Locked up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the stable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give them to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You refuse?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do. I care too much for you to give &rsquo;em up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned aside, her face for the first time softening from the stony
+immobility of the earlier day, and the corners of her mouth resuming something
+of that delicacy of cut which was always lost in her moments of despair. At
+last she confronted him again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why should I not die if I wish?&rdquo; she said tremulously. &ldquo;I
+have made a bad bargain with life, and I am weary of it&mdash;weary. And now
+you have hindered my escape. O, why did you, Charley! What makes death painful
+except the thought of others&rsquo; grief?&mdash;and that is absent in my case,
+for not a sigh would follow me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, it is trouble that has done this! I wish in my very soul that he who
+brought it about might die and rot, even if &rsquo;tis transportation to say
+it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Charley, no more of that. What do you mean to do about this you have
+seen?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep it close as night, if you promise not to think of it again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need not fear. The moment has passed. I promise.&rdquo; She then
+went away, entered the house, and lay down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later in the afternoon her grandfather returned. He was about to question her
+categorically, but on looking at her he withheld his words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it is too bad to talk of,&rdquo; she slowly returned in answer to
+his glance. &ldquo;Can my old room be got ready for me tonight, Grandfather? I
+shall want to occupy it again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not ask what it all meant, or why she had left her husband, but ordered
+the room to be prepared.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap40"></a>V.<br />
+An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated</h2>
+
+<p>
+Charley&rsquo;s attentions to his former mistress were unbounded. The only
+solace to his own trouble lay in his attempts to relieve hers. Hour after hour
+he considered her wants; he thought of her presence there with a sort of
+gratitude, and, while uttering imprecations on the cause of her unhappiness, in
+some measure blessed the result. Perhaps she would always remain there, he
+thought, and then he would be as happy as he had been before. His dread was
+lest she should think fit to return to Alderworth, and in that dread his eyes,
+with all the inquisitiveness of affection, frequently sought her face when she
+was not observing him, as he would have watched the head of a stockdove to
+learn if it contemplated flight. Having once really succoured her, and possibly
+preserved her from the rashest of acts, he mentally assumed in addition a
+guardian&rsquo;s responsibility for her welfare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For this reason he busily endeavoured to provide her with pleasant
+distractions, bringing home curious objects which he found in the heath, such
+as white trumpet-shaped mosses, redheaded lichens, stone arrowheads used by the
+old tribes on Egdon, and faceted crystals from the hollows of flints. These he
+deposited on the premises in such positions that she should see them as if by
+accident.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A week passed, Eustacia never going out of the house. Then she walked into the
+enclosed plot and looked through her grandfather&rsquo;s spyglass, as she had
+been in the habit of doing before her marriage. One day she saw, at a place
+where the highroad crossed the distant valley, a heavily laden wagon passing
+along. It was piled with household furniture. She looked again and again, and
+recognized it to be her own. In the evening her grandfather came indoors with a
+rumour that Yeobright had removed that day from Alderworth to the old house at
+Blooms-End.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On another occasion when reconnoitring thus she beheld two female figures
+walking in the vale. The day was fine and clear; and the persons not being more
+than half a mile off she could see their every detail with the telescope. The
+woman walking in front carried a white bundle in her arms, from one end of
+which hung a long appendage of drapery; and when the walkers turned, so that
+the sun fell more directly upon them, Eustacia could see that the object was a
+baby. She called Charley, and asked him if he knew who they were, though she
+well guessed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Wildeve and the nurse-girl,&rdquo; said Charley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The nurse is carrying the baby?&rdquo; said Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, &rsquo;tis Mrs. Wildeve carrying that,&rdquo; he answered,
+&ldquo;and the nurse walks behind carrying nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lad was in good spirits that day, for the Fifth of November had again come
+round, and he was planning yet another scheme to divert her from her too
+absorbing thoughts. For two successive years his mistress had seemed to take
+pleasure in lighting a bonfire on the bank overlooking the valley; but this
+year she had apparently quite forgotten the day and the customary deed. He was
+careful not to remind her, and went on with his secret preparations for a
+cheerful surprise, the more zealously that he had been absent last time and
+unable to assist. At every vacant minute he hastened to gather furze-stumps,
+thorn-tree roots, and other solid materials from the adjacent slopes, hiding
+them from cursory view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The evening came, and Eustacia was still seemingly unconscious of the
+anniversary. She had gone indoors after her survey through the glass, and had
+not been visible since. As soon as it was quite dark Charley began to build the
+bonfire, choosing precisely that spot on the bank which Eustacia had chosen at
+previous times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When all the surrounding bonfires had burst into existence Charley kindled his,
+and arranged its fuel so that it should not require tending for some time. He
+then went back to the house, and lingered round the door and windows till she
+should by some means or other learn of his achievement and come out to witness
+it. But the shutters were closed, the door remained shut, and no heed whatever
+seemed to be taken of his performance. Not liking to call her he went back and
+replenished the fire, continuing to do this for more than half an hour. It was
+not till his stock of fuel had greatly diminished that he went to the back door
+and sent in to beg that Mrs. Yeobright would open the window-shutters and see
+the sight outside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia, who had been sitting listlessly in the parlour, started up at the
+intelligence and flung open the shutters. Facing her on the bank blazed the
+fire, which at once sent a ruddy glare into the room where she was, and
+overpowered the candles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well done, Charley!&rdquo; said Captain Vye from the chimney-corner.
+&ldquo;But I hope it is not my wood that he&rsquo;s burning.... Ah, it was this
+time last year that I met with that man Venn, bringing home Thomasin
+Yeobright&mdash;to be sure it was! Well, who would have thought that
+girl&rsquo;s troubles would have ended so well? What a snipe you were in that
+matter, Eustacia! Has your husband written to you yet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Eustacia, looking vaguely through the window at the
+fire, which just then so much engaged her mind that she did not resent her
+grandfather&rsquo;s blunt opinion. She could see Charley&rsquo;s form on the
+bank, shovelling and stirring the fire; and there flashed upon her imagination
+some other form which that fire might call up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She left the room, put on her garden bonnet and cloak, and went out. Reaching
+the bank, she looked over with a wild curiosity and misgiving, when Charley
+said to her, with a pleased sense of himself, &ldquo;I made it o&rsquo; purpose
+for you, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said hastily. &ldquo;But I wish you to put it out
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will soon burn down,&rdquo; said Charley, rather disappointed.
+&ldquo;Is it not a pity to knock it out?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; she musingly answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stood in silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames, till
+Charley, perceiving that she did not want to talk to him, moved reluctantly
+away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia remained within the bank looking at the fire, intending to go indoors,
+yet lingering still. Had she not by her situation been inclined to hold in
+indifference all things honoured of the gods and of men she would probably have
+come away. But her state was so hopeless that she could play with it. To have
+lost is less disturbing than to wonder if we may possibly have won; and
+Eustacia could now, like other people at such a stage, take a standing-point
+outside herself, observe herself as a disinterested spectator, and think what a
+sport for Heaven this woman Eustacia was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While she stood she heard a sound. It was the splash of a stone in the pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had Eustacia received the stone full in the bosom her heart could not have
+given a more decided thump. She had thought of the possibility of such a signal
+in answer to that which had been unwittingly given by Charley; but she had not
+expected it yet. How prompt Wildeve was! Yet how could he think her capable of
+deliberately wishing to renew their assignations now? An impulse to leave the
+spot, a desire to stay, struggled within her; and the desire held its own. More
+than that it did not do, for she refrained even from ascending the bank and
+looking over. She remained motionless, not disturbing a muscle of her face or
+raising her eyes; for were she to turn up her face the fire on the bank would
+shine upon it, and Wildeve might be looking down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a second splash into the pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why did he stay so long without advancing and looking over? Curiosity had its
+way&mdash;she ascended one or two of the earth-steps in the bank and glanced
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve was before her. He had come forward after throwing the last pebble, and
+the fire now shone into each of their faces from the bank stretching
+breast-high between them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not light it!&rdquo; cried Eustacia quickly. &ldquo;It was lit
+without my knowledge. Don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t come over to me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why have you been living here all these days without telling me? You
+have left your home. I fear I am something to blame in this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not let in his mother; that&rsquo;s how it is!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You do not deserve what you have got, Eustacia; you are in great misery;
+I see it in your eyes, your mouth, and all over you. My poor, poor girl!&rdquo;
+He stepped over the bank. &ldquo;You are beyond everything unhappy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no; not exactly&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has been pushed too far&mdash;it is killing you&mdash;I do think
+it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her usually quiet breathing had grown quicker with his words.
+&ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; she began, and then burst into quivering sobs,
+shaken to the very heart by the unexpected voice of pity&mdash;a sentiment
+whose existence in relation to herself she had almost forgotten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This outbreak of weeping took Eustacia herself so much by surprise that she
+could not leave off, and she turned aside from him in some shame, though
+turning hid nothing from him. She sobbed on desperately; then the outpour
+lessened, and she became quieter. Wildeve had resisted the impulse to clasp
+her, and stood without speaking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you not ashamed of me, who used never to be a crying animal?&rdquo;
+she asked in a weak whisper as she wiped her eyes. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you
+go away? I wish you had not seen quite all that; it reveals too much by
+half.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You might have wished it, because it makes me as sad as you,&rdquo; he
+said with emotion and deference. &ldquo;As for revealing&mdash;the word is
+impossible between us two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not send for you&mdash;don&rsquo;t forget it, Damon; I am in pain,
+but I did not send for you! As a wife, at least, I&rsquo;ve been
+straight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind&mdash;I came. O, Eustacia, forgive me for the harm I have
+done you in these two past years! I see more and more that I have been your
+ruin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not you. This place I live in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, your generosity may naturally make you say that. But I am the
+culprit. I should either have done more or nothing at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ought never to have hunted you out, or, having done it, I ought to
+have persisted in retaining you. But of course I have no right to talk of that
+now. I will only ask this&mdash;can I do anything for you? Is there anything on
+the face of the earth that a man can do to make you happier than you are at
+present? If there is, I will do it. You may command me, Eustacia, to the limit
+of my influence; and don&rsquo;t forget that I am richer now. Surely something
+can be done to save you from this! Such a rare plant in such a wild place it
+grieves me to see. Do you want anything bought? Do you want to go anywhere? Do
+you want to escape the place altogether? Only say it, and I&rsquo;ll do
+anything to put an end to those tears, which but for me would never have been
+at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are each married to another person,&rdquo; she said faintly;
+&ldquo;and assistance from you would have an evil
+sound&mdash;after&mdash;after&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;s no preventing slanderers from having their fill at
+any time; but you need not be afraid. Whatever I may feel I promise you on my
+word of honour never to speak to you about&mdash;or act upon&mdash;until you
+say I may. I know my duty to Thomasin quite as well as I know my duty to you as
+a woman unfairly treated. What shall I assist you in?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In getting away from here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where do you wish to go to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have a place in my mind. If you could help me as far as Budmouth I can
+do all the rest. Steamers sail from there across the Channel, and so I can get
+to Paris, where I want to be. Yes,&rdquo; she pleaded earnestly, &ldquo;help me
+to get to Budmouth harbour without my grandfather&rsquo;s or my husband&rsquo;s
+knowledge, and I can do all the rest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will it be safe to leave you there alone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes. I know Budmouth well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I go with you? I am rich now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say yes, sweet!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was silent still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, let me know when you wish to go. We shall be at our present house
+till December; after that we remove to Casterbridge. Command me in anything
+till that time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will think of this,&rdquo; she said hurriedly. &ldquo;Whether I can
+honestly make use of you as a friend, or must close with you as a
+lover&mdash;that is what I must ask myself. If I wish to go and decide to
+accept your company I will signal to you some evening at eight o&rsquo;clock
+punctually, and this will mean that you are to be ready with a horse and trap
+at twelve o&rsquo;clock the same night to drive me to Budmouth harbour in time
+for the morning boat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will look out every night at eight, and no signal shall escape
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now please go away. If I decide on this escape I can only meet you once
+more unless&mdash;I cannot go without you. Go&mdash;I cannot bear it longer.
+Go&mdash;go!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve slowly went up the steps and descended into the darkness on the other
+side; and as he walked he glanced back, till the bank blotted out her form from
+his further view.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap41"></a>VI.<br />
+Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter</h2>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright was at this time at Blooms-End, hoping that Eustacia would return to
+him. The removal of furniture had been accomplished only that day, though Clym
+had lived in the old house for more than a week. He had spent the time in
+working about the premises, sweeping leaves from the garden paths, cutting dead
+stalks from the flower beds, and nailing up creepers which had been displaced
+by the autumn winds. He took no particular pleasure in these deeds, but they
+formed a screen between himself and despair. Moreover, it had become a religion
+with him to preserve in good condition all that had lapsed from his
+mother&rsquo;s hands to his own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During these operations he was constantly on the watch for Eustacia. That there
+should be no mistake about her knowing where to find him he had ordered a
+notice board to be affixed to the garden gate at Alderworth, signifying in
+white letters whither he had removed. When a leaf floated to the earth he
+turned his head, thinking it might be her foot-fall. A bird searching for worms
+in the mould of the flower-beds sounded like her hand on the latch of the gate;
+and at dusk, when soft, strange ventriloquisms came from holes in the ground,
+hollow stalks, curled dead leaves, and other crannies wherein breezes, worms,
+and insects can work their will, he fancied that they were Eustacia, standing
+without and breathing wishes of reconciliation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up to this hour he had persevered in his resolve not to invite her back. At the
+same time the severity with which he had treated her lulled the sharpness of
+his regret for his mother, and awoke some of his old solicitude for his
+mother&rsquo;s supplanter. Harsh feelings produce harsh usage, and this by
+reaction quenches the sentiments that gave it birth. The more he reflected the
+more he softened. But to look upon his wife as innocence in distress was
+impossible, though he could ask himself whether he had given her quite time
+enough&mdash;if he had not come a little too suddenly upon her on that sombre
+morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now that the first flush of his anger had paled he was disinclined to ascribe
+to her more than an indiscreet friendship with Wildeve, for there had not
+appeared in her manner the signs of dishonour. And this once admitted, an
+absolutely dark interpretation of her act towards his mother was no longer
+forced upon him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the evening of the fifth November his thoughts of Eustacia were intense.
+Echoes from those past times when they had exchanged tender words all the day
+long came like the diffused murmur of a seashore left miles behind.
+&ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;she might have brought herself to
+communicate with me before now, and confess honestly what Wildeve was to
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of remaining at home that night he determined to go and see Thomasin
+and her husband. If he found opportunity he would allude to the cause of the
+separation between Eustacia and himself, keeping silence, however, on the fact
+that there was a third person in his house when his mother was turned away. If
+it proved that Wildeve was innocently there he would doubtless openly mention
+it. If he were there with unjust intentions Wildeve, being a man of quick
+feeling, might possibly say something to reveal the extent to which Eustacia
+was compromised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But on reaching his cousin&rsquo;s house he found that only Thomasin was at
+home, Wildeve being at that time on his way towards the bonfire innocently lit
+by Charley at Mistover. Thomasin then, as always, was glad to see Clym, and
+took him to inspect the sleeping baby, carefully screening the candlelight from
+the infant&rsquo;s eyes with her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tamsin, have you heard that Eustacia is not with me now?&rdquo; he said
+when they had sat down again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Thomasin, alarmed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And not that I have left Alderworth?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. I never hear tidings from Alderworth unless you bring them. What is
+the matter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym in a disturbed voice related to her his visit to Susan Nunsuch&rsquo;s
+boy, the revelation he had made, and what had resulted from his charging
+Eustacia with having wilfully and heartlessly done the deed. He suppressed all
+mention of Wildeve&rsquo;s presence with her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All this, and I not knowing it!&rdquo; murmured Thomasin in an awestruck
+tone, &ldquo;Terrible! What could have made her&mdash;O, Eustacia! And when you
+found it out you went in hot haste to her? Were you too cruel?&mdash;or is she
+really so wicked as she seems?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can a man be too cruel to his mother&rsquo;s enemy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can fancy so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, then&mdash;I&rsquo;ll admit that he can. But now what is to
+be done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Make it up again&mdash;if a quarrel so deadly can ever be made up. I
+almost wish you had not told me. But do try to be reconciled. There are ways,
+after all, if you both wish to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that we do both wish to make it up,&rdquo; said Clym.
+&ldquo;If she had wished it, would she not have sent to me by this time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You seem to wish to, and yet you have not sent to her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True; but I have been tossed to and fro in doubt if I ought, after such
+strong provocation. To see me now, Thomasin, gives you no idea of what I have
+been; of what depths I have descended to in these few last days. O, it was a
+bitter shame to shut out my mother like that! Can I ever forget it, or even
+agree to see her again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She might not have known that anything serious would come of it, and
+perhaps she did not mean to keep Aunt out altogether.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She says herself that she did not. But the fact remains that keep her
+out she did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Believe her sorry, and send for her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How if she will not come?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will prove her guilty, by showing that it is her habit to nourish
+enmity. But I do not think that for a moment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will do this. I will wait for a day or two longer&mdash;not longer
+than two days certainly; and if she does not send to me in that time I will
+indeed send to her. I thought to have seen Wildeve here tonight. Is he from
+home?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin blushed a little. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He is merely gone
+out for a walk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t he take you with him? The evening is fine. You want
+fresh air as well as he.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t care for going anywhere; besides, there is
+baby.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes. Well, I have been thinking whether I should not consult your
+husband about this as well as you,&rdquo; said Clym steadily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fancy I would not,&rdquo; she quickly answered. &ldquo;It can do no
+good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her cousin looked her in the face. No doubt Thomasin was ignorant that her
+husband had any share in the events of that tragic afternoon; but her
+countenance seemed to signify that she concealed some suspicion or thought of
+the reputed tender relations between Wildeve and Eustacia in days gone by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym, however, could make nothing of it, and he rose to depart, more in doubt
+than when he came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will write to her in a day or two?&rdquo; said the young woman
+earnestly. &ldquo;I do so hope the wretched separation may come to an
+end.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will,&rdquo; said Clym; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t rejoice in my present
+state at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he left her and climbed over the hill to Blooms-End. Before going to bed he
+sat down and wrote the following letter:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+M<small>Y DEAR</small> E<small>USTACIA</small>,&mdash;I must obey my heart
+without consulting my reason too closely. Will you come back to me? Do so, and
+the past shall never be mentioned. I was too severe; but O, Eustacia, the
+provocation! You don&rsquo;t know, you never will know, what those words of
+anger cost me which you drew down upon yourself. All that an honest man can
+promise you I promise now, which is that from me you shall never suffer
+anything on this score again. After all the vows we have made, Eustacia, I
+think we had better pass the remainder of our lives in trying to keep them.
+Come to me, then, even if you reproach me. I have thought of your sufferings
+that morning on which I parted from you; I know they were genuine, and they are
+as much as you ought to bear. Our love must still continue. Such hearts as ours
+would never have been given us but to be concerned with each other. I could not
+ask you back at first, Eustacia, for I was unable to persuade myself that he
+who was with you was not there as a lover. But if you will come and explain
+distracting appearances I do not question that you can show your honesty to me.
+Why have you not come before? Do you think I will not listen to you? Surely
+not, when you remember the kisses and vows we exchanged under the summer moon.
+Return then, and you shall be warmly welcomed. I can no longer think of you to
+your prejudice&mdash;I am but too much absorbed in justifying you.&mdash;Your
+husband as ever,
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+C<small>LYM</small>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There,&rdquo; he said, as he laid it in his desk, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s a
+good thing done. If she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat sighing uneasily.
+Fidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to conceal all suspicion
+that Wildeve&rsquo;s interest in Eustacia had not ended with his marriage. But
+she knew nothing positive; and though Clym was her well-beloved cousin there
+was one nearer to her still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk to Mistover, Thomasin
+said, &ldquo;Damon, where have you been? I was getting quite frightened, and
+thought you had fallen into the river. I dislike being in the house by
+myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Frightened?&rdquo; he said, touching her cheek as if she were some
+domestic animal. &ldquo;Why, I thought nothing could frighten you. It is that
+you are getting proud, I am sure, and don&rsquo;t like living here since we
+have risen above our business. Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting a new
+house; but I couldn&rsquo;t have set about it sooner, unless our ten thousand
+pounds had been a hundred thousand, when we could have afforded to despise
+caution.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;I don&rsquo;t mind waiting&mdash;I would rather stay here
+twelve months longer than run any risk with baby. But I don&rsquo;t like your
+vanishing so in the evenings. There&rsquo;s something on your mind&mdash;I know
+there is, Damon. You go about so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it were
+somebody&rsquo;s gaol instead of a nice wild place to walk in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked towards her with pitying surprise. &ldquo;What, do you like Egdon
+Heath?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pooh, my dear. You don&rsquo;t know what you like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sure I do. There&rsquo;s only one thing unpleasant about
+Egdon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You never take me with you when you walk there. Why do you wander so
+much in it yourself if you so dislike it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting, and he sat down
+before replying. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you often see me there. Give an
+instance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will,&rdquo; she answered triumphantly. &ldquo;When you went out this
+evening I thought that as baby was asleep I would see where you were going to
+so mysteriously without telling me. So I ran out and followed behind you. You
+stopped at the place where the road forks, looked round at the bonfires, and
+then said, &lsquo;Damn it, I&rsquo;ll go!&rsquo; And you went quickly up the
+left-hand road. Then I stood and watched you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, &ldquo;Well, what
+wonderful discovery did you make?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&mdash;now you are angry, and we won&rsquo;t talk of this any
+more.&rdquo; She went across to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his
+face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s how you always back out.
+We will go on with it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly
+want to know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be like that, Damon!&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;I
+didn&rsquo;t see anything. You vanished out of sight, and then I looked round
+at the bonfires and came in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you
+trying to find out something bad about me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn&rsquo;t
+have done it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What <i>do</i> you mean?&rdquo; he impatiently asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say&mdash;they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings,
+and it puts into my mind what I have heard about&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he
+said, flourishing his hand in the air, &ldquo;just out with it, madam! I demand
+to know what remarks you have heard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia&mdash;nothing
+more than that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be
+angry!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;there is nothing new in that, and of course I don&rsquo;t mean to
+be rough towards you, so you need not cry. Now, don&rsquo;t let us speak of the
+subject any more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason for not mentioning
+Clym&rsquo;s visit to her that evening, and his story.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap42"></a>VII.<br />
+The Night of the Sixth of November</h2>
+
+<p>
+Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that something
+should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event that could really
+change her position was the appearance of Clym. The glory which had encircled
+him as her lover was departed now; yet some good simple quality of his would
+occasionally return to her memory and stir a momentary throb of hope that he
+would again present himself before her. But calmly considered it was not likely
+that such a severance as now existed would ever close up&mdash;she would have
+to live on as a painful object, isolated, and out of place. She had used to
+think of the heath alone as an uncongenial spot to be in; she felt it now of
+the whole world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towards evening on the sixth her determination to go away again revived. About
+four o&rsquo;clock she packed up anew the few small articles she had brought in
+her flight from Alderworth, and also some belonging to her which had been left
+here; the whole formed a bundle not too large to be carried in her hand for a
+distance of a mile or two. The scene without grew darker; mud-coloured clouds
+bellied downwards from the sky like vast hammocks slung across it, and with the
+increase of night a stormy wind arose; but as yet there was no rain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more to do, and she wandered to
+and fro on the hill, not far from the house she was soon to leave. In these
+desultory ramblings she passed the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, a little lower
+down than her grandfather&rsquo;s. The door was ajar, and a riband of bright
+firelight fell over the ground without. As Eustacia crossed the firebeams she
+appeared for an instant as distinct as a figure in a phantasmagoria&mdash;a
+creature of light surrounded by an area of darkness; the moment passed, and she
+was absorbed in night again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and recognized her in that
+momentary irradiation. This was Susan herself, occupied in preparing a posset
+for her little boy, who, often ailing, was now seriously unwell. Susan dropped
+the spoon, shook her fist at the vanished figure, and then proceeded with her
+work in a musing, absent way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At eight o&rsquo;clock, the hour at which Eustacia had promised to signal
+Wildeve if ever she signalled at all, she looked around the premises to learn
+if the coast was clear, went to the furze-rick, and pulled thence a
+long-stemmed bough of that fuel. This she carried to the corner of the bank,
+and, glancing behind to see if the shutters were all closed, she struck a
+light, and kindled the furze. When it was thoroughly ablaze Eustacia took it by
+the stem and waved it in the air above her head till it had burned itself out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was gratified, if gratification were possible to such a mood, by seeing a
+similar light in the vicinity of Wildeve&rsquo;s residence a minute or two
+later. Having agreed to keep watch at this hour every night, in case she should
+require assistance, this promptness proved how strictly he had held to his
+word. Four hours after the present time, that is, at midnight, he was to be
+ready to drive her to Budmouth, as prearranged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia returned to the house. Supper having been got over she retired early,
+and sat in her bedroom waiting for the time to go by. The night being dark and
+threatening, Captain Vye had not strolled out to gossip in any cottage or to
+call at the inn, as was sometimes his custom on these long autumn nights; and
+he sat sipping grog alone downstairs. About ten o&rsquo;clock there was a knock
+at the door. When the servant opened it the rays of the candle fell upon the
+form of Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was a-forced to go to Lower Mistover tonight,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;and Mr. Yeobright asked me to leave this here on my way; but, faith, I
+put it in the lining of my hat, and thought no more about it till I got back
+and was hasping my gate before going to bed. So I have run back with it at
+once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He handed in a letter and went his way. The girl brought it to the captain, who
+found that it was directed to Eustacia. He turned it over and over, and fancied
+that the writing was her husband&rsquo;s, though he could not be sure. However,
+he decided to let her have it at once if possible, and took it upstairs for
+that purpose; but on reaching the door of her room and looking in at the
+keyhole he found there was no light within, the fact being that Eustacia,
+without undressing, had flung herself upon the bed, to rest and gather a little
+strength for her coming journey. Her grandfather concluded from what he saw
+that he ought not to disturb her; and descending again to the parlour he placed
+the letter on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At eleven o&rsquo;clock he went to bed himself, smoked for some time in his
+bedroom, put out his light at half-past eleven, and then, as was his invariable
+custom, pulled up the blind before getting into bed, that he might see which
+way the wind blew on opening his eyes in the morning, his bedroom window
+commanding a view of the flagstaff and vane. Just as he had lain down he was
+surprised to observe the white pole of the staff flash into existence like a
+streak of phosphorus drawn downwards across the shade of night without. Only
+one explanation met this&mdash;a light had been suddenly thrown upon the pole
+from the direction of the house. As everybody had retired to rest the old man
+felt it necessary to get out of bed, open the window softly, and look to the
+right and left. Eustacia&rsquo;s bedroom was lighted up, and it was the shine
+from her window which had lighted the pole. Wondering what had aroused her, he
+remained undecided at the window, and was thinking of fetching the letter to
+slip it under her door, when he heard a slight brushing of garments on the
+partition dividing his room from the passage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The captain concluded that Eustacia, feeling wakeful, had gone for a book, and
+would have dismissed the matter as unimportant if he had not also heard her
+distinctly weeping as she passed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is thinking of that husband of hers,&rdquo; he said to himself.
+&ldquo;Ah, the silly goose! she had no business to marry him. I wonder if that
+letter is really his?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door, and said,
+&ldquo;Eustacia!&rdquo; There was no answer. &ldquo;Eustacia!&rdquo; he
+repeated louder, &ldquo;there is a letter on the mantelpiece for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no response was made to this statement save an imaginary one from the wind,
+which seemed to gnaw at the corners of the house, and the stroke of a few drops
+of rain upon the windows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went on to the landing, and stood waiting nearly five minutes. Still she did
+not return. He went back for a light, and prepared to follow her; but first he
+looked into her bedroom. There, on the outside of the quilt, was the impression
+of her form, showing that the bed had not been opened; and, what was more
+significant, she had not taken her candlestick downstairs. He was now
+thoroughly alarmed; and hastily putting on his clothes he descended to the
+front door, which he himself had bolted and locked. It was now unfastened.
+There was no longer any doubt that Eustacia had left the house at this midnight
+hour; and whither could she have gone? To follow her was almost impossible. Had
+the dwelling stood in an ordinary road, two persons setting out, one in each
+direction, might have made sure of overtaking her; but it was a hopeless task
+to seek for anybody on a heath in the dark, the practicable directions for
+flight across it from any point being as numerous as the meridians radiating
+from the pole. Perplexed what to do, he looked into the parlour, and was vexed
+to find that the letter still lay there untouched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At half-past eleven, finding that the house was silent, Eustacia had lighted
+her candle, put on some warm outer wrappings, taken her bag in her hand, and,
+extinguishing the light again, descended the staircase. When she got into the
+outer air she found that it had begun to rain, and as she stood pausing at the
+door it increased, threatening to come on heavily. But having committed herself
+to this line of action there was no retreating for bad weather. Even the
+receipt of Clym&rsquo;s letter would not have stopped her now. The gloom of the
+night was funereal; all nature seemed clothed in crape. The spiky points of the
+fir trees behind the house rose into the sky like the turrets and pinnacles of
+an abbey. Nothing below the horizon was visible save a light which was still
+burning in the cottage of Susan Nunsuch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia opened her umbrella and went out from the enclosure by the steps over
+the bank, after which she was beyond all danger of being perceived. Skirting
+the pool, she followed the path towards Rainbarrow, occasionally stumbling over
+twisted furze roots, tufts of rushes, or oozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at
+this season lay scattered about the heath like the rotten liver and lungs of
+some colossal animal. The moon and stars were closed up by cloud and rain to
+the degree of extinction. It was a night which led the traveller&rsquo;s
+thoughts instinctively to dwell on nocturnal scenes of disaster in the
+chronicles of the world, on all that is terrible and dark in history and
+legend&mdash;the last plague of Egypt, the destruction of Sennacherib&rsquo;s
+host, the agony in Gethsemane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eustacia at length reached Rainbarrow, and stood still there to think. Never
+was harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind and the chaos
+of the world without. A sudden recollection had flashed on her this
+moment&mdash;she had not money enough for undertaking a long journey. Amid the
+fluctuating sentiments of the day her unpractical mind had not dwelt on the
+necessity of being well-provided, and now that she thoroughly realized the
+conditions she sighed bitterly and ceased to stand erect, gradually crouching
+down under the umbrella as if she were drawn into the Barrow by a hand from
+beneath. Could it be that she was to remain a captive still? Money&mdash;she
+had never felt its value before. Even to efface herself from the country means
+were required. To ask Wildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him to
+accompany her was impossible to a woman with a shadow of pride left in her; to
+fly as his mistress&mdash;and she knew that he loved her&mdash;was of the
+nature of humiliation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anyone who had stood by now would have pitied her, not so much on account of
+her exposure to weather, and isolation from all of humanity except the
+mouldered remains inside the tumulus; but for that other form of misery which
+was denoted by the slightly rocking movement that her feelings imparted to her
+person. Extreme unhappiness weighed visibly upon her. Between the drippings of
+the rain from her umbrella to her mantle, from her mantle to the heather, from
+the heather to the earth, very similar sounds could be heard coming from her
+lips; and the tearfulness of the outer scene was repeated upon her face. The
+wings of her soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all about her;
+and even had she seen herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth,
+entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port, she would have been but
+little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant were other things. She uttered
+words aloud. When a woman in such a situation, neither old, deaf, crazed, nor
+whimsical, takes upon herself to sob and soliloquize aloud there is something
+grievous the matter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can I go, can I go?&rdquo; she moaned. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not
+<i>great</i> enough for me to give myself to&mdash;he does not suffice for my
+desire!... If he had been a Saul or a Bonaparte&mdash;ah! But to break my
+marriage vow for him&mdash;it is too poor a luxury!... And I have no money to
+go alone! And if I could, what comfort to me? I must drag on next year, as I
+have dragged on this year, and the year after that as before. How I have tried
+and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me!... I do
+not deserve my lot!&rdquo; she cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. &ldquo;O,
+the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much;
+but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control!
+O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no
+harm to Heaven at all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The distant light which Eustacia had cursorily observed in leaving the house
+came, as she had divined, from the cottage window of Susan Nunsuch. What
+Eustacia did not divine was the occupation of the woman within at that moment.
+Susan&rsquo;s sight of her passing figure earlier in the evening, not five
+minutes after the sick boy&rsquo;s exclamation, &ldquo;Mother, I do feel so
+bad!&rdquo; persuaded the matron that an evil influence was certainly exercised
+by Eustacia&rsquo;s propinquity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On this account Susan did not go to bed as soon as the evening&rsquo;s work was
+over, as she would have done at ordinary times. To counteract the malign spell
+which she imagined poor Eustacia to be working, the boy&rsquo;s mother busied
+herself with a ghastly invention of superstition, calculated to bring
+powerlessness, atrophy, and annihilation on any human being against whom it was
+directed. It was a practice well known on Egdon at that date, and one that is
+not quite extinct at the present day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She passed with her candle into an inner room, where, among other utensils,
+were two large brown pans, containing together perhaps a hundredweight of
+liquid honey, the produce of the bees during the foregoing summer. On a shelf
+over the pans was a smooth and solid yellow mass of a hemispherical form,
+consisting of beeswax from the same take of honey. Susan took down the lump,
+and cutting off several thin slices, heaped them in an iron ladle, with which
+she returned to the living-room, and placed the vessel in the hot ashes of the
+fireplace. As soon as the wax had softened to the plasticity of dough she
+kneaded the pieces together. And now her face became more intent. She began
+moulding the wax; and it was evident from her manner of manipulation that she
+was endeavouring to give it some preconceived form. The form was human.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By warming and kneading, cutting and twisting, dismembering and re-joining the
+incipient image she had in about a quarter of an hour produced a shape which
+tolerably well resembled a woman, and was about six inches high. She laid it on
+the table to get cold and hard. Meanwhile she took the candle and went upstairs
+to where the little boy was lying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you notice, my dear, what Mrs. Eustacia wore this afternoon besides
+the dark dress?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A red ribbon round her neck.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything else?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;except sandal-shoes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A red ribbon and sandal-shoes,&rdquo; she said to herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Nunsuch went and searched till she found a fragment of the narrowest red
+ribbon, which she took downstairs and tied round the neck of the image. Then
+fetching ink and a quilt from the rickety bureau by the window, she blackened
+the feet of the image to the extent presumably covered by shoes; and on the
+instep of each foot marked cross-lines in the shape taken by the sandalstrings
+of those days. Finally she tied a bit of black thread round the upper part of
+the head, in faint resemblance to a snood worn for confining the hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Susan held the object at arm&rsquo;s length and contemplated it with a
+satisfaction in which there was no smile. To anybody acquainted with the
+inhabitants of Egdon Heath the image would have suggested Eustacia Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From her workbasket in the window-seat the woman took a paper of pins, of the
+old long and yellow sort, whose heads were disposed to come off at their first
+usage. These she began to thrust into the image in all directions, with
+apparently excruciating energy. Probably as many as fifty were thus inserted,
+some into the head of the wax model, some into the shoulders, some into the
+trunk, some upwards through the soles of the feet, till the figure was
+completely permeated with pins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned to the fire. It had been of turf; and though the high heap of ashes
+which turf fires produce was somewhat dark and dead on the outside, upon raking
+it abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass showed a glow of red heat. She
+took a few pieces of fresh turf from the chimney-corner and built them together
+over the glow, upon which the fire brightened. Seizing with the tongs the image
+that she had made of Eustacia, she held it in the heat, and watched it as it
+began to waste slowly away. And while she stood thus engaged there came from
+between her lips a murmur of words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a strange jargon&mdash;the Lord&rsquo;s Prayer repeated
+backwards&mdash;the incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed
+assistance against an enemy. Susan uttered the lugubrious discourse three times
+slowly, and when it was completed the image had considerably diminished. As the
+wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from the spot, and curling its
+tongue round the figure ate still further into its substance. A pin
+occasionally dropped with the wax, and the embers heated it red as it lay.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap43"></a>VIII.<br />
+Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers</h2>
+
+<p>
+While the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing, and the fair woman herself
+was standing on Rainbarrow, her soul in an abyss of desolation seldom plumbed
+by one so young, Yeobright sat lonely at Blooms-End. He had fulfilled his word
+to Thomasin by sending off Fairway with the letter to his wife, and now waited
+with increased impatience for some sound or signal of her return. Were Eustacia
+still at Mistover the very least he expected was that she would send him back a
+reply tonight by the same hand; though, to leave all to her inclination, he had
+cautioned Fairway not to ask for an answer. If one were handed to him he was to
+bring it immediately; if not, he was to go straight home without troubling to
+come round to Blooms-End again that night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope. Eustacia might possibly decline to
+use her pen&mdash;it was rather her way to work silently&mdash;and surprise him
+by appearing at his door. How fully her mind was made up to do otherwise he did
+not know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Clym&rsquo;s regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening advanced.
+The wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house, and filliped the
+eavesdroppings like peas against the panes. He walked restlessly about the
+untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises in windows and doors by jamming
+splinters of wood into the casements and crevices, and pressing together the
+leadwork of the quarries where it had become loosened from the glass. It was
+one of those nights when cracks in the walls of old churches widen, when
+ancient stains on the ceilings of decayed manor houses are renewed and enlarged
+from the size of a man&rsquo;s hand to an area of many feet. The little gate in
+the palings before his dwelling continually opened and clicked together again,
+but when he looked out eagerly nobody was there; it was as if invisible shapes
+of the dead were passing in on their way to visit him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between ten and eleven o&rsquo;clock, finding that neither Fairway nor anybody
+else came to him, he retired to rest, and despite his anxieties soon fell
+asleep. His sleep, however, was not very sound, by reason of the expectancy he
+had given way to, and he was easily awakened by a knocking which began at the
+door about an hour after. Clym arose and looked out of the window. Rain was
+still falling heavily, the whole expanse of heath before him emitting a subdued
+hiss under the downpour. It was too dark to see anything at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s there?&rdquo; he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Light footsteps shifted their position in the porch, and he could just
+distinguish in a plaintive female voice the words, &ldquo;O Clym, come down and
+let me in!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He flushed hot with agitation. &ldquo;Surely it is Eustacia!&rdquo; he
+murmured. If so, she had indeed come to him unawares.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. On his flinging open
+the door the rays of the candle fell upon a woman closely wrapped up, who at
+once came forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thomasin!&rdquo; he exclaimed in an indescribable tone of
+disappointment. &ldquo;It is Thomasin, and on such a night as this! O, where is
+Eustacia?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eustacia? I don&rsquo;t know, Clym; but I can think,&rdquo; she said
+with much perturbation. &ldquo;Let me come in and rest&mdash;I will explain
+this. There is a great trouble brewing&mdash;my husband and Eustacia!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think my husband is going to leave me or do something dreadful&mdash;I
+don&rsquo;t know what&mdash;Clym, will you go and see? I have nobody to help me
+but you; Eustacia has not yet come home?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went on breathlessly: &ldquo;Then they are going to run off together! He
+came indoors tonight about eight o&rsquo;clock and said in an off-hand way,
+&lsquo;Tamsie, I have just found that I must go a journey.&rsquo;
+&lsquo;When?&rsquo; I said. &lsquo;Tonight,&rsquo; he said.
+&lsquo;Where?&rsquo; I asked him. &lsquo;I cannot tell you at present,&rsquo;
+he said; &lsquo;I shall be back again tomorrow.&rsquo; He then went and busied
+himself in looking up his things, and took no notice of me at all. I expected
+to see him start, but he did not, and then it came to be ten o&rsquo;clock,
+when he said, &lsquo;You had better go to bed.&rsquo; I didn&rsquo;t know what
+to do, and I went to bed. I believe he thought I fell asleep, for half an hour
+after that he came up and unlocked the oak chest we keep money in when we have
+much in the house and took out a roll of something which I believe was
+banknotes, though I was not aware that he had &rsquo;em there. These he must
+have got from the bank when he went there the other day. What does he want
+banknotes for, if he is only going off for a day? When he had gone down I
+thought of Eustacia, and how he had met her the night before&mdash;I know he
+did meet her, Clym, for I followed him part of the way; but I did not like to
+tell you when you called, and so make you think ill of him, as I did not think
+it was so serious. Then I could not stay in bed; I got up and dressed myself,
+and when I heard him out in the stable I thought I would come and tell you. So
+I came downstairs without any noise and slipped out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade him not to go? He
+takes no notice of what I say, and puts me off with the story of his going on a
+journey, and will be home tomorrow, and all that; but I don&rsquo;t believe it.
+I think you could influence him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go,&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;O, Eustacia!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time seated
+herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the kernel to the
+husks&mdash;dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough weather. Thomasin
+briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to begin crying as she said,
+&ldquo;I brought baby, for I was afraid what might happen to her. I suppose it
+will be her death, but I couldn&rsquo;t leave her with Rachel!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the embers,
+which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the bellows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dry yourself,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go and get some more
+wood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no&mdash;don&rsquo;t stay for that. I&rsquo;ll make up the fire.
+Will you go at once&mdash;please will you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. While he was gone another
+rapping came to the door. This time there was no delusion that it might be
+Eustacia&rsquo;s&mdash;the footsteps just preceding it had been heavy and slow.
+Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note in answer,
+descended again and opened the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Captain Vye?&rdquo; he said to a dripping figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is my granddaughter here?&rdquo; said the captain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then where is she?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you ought to know&mdash;you are her husband.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only in name apparently,&rdquo; said Clym with rising excitement.
+&ldquo;I believe she means to elope tonight with Wildeve. I am just going to
+look to it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago.
+Who&rsquo;s sitting there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My cousin Thomasin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. &ldquo;I only hope it is no
+worse than an elopement,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Worse? What&rsquo;s worse than the worst a wife can do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I have been told a strange tale. Before starting in search of her
+I called up Charley, my stable lad. I missed my pistols the other day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pistols?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He said at the time that he took them down to clean. He has now owned
+that he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at them; and she
+afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking her life, but bound him
+to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a thing again. I hardly suppose
+she will ever have bravado enough to use one of them; but it shows what has
+been lurking in her mind; and people who think of that sort of thing once think
+of it again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are the pistols?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Safely locked up. O no, she won&rsquo;t touch them again. But there are
+more ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole. What did you quarrel
+about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this? You must have treated her
+badly indeed. Well, I was always against the marriage, and I was right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you going with me?&rdquo; said Yeobright, paying no attention to the
+captain&rsquo;s latter remark. &ldquo;If so I can tell you what we quarrelled
+about as we walk along.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To Wildeve&rsquo;s&mdash;that was her destination, depend upon
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin here broke in, still weeping: &ldquo;He said he was only going on a
+sudden short journey; but if so why did he want so much money? O, Clym, what do
+you think will happen? I am afraid that you, my poor baby, will soon have no
+father left to you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am off now,&rdquo; said Yeobright, stepping into the porch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would fain go with &rsquo;ee,&rdquo; said the old man doubtfully.
+&ldquo;But I begin to be afraid that my legs will hardly carry me there such a
+night as this. I am not so young as I was. If they are interrupted in their
+flight she will be sure to come back to me, and I ought to be at the house to
+receive her. But be it as &rsquo;twill I can&rsquo;t walk to the Quiet Woman,
+and that&rsquo;s an end on&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;ll go straight home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will perhaps be best,&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;Thomasin, dry
+yourself, and be as comfortable as you can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With this he closed the door upon her, and left the house in company with
+Captain Vye, who parted from him outside the gate, taking the middle path,
+which led to Mistover. Clym crossed by the right-hand track towards the inn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin, being left alone, took off some of her wet garments, carried the baby
+upstairs to Clym&rsquo;s bed, and then came down to the sitting-room again,
+where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire soon flared up
+the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort that was doubled by
+contrast with the drumming of the storm without, which snapped at the
+windowpanes and breathed into the chimney strange low utterances that seemed to
+be the prologue to some tragedy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the least part of Thomasin was in the house, for her heart being at ease
+about the little girl upstairs she was mentally following Clym on his journey.
+Having indulged in this imaginary peregrination for some considerable interval,
+she became impressed with a sense of the intolerable slowness of time. But she
+sat on. The moment then came when she could scarcely sit longer, and it was
+like a satire on her patience to remember that Clym could hardly have reached
+the inn as yet. At last she went to the baby&rsquo;s bedside. The child was
+sleeping soundly; but her imagination of possibly disastrous events at her
+home, the predominance within her of the unseen over the seen, agitated her
+beyond endurance. She could not refrain from going down and opening the door.
+The rain still continued, the candlelight falling upon the nearest drops and
+making glistening darts of them as they descended across the throng of
+invisible ones behind. To plunge into that medium was to plunge into water
+slightly diluted with air. But the difficulty of returning to her house at this
+moment made her all the more desirous of doing so&mdash;anything was better
+than suspense. &ldquo;I have come here well enough,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and
+why shouldn&rsquo;t I go back again? It is a mistake for me to be away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She hastily fetched the infant, wrapped it up, cloaked herself as before, and
+shoveling the ashes over the fire, to prevent accidents, went into the open
+air. Pausing first to put the door key in its old place behind the shutter, she
+resolutely turned her face to the confronting pile of firmamental darkness
+beyond the palings, and stepped into its midst. But Thomasin&rsquo;s
+imagination being so actively engaged elsewhere, the night and the weather had
+for her no terror beyond that of their actual discomfort and difficulty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was soon ascending Blooms-End valley and traversing the undulations on the
+side of the hill. The noise of the wind over the heath was shrill, and as if it
+whistled for joy at finding a night so congenial as this. Sometimes the path
+led her to hollows between thickets of tall and dripping bracken, dead, though
+not yet prostrate, which enclosed her like a pool. When they were more than
+usually tall she lifted the baby to the top of her head, that it might be out
+of the reach of their drenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind was
+brisk and sustained, the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent,
+so that it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness of the point at which
+it left the bosoms of the clouds. Here self-defence was impossible, and
+individual drops stuck into her like the arrows into Saint Sebastian. She was
+enabled to avoid puddles by the nebulous paleness which signified their
+presence, though beside anything less dark than the heath they themselves would
+have appeared as blackness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet in spite of all this Thomasin was not sorry that she had started. To her
+there were not, as to Eustacia, demons in the air, and malice in every bush and
+bough. The drops which lashed her face were not scorpions, but prosy rain;
+Egdon in the mass was no monster whatever, but impersonal open ground. Her
+fears of the place were rational, her dislikes of its worst moods reasonable.
+At this time it was in her view a windy, wet place, in which a person might
+experience much discomfort, lose the path without care, and possibly catch
+cold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If the path is well known the difficulty at such times of keeping therein is
+not altogether great, from its familiar feel to the feet; but once lost it is
+irrecoverable. Owing to her baby, who somewhat impeded Thomasin&rsquo;s view
+forward and distracted her mind, she did at last lose the track. This mishap
+occurred when she was descending an open slope about two-thirds home. Instead
+of attempting, by wandering hither and thither, the hopeless task of finding
+such a mere thread, she went straight on, trusting for guidance to her general
+knowledge of the contours, which was scarcely surpassed by Clym&rsquo;s or by
+that of the heath-croppers themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to discern through the rain a
+faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form of an open
+door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon aware of the nature
+of the door by its height above the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it is Diggory Venn&rsquo;s van, surely!&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn&rsquo;s
+chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at once that
+she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat. The question arose in her mind
+whether or not she should ask him to guide her into the path. In her anxiety to
+reach home she decided that she would appeal to him, notwithstanding the
+strangeness of appearing before his eyes at this place and season. But when, in
+pursuance of this resolve, Thomasin reached the van and looked in she found it
+to be untenanted; though there was no doubt that it was the reddleman&rsquo;s.
+The fire was burning in the stove, the lantern hung from the nail. Round the
+doorway the floor was merely sprinkled with rain, and not saturated, which told
+her that the door had not long been opened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep advancing from
+the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the well-known form in corduroy,
+lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams falling upon him through an
+intervening gauze of raindrops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you went down the slope,&rdquo; he said, without noticing her
+face. &ldquo;How do you come back here again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Diggory?&rdquo; said Thomasin faintly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; said Venn, still unperceiving. &ldquo;And why were
+you crying so just now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, Diggory! don&rsquo;t you know me?&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;But of
+course you don&rsquo;t, wrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been
+crying here, and I have not been here before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her form.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Wildeve!&rdquo; he exclaimed, starting. &ldquo;What a time for us
+to meet! And the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such
+a night as this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he hopped
+into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; he continued when they stood within.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry to
+get home. Please show me as quickly as you can! It is so silly of me not to
+know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the path. Show me
+quickly, Diggory, please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, of course. I will go with &rsquo;ee. But you came to me before
+this, Mrs. Wildeve?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only came this minute.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes
+ago, with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a
+woman&rsquo;s clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up, for I
+don&rsquo;t sleep heavy, and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying from
+the same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and just as far as
+the light would reach I saw a woman; she turned her head when the light sheened
+on her, and then hurried on downhill. I hung up the lantern, and was curious
+enough to pull on my things and dog her a few steps, but I could see nothing of
+her any more. That was where I had been when you came up; and when I saw you I
+thought you were the same one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps it was one of the heathfolk going home?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, it couldn&rsquo;t be. &rsquo;Tis too late. The noise of her gown
+over the he&rsquo;th was of a whistling sort that nothing but silk will
+make.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t I, then. My dress is not silk, you see.... Are we
+anywhere in a line between Mistover and the inn?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes; not far out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked the
+lantern and leaped down after her. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take the baby,
+ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You must be tired out by the weight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn&rsquo;s
+hands. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t squeeze her, Diggory,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;or hurt
+her little arm; and keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain
+may not drop in her face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will,&rdquo; said Venn earnestly. &ldquo;As if I could hurt anything
+belonging to you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only meant accidentally,&rdquo; said Thomasin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet,&rdquo; said the
+reddleman when, in closing the door of his cart to padlock it, he noticed on
+the floor a ring of water drops where her cloak had hung from her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid the larger bushes,
+stopping occasionally and covering the lantern, while he looked over his
+shoulder to gain some idea of the position of Rainbarrow above them, which it
+was necessary to keep directly behind their backs to preserve a proper course.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite sure. May I ask how old he is, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He!&rdquo; said Thomasin reproachfully. &ldquo;Anybody can see better
+than that in a moment. She is nearly two months old. How far is it now to the
+inn?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little over a quarter of a mile.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you walk a little faster?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was afraid you could not keep up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am very anxious to get there. Ah, there is a light from the
+window!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis not from the window. That&rsquo;s a gig-lamp, to the best of
+my belief.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O!&rdquo; said Thomasin in despair. &ldquo;I wish I had been there
+sooner&mdash;give me the baby, Diggory&mdash;you can go back now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must go all the way,&rdquo; said Venn. &ldquo;There is a quag between
+us and that light, and you will walk into it up to your neck unless I take you
+round.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag in front of
+that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; said Thomasin hurriedly. &ldquo;Go towards the light,
+and not towards the inn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and, after a
+pause, &ldquo;I wish you would tell me what this great trouble is. I think you
+have proved that I can be trusted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are some things that cannot be&mdash;cannot be told
+to&mdash;&rdquo; And then her heart rose into her throat, and she could say no
+more.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap44"></a>IX.<br />
+Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together</h2>
+
+<p>
+Having seen Eustacia&rsquo;s signal from the hill at eight o&rsquo;clock,
+Wildeve immediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,
+accompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informing Thomasin
+that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient to rouse her
+suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the few articles he would
+require, and went upstairs to the money-chest, whence he took a tolerably
+bountiful sum in notes, which had been advanced to him on the property he was
+so soon to have in possession, to defray expenses incidental to the removal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that the horse,
+gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive. Nearly half an hour
+was spent thus, and on returning to the house Wildeve had no thought of
+Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He had told the stable lad not to stay up,
+leading the boy to understand that his departure would be at three or four in
+the morning; for this, though an exceptional hour, was less strange than
+midnight, the time actually agreed on, the packet from Budmouth sailing between
+one and two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. By no effort could
+he shake off the oppression of spirits which he had experienced ever since his
+last meeting with Eustacia, but he hoped there was that in his situation which
+money could cure. He had persuaded himself that to act not ungenerously towards
+his gentle wife by settling on her the half of his property, and with
+chivalrous devotion towards another and greater woman by sharing her fate, was
+possible. And though he meant to adhere to Eustacia&rsquo;s instructions to the
+letter, to deposit her where she wished and to leave her, should that be her
+will, the spell that she had cast over him intensified, and his heart was
+beating fast in the anticipated futility of such commands in the face of a
+mutual wish that they should throw in their lot together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures, maxims, and
+hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he again went softly to the stable,
+harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence, taking the horse by the head,
+he led him with the covered car out of the yard to a spot by the roadside some
+quarter of a mile below the inn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a high bank
+that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface of the road where lit by
+the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones scudded and clicked together
+before the wind, which, leaving them in heaps, plunged into the heath and
+boomed across the bushes into darkness. Only one sound rose above this din of
+weather, and that was the roaring of a ten-hatch weir to the southward, from a
+river in the meads which formed the boundary of the heath in this direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that the midnight
+hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen in his mind if Eustacia
+would venture down the hill in such weather; yet knowing her nature he felt
+that she might. &ldquo;Poor thing! &rsquo;tis like her ill-luck,&rdquo; he
+murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his surprise it was
+nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he had driven up the
+circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted because of the enormous length
+of the route in proportion to that of the pedestrian&rsquo;s path down the open
+hillside, and the consequent increase of labour for the horse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps being in a
+different direction the comer was not visible. The step paused, then came on
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eustacia?&rdquo; said Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The person came forward, and the light fell upon the form of Clym, glistening
+with wet, whom Wildeve immediately recognized; but Wildeve, who stood behind
+the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could have anything to
+do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight of Yeobright at once banished
+Wildeve&rsquo;s sober feelings, who saw him again as the deadly rival from whom
+Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards. Hence Wildeve did not speak, in the
+hope that Clym would pass by without particular inquiry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audible above the
+storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable&mdash;it was the fall of a body
+into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently at a point near the weir.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both started. &ldquo;Good God! can it be she?&rdquo; said Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why should it be she?&rdquo; said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that
+he had hitherto screened himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&mdash;that&rsquo;s you, you traitor, is it?&rdquo; cried Yeobright.
+&ldquo;Why should it be she? Because last week she would have put an end to her
+life if she had been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of the
+lamps and come with me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on; Wildeve did not wait to
+unfasten the other, but followed at once along the meadow track to the weir, a
+little in the rear of Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet in diameter,
+into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raised and lowered by a
+winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of the pool were of masonry,
+to prevent the water from washing away the bank; but the force of the stream in
+winter was sometimes such as to undermine the retaining wall and precipitate it
+into the hole. Clym reached the hatches, the framework of which was shaken to
+its foundations by the velocity of the current. Nothing but the froth of the
+waves could be discerned in the pool below. He got upon the plank bridge over
+the race, and holding to the rail, that the wind might not blow him off,
+crossed to the other side of the river. There he leant over the wall and
+lowered the lamp, only to behold the vortex formed at the curl of the returning
+current.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light from
+Yeobright&rsquo;s lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across the weir
+pool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of the currents from
+the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckered mirror a dark body was
+slowly borne by one of the backward currents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, my darling!&rdquo; exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and,
+without showing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat, he
+leaped into the boiling caldron.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright could now also discern the floating body, though but indistinctly;
+and imagining from Wildeve&rsquo;s plunge that there was life to be saved he
+was about to leap after. Bethinking himself of a wiser plan, he placed the lamp
+against a post to make it stand upright, and running round to the lower part of
+the pool, where there was no wall, he sprang in and boldly waded upwards
+towards the deeper portion. Here he was taken off his legs, and in swimming was
+carried round into the centre of the basin, where he perceived Wildeve
+struggling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin had been
+toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the direction of the light.
+They had not been near enough to the river to hear the plunge, but they saw the
+removal of the carriage lamp, and watched its motion into the mead. As soon as
+they reached the car and horse Venn guessed that something new was amiss, and
+hastened to follow in the course of the moving light. Venn walked faster than
+Thomasin, and came to the weir alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the water, and the
+reddleman observed something floating motionless. Being encumbered with the
+infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve,&rdquo; he said hastily. &ldquo;Run
+home with her, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who
+may be living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car the horse,
+though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, as if conscious of
+misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was. She nearly fainted, and
+would have been unable to proceed another step but that the necessity of
+preserving the little girl from harm nerved her to an amazing self-control. In
+this agony of suspense she entered the house, put the baby in a place of
+safety, woke the lad and the female domestic, and ran out to give the alarm at
+the nearest cottage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that the small
+upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. He found one of these lying upon the
+grass, and taking it under one arm, and with his lantern in his hand, entered
+at the bottom of the pool as Clym had done. As soon as he began to be in deep
+water he flung himself across the hatch; thus supported he was able to keep
+afloat as long as he chose, holding the lantern aloft with his disengaged hand.
+Propelled by his feet, he steered round and round the pool, ascending each time
+by one of the back streams and descending in the middle of the current.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first he could see nothing. Then amidst the glistening of the whirlpools and
+the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman&rsquo;s bonnet floating alone.
+His search was now under the left wall, when something came to the surface
+almost close beside him. It was not, as he had expected, a woman, but a man.
+The reddleman put the ring of the lantern between his teeth, seized the
+floating man by the collar, and, holding on to the hatch with his remaining
+arm, struck out into the strongest race, by which the unconscious man, the
+hatch, and himself were carried down the stream. As soon as Venn found his feet
+dragging over the pebbles of the shallower part below he secured his footing
+and waded towards the brink. There, where the water stood at about the height
+of his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag forth the man.
+This was a matter of great difficulty, and he found as the reason that the legs
+of the unfortunate stranger were tightly embraced by the arms of another man,
+who had hitherto been entirely beneath the surface.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards him, and two
+men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above. They ran to where Venn
+was, and helped him in lifting out the apparently drowned persons, separating
+them, and laying them out upon the grass. Venn turned the light upon their
+faces. The one who had been uppermost was Yeobright; he who had been completely
+submerged was Wildeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now we must search the hole again,&rdquo; said Venn. &ldquo;A woman is
+in there somewhere. Get a pole.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail. The reddleman
+and the two others then entered the water together from below as before, and
+with their united force probed the pool forwards to where it sloped down to its
+central depth. Venn was not mistaken in supposing that any person who had sunk
+for the last time would be washed down to this point, for when they had
+examined to about halfway across something impeded their thrust.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pull it forward,&rdquo; said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole
+till it was close to their feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wet drapery
+enclosing a woman&rsquo;s cold form, which was all that remained of the
+desperate Eustacia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief, bending
+over the two unconscious ones who already lay there. The horse and cart were
+brought to the nearest point in the road, and it was the work of a few minutes
+only to place the three in the vehicle. Venn led on the horse, supporting
+Thomasin upon his arm, and the two men followed, till they reached the inn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastily dressed
+herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left to snore on in peace
+at the back of the house. The insensible forms of Eustacia, Clym, and Wildeve
+were then brought in and laid on the carpet, with their feet to the fire, when
+such restorative processes as could be thought of were adopted at once, the
+stableman being in the meantime sent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a
+whiff of life in either of the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief had
+been thrust off awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle of hartshorn to
+Clym&rsquo;s nostrils, having tried it in vain upon the other two. He sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clym&rsquo;s alive!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt to revive her
+husband by the same means; but Wildeve gave no sign. There was too much reason
+to think that he and Eustacia both were for ever beyond the reach of
+stimulating perfumes. Their exertions did not relax till the doctor arrived,
+when one by one, the senseless three were taken upstairs and put into warm
+beds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and went to the door,
+scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophe that had befallen the
+family in which he took so great an interest. Thomasin surely would be broken
+down by the sudden and overwhelming nature of this event. No firm and sensible
+Mrs. Yeobright lived now to support the gentle girl through the ordeal; and,
+whatever an unimpassioned spectator might think of her loss of such a husband
+as Wildeve, there could be no doubt that for the moment she was distracted and
+horrified by the blow. As for himself, not being privileged to go to her and
+comfort her, he saw no reason for waiting longer in a house where he remained
+only as a stranger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He returned across the heath to his van. The fire was not yet out, and
+everything remained as he had left it. Venn now bethought himself of his
+clothes, which were saturated with water to the weight of lead. He changed
+them, spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep. But it was more than
+he could do to rest here while excited by a vivid imagination of the turmoil
+they were in at the house he had quitted, and, blaming himself for coming away,
+he dressed in another suit, locked up the door, and again hastened across to
+the inn. Rain was still falling heavily when he entered the kitchen. A bright
+fire was shining from the hearth, and two women were bustling about, one of
+whom was Olly Dowden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, how is it going on now?&rdquo; said Venn in a whisper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright and Mr. Wildeve are dead and
+cold. The doctor says they were quite gone before they were out of the
+water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! I thought as much when I hauled &rsquo;em up. And Mrs.
+Wildeve?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is as well as can be expected. The doctor had her put between
+blankets, for she was almost as wet as they that had been in the river, poor
+young thing. You don&rsquo;t seem very dry, reddleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, &rsquo;tis not much. I have changed my things. This is only a little
+dampness I&rsquo;ve got coming through the rain again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stand by the fire. Mis&rsquo;ess says you be to have whatever you want,
+and she was sorry when she was told that you&rsquo;d gone away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames in an absent mood.
+The steam came from his leggings and ascended the chimney with the smoke, while
+he thought of those who were upstairs. Two were corpses, one had barely escaped
+the jaws of death, another was sick and a widow. The last occasion on which he
+had lingered by that fireplace was when the raffle was in progress; when
+Wildeve was alive and well; Thomasin active and smiling in the next room;
+Yeobright and Eustacia just made husband and wife, and Mrs. Yeobright living at
+Blooms-End. It had seemed at that time that the then position of affairs was
+good for at least twenty years to come. Yet, of all the circle, he himself was
+the only one whose situation had not materially changed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. It was the nurse, who
+brought in her hand a rolled mass of wet paper. The woman was so engrossed with
+her occupation that she hardly saw Venn. She took from a cupboard some pieces
+of twine, which she strained across the fireplace, tying the end of each piece
+to the firedog, previously pulled forward for the purpose, and, unrolling the
+wet papers, she began pinning them one by one to the strings in a manner of
+clothes on a line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What be they?&rdquo; said Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor master&rsquo;s banknotes,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;They were
+found in his pocket when they undressed him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he was not coming back again for some time?&rdquo; said Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That we shall never know,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested him lay under this
+roof. As nobody in the house had any more sleep that night, except the two who
+slept for ever, there was no reason why he should not remain. So he retired
+into the niche of the fireplace where he had used to sit, and there he
+continued, watching the steam from the double row of banknotes as they waved
+backwards and forwards in the draught of the chimney till their flaccidity was
+changed to dry crispness throughout. Then the woman came and unpinned them,
+and, folding them together, carried the handful upstairs. Presently the doctor
+appeared from above with the look of a man who could do no more, and, pulling
+on his gloves, went out of the house, the trotting of his horse soon dying away
+upon the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At four o&rsquo;clock there was a gentle knock at the door. It was from
+Charley, who had been sent by Captain Vye to inquire if anything had been heard
+of Eustacia. The girl who admitted him looked in his face as if she did not
+know what answer to return, and showed him in to where Venn was seated, saying
+to the reddleman, &ldquo;Will you tell him, please?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn told. Charley&rsquo;s only utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound. He
+stood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, &ldquo;I shall see her once
+more?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I dare say you may see her,&rdquo; said Diggory gravely. &ldquo;But
+hadn&rsquo;t you better run and tell Captain Vye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes. Only I do hope I shall see her just once again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall,&rdquo; said a low voice behind; and starting round they
+beheld by the dim light, a thin, pallid, almost spectral form, wrapped in a
+blanket, and looking like Lazarus coming from the tomb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Yeobright. Neither Venn nor Charley spoke, and Clym continued,
+&ldquo;You shall see her. There will be time enough to tell the captain when it
+gets daylight. You would like to see her too&mdash;would you not, Diggory? She
+looks very beautiful now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley he followed Clym to the
+foot of the staircase, where he took off his boots; Charley did the same. They
+followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, where there was a candle burning,
+which Yeobright took in his hand, and with it led the way into an adjoining
+room. Here he went to the bedside and folded back the sheet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay there still in
+death, eclipsed all her living phases. Pallor did not include all the quality
+of her complexion, which seemed more than whiteness; it was almost light. The
+expression of her finely carved mouth was pleasant, as if a sense of dignity
+had just compelled her to leave off speaking. Eternal rigidity had seized upon
+it in a momentary transition between fervour and resignation. Her black hair
+was looser now than either of them had ever seen it before, and surrounded her
+brow like a forest. The stateliness of look which had been almost too marked
+for a dweller in a country domicile had at last found an artistically happy
+background.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. &ldquo;Now come
+here,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed, lay
+another figure&mdash;Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face than in
+Eustacia&rsquo;s, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, and the
+least sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him now that he was born
+for a higher destiny than this. The only sign upon him of his recent struggle
+for life was in his fingertips, which were worn and sacrificed in his dying
+endeavours to obtain a hold on the face of the weir-wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright&rsquo;s manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllables
+since his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was only when they
+had left the room and stood upon the landing that the true state of his mind
+was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile, inclining his head towards the
+chamber in which Eustacia lay, &ldquo;She is the second woman I have killed
+this year. I was a great cause of my mother&rsquo;s death, and I am the chief
+cause of hers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How?&rdquo; said Venn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not invite her
+back till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drowned myself. It would
+have been a charity to the living had the river overwhelmed me and borne her
+up. But I cannot die. Those who ought to have lived lie dead; and here am I
+alive!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you can&rsquo;t charge yourself with crimes in that way,&rdquo; said
+Venn. &ldquo;You may as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by
+the child, for without the parents the child would never have been
+begot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don&rsquo;t know all the
+circumstances. If it had pleased God to put an end to me it would have been a
+good thing for all. But I am getting used to the horror of my existence. They
+say that a time comes when men laugh at misery through long acquaintance with
+it. Surely that time will soon come to me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your aim has always been good,&rdquo; said Venn. &ldquo;Why should you
+say such desperate things?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my great regret
+is that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="book06"></a>BOOK SIXTH&mdash;AFTERCOURSES</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap45"></a>I.<br />
+The Inevitable Movement Onward</h2>
+
+<p>
+The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout Egdon, and
+far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known incidents of their love
+were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and modified, till the original reality
+bore but a slight resemblance to the counterfeit presentation by surrounding
+tongues. Yet, upon the whole, neither the man nor the woman lost dignity by
+sudden death. Misfortune had struck them gracefully, cutting off their erratic
+histories with a catastrophic dash, instead of, as with many, attenuating each
+life to an uninteresting meagreness, through long years of wrinkles, neglect,
+and decay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On those most nearly concerned the effect was somewhat different. Strangers who
+had heard of many such cases now merely heard of one more; but immediately
+where a blow falls no previous imaginings amount to appreciable preparation for
+it. The very suddenness of her bereavement dulled, to some extent,
+Thomasin&rsquo;s feelings; yet irrationally enough, a consciousness that the
+husband she had lost ought to have been a better man did not lessen her
+mourning at all. On the contrary, this fact seemed at first to set off the dead
+husband in his young wife&rsquo;s eyes, and to be the necessary cloud to the
+rainbow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the horrors of the unknown had passed. Vague misgivings about her future as
+a deserted wife were at an end. The worst had once been matter of trembling
+conjecture; it was now matter of reason only, a limited badness. Her chief
+interest, the little Eustacia, still remained. There was humility in her grief,
+no defiance in her attitude; and when this is the case a shaken spirit is apt
+to be stilled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Could Thomasin&rsquo;s mournfulness now and Eustacia&rsquo;s serenity during
+life have been reduced to common measure, they would have touched the same mark
+nearly. But Thomasin&rsquo;s former brightness made shadow of that which in a
+sombre atmosphere was light itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The spring came and calmed her; the summer came and soothed her; the autumn
+arrived, and she began to be comforted, for her little girl was strong and
+happy, growing in size and knowledge every day. Outward events flattered
+Thomasin not a little. Wildeve had died intestate, and she and the child were
+his only relatives. When administration had been granted, all the debts paid,
+and the residue of her husband&rsquo;s uncle&rsquo;s property had come into her
+hands, it was found that the sum waiting to be invested for her own and the
+child&rsquo;s benefit was little less than ten thousand pounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where should she live? The obvious place was Blooms-End. The old rooms, it is
+true, were not much higher than the between-decks of a frigate, necessitating a
+sinking in the floor under the new clock-case she brought from the inn, and the
+removal of the handsome brass knobs on its head, before there was height for it
+to stand; but, such as the rooms were, there were plenty of them, and the place
+was endeared to her by every early recollection. Clym very gladly admitted her
+as a tenant, confining his own existence to two rooms at the top of the back
+staircase, where he lived on quietly, shut off from Thomasin and the three
+servants she had thought fit to indulge in now that she was a mistress of
+money, going his own ways, and thinking his own thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His sorrows had made some change in his outward appearance; and yet the
+alteration was chiefly within. It might have been said that he had a wrinkled
+mind. He had no enemies, and he could get nobody to reproach him, which was why
+he so bitterly reproached himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did sometimes think he had been ill-used by fortune, so far as to say that
+to be born is a palpable dilemma, and that instead of men aiming to advance in
+life with glory they should calculate how to retreat out of it without shame.
+But that he and his had been sarcastically and pitilessly handled in having
+such irons thrust into their souls he did not maintain long. It is usually so,
+except with the sternest of men. Human beings, in their generous endeavour to
+construct a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause, have always
+hesitated to conceive a dominant power of lower moral quality than their own;
+and, even while they sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon, invent excuses
+for the oppression which prompts their tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus, though words of solace were vainly uttered in his presence, he found
+relief in a direction of his own choosing when left to himself. For a man of
+his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a year which he had
+inherited from his mother were enough to supply all worldly needs. Resources do
+not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the proportion of spendings to takings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He frequently walked the heath alone, when the past seized upon him with its
+shadowy hand, and held him there to listen to its tale. His imagination would
+then people the spot with its ancient inhabitants&mdash;forgotten Celtic tribes
+trod their tracks about him, and he could almost live among them, look in their
+faces, and see them standing beside the barrows which swelled around, untouched
+and perfect as at the time of their erection. Those of the dyed barbarians who
+had chosen the cultivable tracts were, in comparison with those who had left
+their marks here, as writers on paper beside writers on parchment. Their
+records had perished long ago by the plough, while the works of these remained.
+Yet they all had lived and died unconscious of the different fates awaiting
+their relics. It reminded him that unforeseen factors operate in the evolution
+of immortality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winter again came round, with its winds, frosts, tame robins, and sparkling
+starlight. The year previous Thomasin had hardly been conscious of the
+season&rsquo;s advance; this year she laid her heart open to external
+influences of every kind. The life of this sweet cousin, her baby, and her
+servants, came to Clym&rsquo;s senses only in the form of sounds through a wood
+partition as he sat over books of exceptionally large type; but his ear became
+at last so accustomed to these slight noises from the other part of the house
+that he almost could witness the scenes they signified. A faint beat of
+half-seconds conjured up Thomasin rocking the cradle, a wavering hum meant that
+she was singing the baby to sleep, a crunching of sand as between millstones
+raised the picture of Humphrey&rsquo;s, Fairway&rsquo;s, or Sam&rsquo;s heavy
+feet crossing the stone floor of the kitchen; a light boyish step, and a gay
+tune in a high key, betokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden break-off
+in the Grandfer&rsquo;s utterances implied the application to his lips of a mug
+of small beer, a bustling and slamming of doors meant starting to go to market;
+for Thomasin, in spite of her added scope of gentility, led a ludicrously
+narrow life, to the end that she might save every possible pound for her little
+daughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One summer day Clym was in the garden, immediately outside the parlour window,
+which was as usual open. He was looking at the pot-flowers on the sill; they
+had been revived and restored by Thomasin to the state in which his mother had
+left them. He heard a slight scream from Thomasin, who was sitting inside the
+room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, how you frightened me!&rdquo; she said to someone who had entered.
+&ldquo;I thought you were the ghost of yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym was curious enough to advance a little further and look in at the window.
+To his astonishment there stood within the room Diggory Venn, no longer a
+reddleman, but exhibiting the strangely altered hues of an ordinary Christian
+countenance, white shirt-front, light flowered waistcoat, blue-spotted
+neckerchief, and bottle-green coat. Nothing in this appearance was at all
+singular but the fact of its great difference from what he had formerly been.
+Red, and all approach to red, was carefully excluded from every article of
+clothes upon him; for what is there that persons just out of harness dread so
+much as reminders of the trade which has enriched them?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright went round to the door and entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was so alarmed!&rdquo; said Thomasin, smiling from one to the other.
+&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t believe that he had got white of his own accord! It
+seemed supernatural.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas,&rdquo; said Venn. &ldquo;It
+was a profitable trade, and I found that by that time I had made enough to take
+the dairy of fifty cows that my father had in his lifetime. I always thought of
+getting to that place again if I changed at all, and now I am there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How did you manage to become white, Diggory?&rdquo; Thomasin asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I turned so by degrees, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You look much better than ever you did before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how inadvertently she had spoken
+to a man who might possibly have tender feelings for her still, blushed a
+little. Clym saw nothing of this, and added good-humouredly&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What shall we have to frighten Thomasin&rsquo;s baby with, now you have
+become a human being again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sit down, Diggory,&rdquo; said Thomasin, &ldquo;and stay to tea.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen, when Thomasin said with
+pleasant pertness as she went on with some sewing, &ldquo;Of course you must
+sit down here. And where does your fifty-cow dairy lie, Mr. Venn?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At Stickleford&mdash;about two miles to the right of Alderworth,
+ma&rsquo;am, where the meads begin. I have thought that if Mr. Yeobright would
+like to pay me a visit sometimes he shouldn&rsquo;t stay away for want of
+asking. I&rsquo;ll not bide to tea this afternoon, thank&rsquo;ee, for
+I&rsquo;ve got something on hand that must be settled. &rsquo;Tis Maypole-day
+tomorrow, and the Shadwater folk have clubbed with a few of your neighbours
+here to have a pole just outside your palings in the heath, as it is a nice
+green place.&rdquo; Venn waved his elbow towards the patch in front of the
+house. &ldquo;I have been talking to Fairway about it,&rdquo; he continued,
+&ldquo;and I said to him that before we put up the pole it would be as well to
+ask Mrs. Wildeve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can say nothing against it,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Our property
+does not reach an inch further than the white palings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you might not like to see a lot of folk going crazy round a stick,
+under your very nose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall have no objection at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn soon after went away, and in the evening Yeobright strolled as far as
+Fairway&rsquo;s cottage. It was a lovely May sunset, and the birch trees which
+grew on this margin of the vast Egdon wilderness had put on their new leaves,
+delicate as butterflies&rsquo; wings, and diaphanous as amber. Beside
+Fairway&rsquo;s dwelling was an open space recessed from the road, and here
+were now collected all the young people from within a radius of a couple of
+miles. The pole lay with one end supported on a trestle, and women were engaged
+in wreathing it from the top downwards with wild-flowers. The instincts of
+merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic
+customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a
+reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan
+still&mdash;in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties,
+fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in
+some way or other to have survived mediæval doctrine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright did not interrupt the preparations, and went home again. The next
+morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom window, there stood
+the Maypole in the middle of the green, its top cutting into the sky. It had
+sprung up in the night, or rather early morning, like Jack&rsquo;s bean-stalk.
+She opened the casement to get a better view of the garlands and posies that
+adorned it. The sweet perfume of the flowers had already spread into the
+surrounding air, which, being free from every taint, conducted to her lips a
+full measure of the fragrance received from the spire of blossom in its midst.
+At the top of the pole were crossed hoops decked with small flowers; beneath
+these came a milk-white zone of Maybloom; then a zone of bluebells, then of
+cowslips, then of lilacs, then of ragged-robins, daffodils, and so on, till the
+lowest stage was reached. Thomasin noticed all these, and was delighted that
+the May revel was to be so near.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When afternoon came people began to gather on the green, and Yeobright was
+interested enough to look out upon them from the open window of his room. Soon
+after this Thomasin walked out from the door immediately below and turned her
+eyes up to her cousin&rsquo;s face. She was dressed more gaily than Yeobright
+had ever seen her dressed since the time of Wildeve&rsquo;s death, eighteen
+months before; since the day of her marriage even she had not exhibited herself
+to such advantage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How pretty you look today, Thomasin!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Is it
+because of the Maypole?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not altogether.&rdquo; And then she blushed and dropped her eyes, which
+he did not specially observe, though her manner seemed to him to be rather
+peculiar, considering that she was only addressing himself. Could it be
+possible that she had put on her summer clothes to please him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He recalled her conduct towards him throughout the last few weeks, when they
+had often been working together in the garden, just as they had formerly done
+when they were boy and girl under his mother&rsquo;s eye. What if her interest
+in him were not so entirely that of a relative as it had formerly been? To
+Yeobright any possibility of this sort was a serious matter; and he almost felt
+troubled at the thought of it. Every pulse of loverlike feeling which had not
+been stilled during Eustacia&rsquo;s lifetime had gone into the grave with her.
+His passion for her had occurred too far on in his manhood to leave fuel enough
+on hand for another fire of that sort, as may happen with more boyish loves.
+Even supposing him capable of loving again, that love would be a plant of slow
+and laboured growth, and in the end only small and sickly, like an
+autumn-hatched bird.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was so distressed by this new complexity that when the enthusiastic brass
+band arrived and struck up, which it did about five o&rsquo;clock, with
+apparently wind enough among its members to blow down his house, he withdrew
+from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden, through the gate in the
+hedge, and away out of sight. He could not bear to remain in the presence of
+enjoyment today, though he had tried hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing was seen of him for four hours. When he came back by the same path it
+was dusk, and the dews were coating every green thing. The boisterous music had
+ceased; but, entering the premises as he did from behind, he could not see if
+the May party had all gone till he had passed through Thomasin&rsquo;s division
+of the house to the front door. Thomasin was standing within the porch alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at him reproachfully. &ldquo;You went away just when it began,
+Clym,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I felt I could not join in. You went out with them, of
+course?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I did not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You appeared to be dressed on purpose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there. One is
+there now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the paling, and
+near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy figure, sauntering
+idly up and down. &ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Venn,&rdquo; said Thomasin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. He has been very
+kind to you first and last.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will now,&rdquo; she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through
+the wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is Mr. Venn, I think?&rdquo; she inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn started as if he had not seen her&mdash;artful man that he was&mdash;and
+said, &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you come in?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid that I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had the very best of the
+girls for your partners. Is it that you won&rsquo;t come in because you wish to
+stand here, and think over the past hours of enjoyment?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s partly it,&rdquo; said Mr. Venn, with ostentatious
+sentiment. &ldquo;But the main reason why I am biding here like this is that I
+want to wait till the moon rises.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin was speechless with surprise. That a man who had to walk some four or
+five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason pointed to only one
+conclusion&mdash;the man must be amazingly interested in that glove&rsquo;s
+owner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were you dancing with her, Diggory?&rdquo; she asked, in a voice which
+revealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her by this
+disclosure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you will not come in, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not tonight, thank you, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person&rsquo;s glove,
+Mr. Venn?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. The moon will rise
+in a few minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin went back to the porch. &ldquo;Is he coming in?&rdquo; said Clym, who
+had been waiting where she had left him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He would rather not tonight,&rdquo; she said, and then passed by him
+into the house; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just listening by
+the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she went to the window,
+gently lifted the corner of the white curtain, and looked out. Venn was still
+there. She watched the growth of the faint radiance appearing in the sky by the
+eastern hill, till presently the edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the
+valley with light. Diggory&rsquo;s form was now distinct on the green; he was
+moving about in a bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the precious
+missing article, walking in zigzags right and left till he should have passed
+over every foot of the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How very ridiculous!&rdquo; Thomasin murmured to herself, in a tone
+which was intended to be satirical. &ldquo;To think that a man should be so
+silly as to go mooning about like that for a girl&rsquo;s glove! A respectable
+dairyman, too, and a man of money as he is now. What a pity!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood up and raised it to his
+lips. Then placing it in his breastpocket&mdash;the nearest receptacle to a
+man&rsquo;s heart permitted by modern raiment&mdash;he ascended the valley in a
+mathematically direct line towards his distant home in the meadows.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap46"></a>II.<br />
+Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road</h2>
+
+<p>
+Clym saw little of Thomasin for several days after this; and when they met she
+was more silent than usual. At length he asked her what she was thinking of so
+intently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am thoroughly perplexed,&rdquo; she said candidly. &ldquo;I cannot for
+my life think who it is that Diggory Venn is so much in love with. None of the
+girls at the Maypole were good enough for him, and yet she must have been
+there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym tried to imagine Venn&rsquo;s choice for a moment; but ceasing to be
+interested in the question he went on again with his gardening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No clearing up of the mystery was granted her for some time. But one afternoon
+Thomasin was upstairs getting ready for a walk, when she had occasion to come
+to the landing and call &ldquo;Rachel.&rdquo; Rachel was a girl about thirteen,
+who carried the baby out for airings; and she came upstairs at the call.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you seen one of my last new gloves about the house, Rachel?&rdquo;
+inquired Thomasin. &ldquo;It is the fellow to this one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rachel did not reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you answer?&rdquo; said her mistress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think it is lost, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lost? Who lost it? I have never worn them but once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rachel appeared as one dreadfully troubled, and at last began to cry.
+&ldquo;Please, ma&rsquo;am, on the day of the Maypole I had none to wear, and I
+seed yours on the table, and I thought I would borrow &rsquo;em. I did not mean
+to hurt &rsquo;em at all, but one of them got lost. Somebody gave me some money
+to buy another pair for you, but I have not been able to go anywhere to get
+&rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s somebody?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Venn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he know it was my glove?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I told him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin was so surprised by the explanation that she quite forgot to lecture
+the girl, who glided silently away. Thomasin did not move further than to turn
+her eyes upon the grass-plat where the Maypole had stood. She remained
+thinking, then said to herself that she would not go out that afternoon, but
+would work hard at the baby&rsquo;s unfinished lovely plaid frock, cut on the
+cross in the newest fashion. How she managed to work hard, and yet do no more
+than she had done at the end of two hours, would have been a mystery to anyone
+not aware that the recent incident was of a kind likely to divert her industry
+from a manual to a mental channel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day she went her ways as usual, and continued her custom of walking in the
+heath with no other companion than little Eustacia, now of the age when it is a
+matter of doubt with such characters whether they are intended to walk through
+the world on their hands or on their feet; so that they get into painful
+complications by trying both. It was very pleasant to Thomasin, when she had
+carried the child to some lonely place, to give her a little private practice
+on the green turf and shepherd&rsquo;s-thyme, which formed a soft mat to fall
+headlong upon them when equilibrium was lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once, when engaged in this system of training, and stooping to remove bits of
+stick, fern-stalks, and other such fragments from the child&rsquo;s path, that
+the journey might not be brought to an untimely end by some insuperable barrier
+a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by discovering that a man on
+horseback was almost close beside her, the soft natural carpet having muffled
+the horse&rsquo;s tread. The rider, who was Venn, waved his hat in the air and
+bowed gallantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Diggory, give me my glove,&rdquo; said Thomasin, whose manner it was
+under any circumstances to plunge into the midst of a subject which engrossed
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Venn immediately dismounted, put his hand in his breastpocket, and handed the
+glove.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you. It was very good of you to take care of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is very good of you to say so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no. I was quite glad to find you had it. Everybody gets so indifferent
+that I was surprised to know you thought of me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you had remembered what I was once you wouldn&rsquo;t have been
+surprised.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, no,&rdquo; she said quickly. &ldquo;But men of your character are
+mostly so independent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is my character?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t exactly know,&rdquo; said Thomasin simply, &ldquo;except
+it is to cover up your feelings under a practical manner, and only to show them
+when you are alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, how do you know that?&rdquo; said Venn strategically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because,&rdquo; said she, stopping to put the little girl, who had
+managed to get herself upside down, right end up again, &ldquo;because I
+do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t judge by folks in general,&rdquo; said Venn.
+&ldquo;Still I don&rsquo;t know much what feelings are nowadays. I have got so
+mixed up with business of one sort and t&rsquo;other that my soft sentiments
+are gone off in vapour like. Yes, I am given up body and soul to the making of
+money. Money is all my dream.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Diggory, how wicked!&rdquo; said Thomasin reproachfully, and looking
+at him in exact balance between taking his words seriously and judging them as
+said to tease her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, &rsquo;tis rather a rum course,&rdquo; said Venn, in the bland tone
+of one comfortably resigned to sins he could no longer overcome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You, who used to be so nice!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s an argument I rather like, because what a man has
+once been he may be again.&rdquo; Thomasin blushed. &ldquo;Except that it is
+rather harder now,&rdquo; Venn continued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because you be richer than you were at that time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no&mdash;not much. I have made it nearly all over to the baby, as it
+was my duty to do, except just enough to live on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am rather glad of that,&rdquo; said Venn softly, and regarding her
+from the corner of his eye, &ldquo;for it makes it easier for us to be
+friendly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin blushed again, and, when a few more words had been said of a not
+unpleasing kind, Venn mounted his horse and rode on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This conversation had passed in a hollow of the heath near the old Roman road,
+a place much frequented by Thomasin. And it might have been observed that she
+did not in future walk that way less often from having met Venn there now.
+Whether or not Venn abstained from riding thither because he had met Thomasin
+in the same place might easily have been guessed from her proceedings about two
+months later in the same year.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap47"></a>III.<br />
+The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin</h2>
+
+<p>
+Throughout this period Yeobright had more or less pondered on his duty to his
+cousin Thomasin. He could not help feeling that it would be a pitiful waste of
+sweet material if the tender-natured thing should be doomed from this early
+stage of her life onwards to dribble away her winsome qualities on lonely gorse
+and fern. But he felt this as an economist merely, and not as a lover. His
+passion for Eustacia had been a sort of conserve of his whole life, and he had
+nothing more of that supreme quality left to bestow. So far the obvious thing
+was not to entertain any idea of marriage with Thomasin, even to oblige her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But this was not all. Years ago there had been in his mother&rsquo;s mind a
+great fancy about Thomasin and himself. It had not positively amounted to a
+desire, but it had always been a favourite dream. That they should be man and
+wife in good time, if the happiness of neither were endangered thereby, was the
+fancy in question. So that what course save one was there now left for any son
+who reverenced his mother&rsquo;s memory as Yeobright did? It is an unfortunate
+fact that any particular whim of parents, which might have been dispersed by
+half an hour&rsquo;s conversation during their lives, becomes sublimated by
+their deaths into a fiat the most absolute, with such results to conscientious
+children as those parents, had they lived, would have been the first to decry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had only Yeobright&rsquo;s own future been involved he would have proposed to
+Thomasin with a ready heart. He had nothing to lose by carrying out a dead
+mother&rsquo;s hope. But he dreaded to contemplate Thomasin wedded to the mere
+corpse of a lover that he now felt himself to be. He had but three activities
+alive in him. One was his almost daily walk to the little graveyard wherein his
+mother lay; another, his just as frequent visits by night to the more distant
+enclosure which numbered his Eustacia among its dead; the third was
+self-preparation for a vocation which alone seemed likely to satisfy his
+cravings&mdash;that of an itinerant preacher of the eleventh commandment. It
+was difficult to believe that Thomasin would be cheered by a husband with such
+tendencies as these.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet he resolved to ask her, and let her decide for herself. It was even with a
+pleasant sense of doing his duty that he went downstairs to her one evening for
+this purpose, when the sun was printing on the valley the same long shadow of
+the housetop that he had seen lying there times out of number while his mother
+lived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomasin was not in her room, and he found her in the front garden. &ldquo;I
+have long been wanting, Thomasin,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;to say something
+about a matter that concerns both our futures.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are going to say it now?&rdquo; she remarked quickly, colouring
+as she met his gaze. &ldquo;Do stop a minute, Clym, and let me speak first, for
+oddly enough, I have been wanting to say something to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By all means say on, Tamsie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose nobody can overhear us?&rdquo; she went on, casting her eyes
+around and lowering her voice. &ldquo;Well, first you will promise me
+this&mdash;that you won&rsquo;t be angry and call me anything harsh if you
+disagree with what I propose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright promised, and she continued: &ldquo;What I want is your advice, for
+you are my relation&mdash;I mean, a sort of guardian to me&mdash;aren&rsquo;t
+you, Clym?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes, I suppose I am; a sort of guardian. In fact, I am, of
+course,&rdquo; he said, altogether perplexed as to her drift.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am thinking of marrying,&rdquo; she then observed blandly. &ldquo;But
+I shall not marry unless you assure me that you approve of such a step. Why
+don&rsquo;t you speak?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was taken rather by surprise. But, nevertheless, I am very glad to
+hear such news. I shall approve, of course, dear Tamsie. Who can it be? I am
+quite at a loss to guess. No I am not&mdash;&rsquo;tis the old
+doctor!&mdash;not that I mean to call him old, for he is not very old after
+all. Ah&mdash;I noticed when he attended you last time!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she said hastily. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis Mr. Venn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym&rsquo;s face suddenly became grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, now, you don&rsquo;t like him, and I wish I hadn&rsquo;t
+mentioned him!&rdquo; she exclaimed almost petulantly. &ldquo;And I
+shouldn&rsquo;t have done it, either, only he keeps on bothering me so till I
+don&rsquo;t know what to do!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym looked at the heath. &ldquo;I like Venn well enough,&rdquo; he answered at
+last. &ldquo;He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is clever
+too, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But really, Thomasin, he
+is not quite&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gentleman enough for me? That is just what I feel. I am sorry now that I
+asked you, and I won&rsquo;t think any more of him. At the same time I must
+marry him if I marry anybody&mdash;that I <i>will</i> say!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see that,&rdquo; said Clym, carefully concealing every
+clue to his own interrupted intention, which she plainly had not guessed.
+&ldquo;You might marry a professional man, or somebody of that sort, by going
+into the town to live and forming acquaintances there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not fit for town life&mdash;so very rural and silly as I always
+have been. Do not you yourself notice my countrified ways?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, when I came home from Paris I did, a little; but I don&rsquo;t
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s because you have got countrified too. O, I couldn&rsquo;t
+live in a street for the world! Egdon is a ridiculous old place; but I have got
+used to it, and I couldn&rsquo;t be happy anywhere else at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Neither could I,&rdquo; said Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then how could you say that I should marry some town man? I am sure, say
+what you will, that I must marry Diggory, if I marry at all. He has been kinder
+to me than anybody else, and has helped me in many ways that I don&rsquo;t know
+of!&rdquo; Thomasin almost pouted now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, he has,&rdquo; said Clym in a neutral tone. &ldquo;Well, I wish
+with all my heart that I could say, marry him. But I cannot forget what my
+mother thought on that matter, and it goes rather against me not to respect her
+opinion. There is too much reason why we should do the little we can to respect
+it now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; sighed Thomasin. &ldquo;I will say no
+more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you are not bound to obey my wishes. I merely say what I
+think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no&mdash;I don&rsquo;t want to be rebellious in that way,&rdquo; she
+said sadly. &ldquo;I had no business to think of him&mdash;I ought to have
+thought of my family. What dreadfully bad impulses there are in me!&rdquo; Her
+lips trembled, and she turned away to hide a tear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym, though vexed at what seemed her unaccountable taste, was in a measure
+relieved to find that at any rate the marriage question in relation to himself
+was shelved. Through several succeeding days he saw her at different times from
+the window of his room moping disconsolately about the garden. He was half
+angry with her for choosing Venn; then he was grieved at having put himself in
+the way of Venn&rsquo;s happiness, who was, after all, as honest and
+persevering a young fellow as any on Egdon, since he had turned over a new
+leaf. In short, Clym did not know what to do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When next they met she said abruptly, &ldquo;He is much more respectable now
+than he was then!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who? O yes&mdash;Diggory Venn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aunt only objected because he was a reddleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Thomasin, perhaps I don&rsquo;t know all the particulars of my
+mother&rsquo;s wish. So you had better use your own discretion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will always feel that I slighted your mother&rsquo;s memory.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I will not. I shall think you are convinced that, had she seen
+Diggory in his present position, she would have considered him a fitting
+husband for you. Now, that&rsquo;s my real feeling. Don&rsquo;t consult me any
+more, but do as you like, Thomasin. I shall be content.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is to be supposed that Thomasin was convinced; for a few days after this,
+when Clym strayed into a part of the heath that he had not lately visited,
+Humphrey, who was at work there, said to him, &ldquo;I am glad to see that Mrs.
+Wildeve and Venn have made it up again, seemingly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have they?&rdquo; said Clym abstractedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and he do contrive to stumble upon her whenever she walks out on
+fine days with the chiel. But, Mr. Yeobright, I can&rsquo;t help feeling that
+your cousin ought to have married you. &rsquo;Tis a pity to make two
+chimleycorners where there need be only one. You could get her away from him
+now, &rsquo;tis my belief, if you were only to set about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How can I have the conscience to marry after having driven two women to
+their deaths? Don&rsquo;t think such a thing, Humphrey. After my experience I
+should consider it too much of a burlesque to go to church and take a wife. In
+the words of Job, &lsquo;I have made a covenant with mine eyes; when then
+should I think upon a maid?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, Mr. Clym, don&rsquo;t fancy that about driving two women to their
+deaths. You shouldn&rsquo;t say it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;ll leave that out,&rdquo; said Yeobright. &ldquo;But
+anyhow God has set a mark upon me which wouldn&rsquo;t look well in a
+love-making scene. I have two ideas in my head, and no others. I am going to
+keep a night-school; and I am going to turn preacher. What have you got to say
+to that, Humphrey?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll come and hear &rsquo;ee with all my heart.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks. &rsquo;Tis all I wish.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came down by the other path, and met
+him at the gate. &ldquo;What do you think I have to tell you, Clym?&rdquo; she
+said, looking archly over her shoulder at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can guess,&rdquo; he replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She scrutinized his face. &ldquo;Yes, you guess right. It is going to be after
+all. He thinks I may as well make up my mind, and I have got to think so too.
+It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you don&rsquo;t
+object.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you see your way
+clear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the treatment you
+received in days gone by.&rdquo;<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2">*</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[*]</a>
+The writer may state here that the original conception of the story did not
+design a marriage between Thomasin and Venn. He was to have retained his
+isolated and weird character to the last, and to have disappeared mysteriously
+from the heath, nobody knowing whither&mdash;Thomasin remaining a widow. But
+certain circumstances of serial publication led to a change of intent.<br />
+    Readers can therefore choose between the endings, and those with an austere
+artistic code can assume the more consistent conclusion to be the true one.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap48"></a>IV.<br />
+Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His Vocation</h2>
+
+<p>
+Anybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven o&rsquo;clock on the
+morning fixed for the wedding would have found that, while Yeobright&rsquo;s
+house was comparatively quiet, sounds denoting great activity came from the
+dwelling of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway. It was chiefly a noise of
+feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over the sanded floor within. One
+man only was visible outside, and he seemed to be later at an appointment than
+he had intended to be, for he hastened up to the door, lifted the latch, and
+walked in without ceremony.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The scene within was not quite the customary one. Standing about the room was
+the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the Egdon coterie, there
+being present Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle, Humphrey, Christian, and one or
+two turf-cutters. It was a warm day, and the men were as a matter of course in
+their shirtsleeves, except Christian, who had always a nervous fear of parting
+with a scrap of his clothing when in anybody&rsquo;s house but his own. Across
+the stout oak table in the middle of the room was thrown a mass of striped
+linen, which Grandfer Cantle held down on one side, and Humphrey on the other,
+while Fairway rubbed its surface with a yellow lump, his face being damp and
+creased with the effort of the labour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Waxing a bed-tick, souls?&rdquo; said the newcomer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Sam,&rdquo; said Grandfer Cantle, as a man too busy to waste words.
+&ldquo;Shall I stretch this corner a shade tighter, Timothy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fairway replied, and the waxing went on with unabated vigour. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis
+going to be a good bed, by the look o&rsquo;t,&rdquo; continued Sam, after an
+interval of silence. &ldquo;Who may it be for?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a present for the new folks that&rsquo;s going to set up
+housekeeping,&rdquo; said Christian, who stood helpless and overcome by the
+majesty of the proceedings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, to be sure; and a valuable one, &rsquo;a b&rsquo;lieve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beds be dear to fokes that don&rsquo;t keep geese, bain&rsquo;t they,
+Mister Fairway?&rdquo; said Christian, as to an omniscient being.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the furze-dealer, standing up, giving his forehead a
+thorough mopping, and handing the beeswax to Humphrey, who succeeded at the
+rubbing forthwith. &ldquo;Not that this couple be in want of one, but
+&rsquo;twas well to show &rsquo;em a bit of friendliness at this great
+racketing vagary of their lives. I set up both my own daughters in one when
+they was married, and there have been feathers enough for another in the house
+the last twelve months. Now then, neighbours, I think we have laid on enough
+wax. Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right way outwards, and then
+I&rsquo;ll begin to shake in the feathers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the bed was in proper trim Fairway and Christian brought forward vast
+paper bags, stuffed to the full, but light as balloons, and began to turn the
+contents of each into the receptacle just prepared. As bag after bag was
+emptied, airy tufts of down and feathers floated about the room in increasing
+quantity till, through a mishap of Christian&rsquo;s, who shook the contents of
+one bag outside the tick, the atmosphere of the room became dense with gigantic
+flakes, which descended upon the workers like a windless snowstorm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never saw such a clumsy chap as you, Christian,&rdquo; said Grandfer
+Cantle severely. &ldquo;You might have been the son of a man that&rsquo;s never
+been outside Blooms-End in his life for all the wit you have. Really all the
+soldiering and smartness in the world in the father seems to count for nothing
+in forming the nater of the son. As far as that chief Christian is concerned I
+might as well have stayed at home and seed nothing, like all the rest of ye
+here. Though, as far as myself is concerned, a dashing spirit has counted for
+sommat, to be sure!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ye let me down so, Father; I feel no bigger than a ninepin
+after it. I&rsquo;ve made but a bruckle hit, I&rsquo;m afeard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come. Never pitch yerself in such a low key as that, Christian;
+you should try more,&rdquo; said Fairway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you should try more,&rdquo; echoed the Grandfer with insistence, as
+if he had been the first to make the suggestion. &ldquo;In common conscience
+every man ought either to marry or go for a soldier. &rsquo;Tis a scandal to
+the nation to do neither one nor t&rsquo;other. I did both, thank God! Neither
+to raise men nor to lay &rsquo;em low&mdash;that shows a poor do-nothing spirit
+indeed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never had the nerve to stand fire,&rdquo; faltered Christian.
+&ldquo;But as to marrying, I own I&rsquo;ve asked here and there, though
+without much fruit from it. Yes, there&rsquo;s some house or other that might
+have had a man for a master&mdash;such as he is&mdash;that&rsquo;s now ruled by
+a woman alone. Still it might have been awkward if I had found her; for,
+d&rsquo;ye see, neighbours, there&rsquo;d have been nobody left at home to keep
+down Father&rsquo;s spirits to the decent pitch that becomes a old man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you&rsquo;ve your work cut out to do that, my son,&rdquo; said
+Grandfer Cantle smartly. &ldquo;I wish that the dread of infirmities was not so
+strong in me!&mdash;I&rsquo;d start the very first thing tomorrow to see the
+world over again! But seventy-one, though nothing at home, is a high figure for
+a rover.... Ay, seventy-one, last Candlemasday. Gad, I&rsquo;d sooner have it
+in guineas than in years!&rdquo; And the old man sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you be mournful, Grandfer,&rdquo; said Fairway. &ldquo;Empt
+some more feathers into the bed-tick, and keep up yer heart. Though rather lean
+in the stalks you be a green-leaved old man still. There&rsquo;s time enough
+left to ye yet to fill whole chronicles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Begad, I&rsquo;ll go to &rsquo;em, Timothy&mdash;to the married
+pair!&rdquo; said Granfer Cantle in an encouraged voice, and starting round
+briskly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go to &rsquo;em tonight and sing a wedding song,
+hey? &rsquo;Tis like me to do so, you know; and they&rsquo;d see it as such. My
+&lsquo;Down in Cupid&rsquo;s Gardens&rsquo; was well liked in four; still,
+I&rsquo;ve got others as good, and even better. What do you say to my
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+She cal&#x2032;-led to&#x2032; her love&#x2032;<br />
+From the lat&#x2032;-tice a-bove,<br />
+&#x2032;O come in&#x2032; from the fog-gy fog&#x2032;-gy dew&#x2032;.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+&rsquo;Twould please &rsquo;em well at such a time! Really, now I come to think
+of it, I haven&rsquo;t turned my tongue in my head to the shape of a real good
+song since Old Midsummer night, when we had the &lsquo;Barley Mow&rsquo; at the
+Woman; and &rsquo;tis a pity to neglect your strong point where there&rsquo;s
+few that have the compass for such things!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So &rsquo;tis, so &rsquo;tis,&rdquo; said Fairway. &ldquo;Now gie the
+bed a shake down. We&rsquo;ve put in seventy pounds of best feathers, and I
+think that&rsquo;s as many as the tick will fairly hold. A bit and a drap
+wouldn&rsquo;t be amiss now, I reckon. Christian, maul down the victuals from
+corner-cupboard if canst reach, man, and I&rsquo;ll draw a drap o&rsquo; sommat
+to wet it with.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They sat down to a lunch in the midst of their work, feathers around, above,
+and below them; the original owners of which occasionally came to the open door
+and cackled begrudgingly at sight of such a quantity of their old clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my soul I shall be chokt,&rdquo; said Fairway when, having
+extracted a feather from his mouth, he found several others floating on the mug
+as it was handed round.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve swallered several; and one had a tolerable quill,&rdquo; said
+Sam placidly from the corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo&mdash;what&rsquo;s that&mdash;wheels I hear coming?&rdquo;
+Grandfer Cantle exclaimed, jumping up and hastening to the door. &ldquo;Why,
+&rsquo;tis they back again&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t expect &rsquo;em yet this
+half-hour. To be sure, how quick marrying can be done when you are in the mind
+for&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes, it can soon be <i>done</i>,&rdquo; said Fairway, as if something
+should be added to make the statement complete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He arose and followed the Grandfer, and the rest also went to the door. In a
+moment an open fly was driven past, in which sat Venn and Mrs. Venn, Yeobright,
+and a grand relative of Venn&rsquo;s who had come from Budmouth for the
+occasion. The fly had been hired at the nearest town, regardless of distance
+and cost, there being nothing on Egdon Heath, in Venn&rsquo;s opinion,
+dignified enough for such an event when such a woman as Thomasin was the bride;
+and the church was too remote for a walking bridal-party.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the fly passed the group which had run out from the homestead they shouted
+&ldquo;Hurrah!&rdquo; and waved their hands; feathers and down floating from
+their hair, their sleeves, and the folds of their garments at every motion, and
+Grandfer Cantle&rsquo;s seals dancing merrily in the sunlight as he twirled
+himself about. The driver of the fly turned a supercilious gaze upon them; he
+even treated the wedded pair themselves with something like condescension; for
+in what other state than heathen could people, rich or poor, exist who were
+doomed to abide in such a world&rsquo;s end as Egdon? Thomasin showed no such
+superiority to the group at the door, fluttering her hand as quickly as a
+bird&rsquo;s wing towards them, and asking Diggory, with tears in her eyes, if
+they ought not to alight and speak to these kind neighbours. Venn, however,
+suggested that, as they were all coming to the house in the evening, this was
+hardly necessary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After this excitement the saluting party returned to their occupation, and the
+stuffing and sewing were soon afterwards finished, when Fairway harnessed a
+horse, wrapped up the cumbrous present, and drove off with it in the cart to
+Venn&rsquo;s house at Stickleford.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright, having filled the office at the wedding service which naturally fell
+to his hands, and afterwards returned to the house with the husband and wife,
+was indisposed to take part in the feasting and dancing that wound up the
+evening. Thomasin was disappointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I could be there without dashing your spirits,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;But I might be too much like the skull at the banquet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, dear, apart from that, if you would excuse me, I should be glad. I
+know it seems unkind; but, dear Thomasin, I fear I should not be happy in the
+company&mdash;there, that&rsquo;s the truth of it. I shall always be coming to
+see you at your new home, you know, so that my absence now will not
+matter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I give in. Do whatever will be most comfortable to yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clym retired to his lodging at the housetop much relieved, and occupied himself
+during the afternoon in noting down the heads of a sermon, with which he
+intended to initiate all that really seemed practicable of the scheme that had
+originally brought him hither, and that he had so long kept in view under
+various modifications, and through evil and good report. He had tested and
+weighed his convictions again and again, and saw no reason to alter them,
+though he had considerably lessened his plan. His eyesight, by long humouring
+in his native air, had grown stronger, but not sufficiently strong to warrant
+his attempting his extensive educational project. Yet he did not
+repine&mdash;there was still more than enough of an unambitious sort to tax all
+his energies and occupy all his hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Evening drew on, and sounds of life and movement in the lower part of the
+domicile became more pronounced, the gate in the palings clicking incessantly.
+The party was to be an early one, and all the guests were assembled long before
+it was dark. Yeobright went down the back staircase and into the heath by
+another path than that in front, intending to walk in the open air till the
+party was over, when he would return to wish Thomasin and her husband good-bye
+as they departed. His steps were insensibly bent towards Mistover by the path
+that he had followed on that terrible morning when he learnt the strange news
+from Susan&rsquo;s boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not turn aside to the cottage, but pushed on to an eminence, whence he
+could see over the whole quarter that had once been Eustacia&rsquo;s home.
+While he stood observing the darkening scene somebody came up. Clym, seeing him
+but dimly, would have let him pass silently, had not the pedestrian, who was
+Charley, recognized the young man and spoken to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Charley, I have not seen you for a length of time,&rdquo; said
+Yeobright. &ldquo;Do you often walk this way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; the lad replied. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t often come outside the
+bank.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were not at the Maypole.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Charley, in the same listless tone. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+care for that sort of thing now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You rather liked Miss Eustacia, didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Yeobright
+gently asked. Eustacia had frequently told him of Charley&rsquo;s romantic
+attachment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, very much. Ah, I wish&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish, Mr. Yeobright, you could give me something to keep that once
+belonged to her&mdash;if you don&rsquo;t mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall be very happy to. It will give me very great pleasure, Charley.
+Let me think what I have of hers that you would like. But come with me to the
+house, and I&rsquo;ll see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They walked towards Blooms-End together. When they reached the front it was
+dark, and the shutters were closed, so that nothing of the interior could be
+seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come round this way,&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;My entrance is at the back
+for the present.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two went round and ascended the crooked stair in darkness till Clym&rsquo;s
+sitting-room on the upper floor was reached, where he lit a candle, Charley
+entering gently behind. Yeobright searched his desk, and taking out a sheet of
+tissue-paper unfolded from it two or three undulating locks of raven hair,
+which fell over the paper like black streams. From these he selected one,
+wrapped it up, and gave it to the lad, whose eyes had filled with tears. He
+kissed the packet, put it in his pocket, and said in a voice of emotion,
+&ldquo;O, Mr. Clym, how good you are to me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will go a little way with you,&rdquo; said Clym. And amid the noise of
+merriment from below they descended. Their path to the front led them close to
+a little side window, whence the rays of candles streamed across the shrubs.
+The window, being screened from general observation by the bushes, had been
+left unblinded, so that a person in this private nook could see all that was
+going on within the room which contained the wedding guests, except in so far
+as vision was hindered by the green antiquity of the panes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Charley, what are they doing?&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;My sight is
+weaker again tonight, and the glass of this window is not good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred with moisture, and
+stepped closer to the casement. &ldquo;Mr. Venn is asking Christian Cantle to
+sing,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;and Christian is moving about in his chair as
+if he were much frightened at the question, and his father has struck up a
+stave instead of him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I can hear the old man&rsquo;s voice,&rdquo; said Clym. &ldquo;So
+there&rsquo;s to be no dancing, I suppose. And is Thomasin in the room? I see
+something moving in front of the candles that resembles her shape, I
+think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. She do seem happy. She is red in the face, and laughing at
+something Fairway has said to her. O my!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What noise was that?&rdquo; said Clym.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against the beam in gieing
+a skip as he passed under. Mrs. Venn has run up quite frightened and now
+she&rsquo;s put her hand to his head to feel if there&rsquo;s a lump. And now
+they be all laughing again as if nothing had happened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?&rdquo; Clym asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, not a bit in the world. Now they are all holding up their glasses
+and drinking somebody&rsquo;s health.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder if it is mine?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, &rsquo;tis Mr. and Mrs. Venn&rsquo;s, because he is making a hearty
+sort of speech. There&mdash;now Mrs. Venn has got up, and is going away to put
+on her things, I think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, they haven&rsquo;t concerned themselves about me, and it is quite
+right they should not. It is all as it should be, and Thomasin at least is
+happy. We will not stay any longer now, as they will soon be coming out to go
+home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home, and, returning alone to
+the house a quarter of an hour later, found Venn and Thomasin ready to start,
+all the guests having departed in his absence. The wedded pair took their seats
+in the four-wheeled dogcart which Venn&rsquo;s head milker and handy man had
+driven from Stickleford to fetch them in; little Eustacia and the nurse were
+packed securely upon the open flap behind; and the milker, on an ancient
+overstepping pony, whose shoes clashed like cymbals at every tread, rode in the
+rear, in the manner of a body-servant of the last century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now we leave you in absolute possession of your own house again,&rdquo;
+said Thomasin as she bent down to wish her cousin good night. &ldquo;It will be
+rather lonely for you, Clym, after the hubbub we have been making.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, that&rsquo;s no inconvenience,&rdquo; said Clym, smiling rather
+sadly. And then the party drove off and vanished in the night shades, and
+Yeobright entered the house. The ticking of the clock was the only sound that
+greeted him, for not a soul remained; Christian, who acted as cook, valet, and
+gardener to Clym, sleeping at his father&rsquo;s house. Yeobright sat down in
+one of the vacant chairs, and remained in thought a long time. His
+mother&rsquo;s old chair was opposite; it had been sat in that evening by those
+who had scarcely remembered that it ever was hers. But to Clym she was almost a
+presence there, now as always. Whatever she was in other people&rsquo;s
+memories, in his she was the sublime saint whose radiance even his tenderness
+for Eustacia could not obscure. But his heart was heavy, that Mother had
+<i>not</i> crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the
+gladness of his heart. And events had borne out the accuracy of her judgment,
+and proved the devotedness of her care. He should have heeded her for
+Eustacia&rsquo;s sake even more than for his own. &ldquo;It was all my
+fault,&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;O, my mother, my mother! would to God that I
+could live my life again, and endure for you what you endured for me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+On the Sunday after this wedding an unusual sight was to be seen on Rainbarrow.
+From a distance there simply appeared to be a motionless figure standing on the
+top of the tumulus, just as Eustacia had stood on that lonely summit some two
+years and a half before. But now it was fine warm weather, with only a summer
+breeze blowing, and early afternoon instead of dull twilight. Those who
+ascended to the immediate neighbourhood of the Barrow perceived that the erect
+form in the centre, piercing the sky, was not really alone. Round him upon the
+slopes of the Barrow a number of heathmen and women were reclining or sitting
+at their ease. They listened to the words of the man in their midst, who was
+preaching, while they abstractedly pulled heather, stripped ferns, or tossed
+pebbles down the slope. This was the first of a series of moral lectures or
+Sermons on the Mount, which were to be delivered from the same place every
+Sunday afternoon as long as the fine weather lasted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The commanding elevation of Rainbarrow had been chosen for two reasons: first,
+that it occupied a central position among the remote cottages around; secondly,
+that the preacher thereon could be seen from all adjacent points as soon as he
+arrived at his post, the view of him being thus a convenient signal to those
+stragglers who wished to draw near. The speaker was bareheaded, and the breeze
+at each waft gently lifted and lowered his hair, somewhat too thin for a man of
+his years, these still numbering less than thirty-three. He wore a shade over
+his eyes, and his face was pensive and lined; but, though these bodily features
+were marked with decay there was no defect in the tones of his voice, which
+were rich, musical, and stirring. He stated that his discourses to people were
+to be sometimes secular, and sometimes religious, but never dogmatic; and that
+his texts would be taken from all kinds of books. This afternoon the words were
+as follows:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and
+sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king&rsquo;s
+mother; and she sat on his right hand. Then she said, I desire one small
+petition of thee; I pray thee say me not nay. And the king said unto her, Ask,
+on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeobright had, in fact, found his vocation in the career of an itinerant
+open-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable subjects; and from this
+day he laboured incessantly in that office, speaking not only in simple
+language on Rainbarrow and in the hamlets round, but in a more cultivated
+strain elsewhere&mdash;from the steps and porticoes of town halls, from
+market-crosses, from conduits, on esplanades and on wharves, from the parapets
+of bridges, in barns and outhouses, and all other such places in the
+neighbouring Wessex towns and villages. He left alone creeds and systems of
+philosophy, finding enough and more than enough to occupy his tongue in the
+opinions and actions common to all good men. Some believed him, and some
+believed not; some said that his words were commonplace, others complained of
+his want of theological doctrine; while others again remarked that it was well
+enough for a man to take to preaching who could not see to do anything else.
+But everywhere he was kindly received, for the story of his life had become
+generally known.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE ***</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 122-h.htm or 122-h.zip</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/122/</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Updated editions will replace the previous one&#8212;the old editions will
+be renamed.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG&#8482;
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br />
+<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br />
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+To protect the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &#8220;Project
+Gutenberg&#8221;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
+or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.B. &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&#8220;the
+Foundation&#8221; or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg&#8482; work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work (any work
+on which the phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; appears, or with which the
+phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+  <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+    at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
+    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
+  </div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase &#8220;Project
+Gutenberg&#8221; associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg&#8482; License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg&#8482;.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; License.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work in a format
+other than &#8220;Plain Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg&#8482; website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original &#8220;Plain
+Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg&#8482; works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+provided that:
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'>
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &bull; You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+        the use of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works calculated using the method
+        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, but he has
+        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+        Section 4, &#8220;Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+        Literary Archive Foundation.&#8221;
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &bull; You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+        works.
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &bull; You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+        receipt of the work.
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &bull; You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+        distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works.
+    </div>
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain &#8220;Defects,&#8221; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &#8220;Right
+of Replacement or Refund&#8221; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &#8216;AS-IS&#8217;, WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg&#8482;&#8217;s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg&#8482; collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg&#8482; and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation&#8217;s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state&#8217;s laws.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Foundation&#8217;s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation&#8217;s website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
+public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
+visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg&#8482;,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+</div>
+
+</body>
+
+</html>
+
+
diff --git a/old/122-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/122-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..707ec2d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/122-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/122-0.txt b/old/old/122-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4f5001
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/122-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,16880 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Return of the Native
+
+Author: Thomas Hardy
+
+Release Date: March 8, 2006 [EBook #122]
+[Last Updated: June 18, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RETURN OF THE NATIVE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hamm and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
+
+by Thomas Hardy
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The date at which the following events are assumed to have occurred may
+be set down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old watering place herein
+called “Budmouth” still retained sufficient afterglow from its Georgian
+gaiety and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to the
+romantic and imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland.
+
+Under the general name of “Egdon Heath,” which has been given to the
+sombre scene of the story, are united or typified heaths of various real
+names, to the number of at least a dozen; these being virtually one in
+character and aspect, though their original unity, or partial unity, is
+now somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and slices brought under the
+plough with varying degrees of success, or planted to woodland.
+
+It is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract whose
+southwestern quarter is here described, may be the heath of that
+traditionary King of Wessex--Lear.
+
+
+July, 1895.
+
+
+
+
+              “To sorrow
+               I bade good morrow,
+     And thought to leave her far away behind;
+               But cheerly, cheerly,
+               She loves me dearly;
+     She is so constant to me, and so kind.
+               I would deceive her,
+               And so leave her,
+     But ah! she is so constant and so kind.”
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE -- THE THREE WOMEN
+
+
+
+
+1--A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression
+
+
+A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight,
+and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned
+itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud
+shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its
+floor.
+
+The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with
+the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly
+marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment
+of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was
+come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood
+distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would have been
+inclined to continue work; looking down, he would have decided to
+finish his faggot and go home. The distant rims of the world and of the
+firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in
+matter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an
+hour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon,
+anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the
+opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.
+
+In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into
+darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and
+nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at
+such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen,
+its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding
+hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true
+tale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night
+showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could be
+perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds and
+hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the
+heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it.
+And so the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed
+together in a black fraternization towards which each advanced halfway.
+
+The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other
+things sank brooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and
+listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it
+had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises
+of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last
+crisis--the final overthrow.
+
+It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who loved it
+with an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity. Smiling champaigns of
+flowers and fruit hardly do this, for they are permanently harmonious
+only with an existence of better reputation as to its issues than the
+present. Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a
+thing majestic without severity, impressive without showiness, emphatic
+in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity. The qualifications which
+frequently invest the facade of a prison with far more dignity than is
+found in the facade of a palace double its size lent to this heath a
+sublimity in which spots renowned for beauty of the accepted kind are
+utterly wanting. Fair prospects wed happily with fair times; but alas,
+if times be not fair! Men have oftener suffered from, the mockery of
+a place too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of
+surroundings oversadly tinged. Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler and
+scarcer instinct, to a more recently learnt emotion, than that which
+responds to the sort of beauty called charming and fair.
+
+Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this orthodox beauty
+is not approaching its last quarter. The new Vale of Tempe may be a
+gaunt waste in Thule; human souls may find themselves in closer and
+closer harmony with external things wearing a sombreness distasteful to
+our race when it was young. The time seems near, if it has not actually
+arrived, when the chastened sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a mountain
+will be all of nature that is absolutely in keeping with the moods
+of the more thinking among mankind. And ultimately, to the commonest
+tourist, spots like Iceland may become what the vineyards and myrtle
+gardens of South Europe are to him now; and Heidelberg and Baden
+be passed unheeded as he hastens from the Alps to the sand dunes of
+Scheveningen.
+
+The most thoroughgoing ascetic could feel that he had a natural right to
+wander on Egdon--he was keeping within the line of legitimate indulgence
+when he laid himself open to influences such as these. Colours and
+beauties so far subdued were, at least, the birthright of all. Only in
+summer days of highest feather did its mood touch the level of gaiety.
+Intensity was more usually reached by way of the solemn than by way of
+the brilliant, and such a sort of intensity was often arrived at
+during winter darkness, tempests, and mists. Then Egdon was aroused to
+reciprocity; for the storm was its lover, and the wind its friend.
+Then it became the home of strange phantoms; and it was found to be the
+hitherto unrecognized original of those wild regions of obscurity which
+are vaguely felt to be compassing us about in midnight dreams of flight
+and disaster, and are never thought of after the dream till revived by
+scenes like this.
+
+It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man's nature--neither
+ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame;
+but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and
+mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some persons who have long
+lived apart, solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It had a
+lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.
+
+This obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in Domesday.
+Its condition is recorded therein as that of heathy, furzy, briary
+wilderness--“Bruaria.” Then follows the length and breadth in leagues;
+and, though some uncertainty exists as to the exact extent of this
+ancient lineal measure, it appears from the figures that the area of
+Egdon down to the present day has but little diminished. “Turbaria
+Bruaria”--the right of cutting heath-turf--occurs in charters relating
+to the district. “Overgrown with heth and mosse,” says Leland of the
+same dark sweep of country.
+
+Here at least were intelligible facts regarding landscape--far-reaching
+proofs productive of genuine satisfaction. The untameable, Ishmaelitish
+thing that Egdon now was it always had been. Civilization was its enemy;
+and ever since the beginning of vegetation its soil had worn the
+same antique brown dress, the natural and invariable garment of the
+particular formation. In its venerable one coat lay a certain vein of
+satire on human vanity in clothes. A person on a heath in raiment of
+modern cut and colours has more or less an anomalous look. We seem to
+want the oldest and simplest human clothing where the clothing of the
+earth is so primitive.
+
+To recline on a stump of thorn in the central valley of Egdon, between
+afternoon and night, as now, where the eye could reach nothing of the
+world outside the summits and shoulders of heathland which filled the
+whole circumference of its glance, and to know that everything around
+and underneath had been from prehistoric times as unaltered as the stars
+overhead, gave ballast to the mind adrift on change, and harassed by the
+irrepressible New. The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence
+which the sea cannot claim. Who can say of a particular sea that it is
+old? Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon, it is renewed in a
+year, in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed, the fields changed, the
+rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained. Those
+surfaces were neither so steep as to be destructible by weather, nor so
+flat as to be the victims of floods and deposits. With the exception of
+an aged highway, and a still more aged barrow presently to be referred
+to--themselves almost crystallized to natural products by long
+continuance--even the trifling irregularities were not caused by
+pickaxe, plough, or spade, but remained as the very finger-touches of
+the last geological change.
+
+The above-mentioned highway traversed the lower levels of the heath,
+from one horizon to another. In many portions of its course it overlaid
+an old vicinal way, which branched from the great Western road of the
+Romans, the Via Iceniana, or Ikenild Street, hard by. On the evening
+under consideration it would have been noticed that, though the gloom
+had increased sufficiently to confuse the minor features of the heath,
+the white surface of the road remained almost as clear as ever.
+
+
+
+
+2--Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble
+
+
+Along the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a mountain,
+bowed in the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He wore a glazed
+hat, an ancient boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons bearing an
+anchor upon their face. In his hand was a silver-headed walking stick,
+which he used as a veritable third leg, perseveringly dotting the ground
+with its point at every few inches' interval. One would have said that
+he had been, in his day, a naval officer of some sort or other.
+
+Before him stretched the long, laborious road, dry, empty, and white.
+It was quite open to the heath on each side, and bisected that vast dark
+surface like the parting-line on a head of black hair, diminishing and
+bending away on the furthest horizon.
+
+The old man frequently stretched his eyes ahead to gaze over the tract
+that he had yet to traverse. At length he discerned, a long distance
+in front of him, a moving spot, which appeared to be a vehicle, and
+it proved to be going the same way as that in which he himself was
+journeying. It was the single atom of life that the scene contained, and
+it only served to render the general loneliness more evident. Its rate
+of advance was slow, and the old man gained upon it sensibly.
+
+When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van, ordinary in
+shape, but singular in colour, this being a lurid red. The driver walked
+beside it; and, like his van, he was completely red. One dye of that
+tincture covered his clothes, the cap upon his head, his boots, his
+face, and his hands. He was not temporarily overlaid with the colour; it
+permeated him.
+
+The old man knew the meaning of this. The traveller with the cart was a
+reddleman--a person whose vocation it was to supply farmers with redding
+for their sheep. He was one of a class rapidly becoming extinct in
+Wessex, filling at present in the rural world the place which, during
+the last century, the dodo occupied in the world of animals. He is a
+curious, interesting, and nearly perished link between obsolete forms of
+life and those which generally prevail.
+
+The decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his fellow-wayfarer,
+and wished him good evening. The reddleman turned his head, and replied
+in sad and occupied tones. He was young, and his face, if not exactly
+handsome, approached so near to handsome that nobody would have
+contradicted an assertion that it really was so in its natural colour.
+His eye, which glared so strangely through his stain, was in itself
+attractive--keen as that of a bird of prey, and blue as autumn mist. He
+had neither whisker nor moustache, which allowed the soft curves of the
+lower part of his face to be apparent. His lips were thin, and though,
+as it seemed, compressed by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at
+their corners now and then. He was clothed throughout in a tight-fitting
+suit of corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn, and well-chosen
+for its purpose, but deprived of its original colour by his trade. It
+showed to advantage the good shape of his figure. A certain well-to-do
+air about the man suggested that he was not poor for his degree.
+The natural query of an observer would have been, Why should such
+a promising being as this have hidden his prepossessing exterior by
+adopting that singular occupation?
+
+After replying to the old man's greeting he showed no inclination to
+continue in talk, although they still walked side by side, for the elder
+traveller seemed to desire company. There were no sounds but that of
+the booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around them, the
+crackling wheels, the tread of the men, and the footsteps of the two
+shaggy ponies which drew the van. They were small, hardy animals, of a
+breed between Galloway and Exmoor, and were known as “heath-croppers”
+ here.
+
+Now, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman occasionally left his
+companion's side, and, stepping behind the van, looked into its interior
+through a small window. The look was always anxious. He would then
+return to the old man, who made another remark about the state of the
+country and so on, to which the reddleman again abstractedly replied,
+and then again they would lapse into silence. The silence conveyed to
+neither any sense of awkwardness; in these lonely places wayfarers,
+after a first greeting, frequently plod on for miles without speech;
+contiguity amounts to a tacit conversation where, otherwise than in
+cities, such contiguity can be put an end to on the merest inclination,
+and where not to put an end to it is intercourse in itself.
+
+Possibly these two might not have spoken again till their parting, had
+it not been for the reddleman's visits to his van. When he returned
+from his fifth time of looking in the old man said, “You have something
+inside there besides your load?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Somebody who wants looking after?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Not long after this a faint cry sounded from the interior. The reddleman
+hastened to the back, looked in, and came away again.
+
+“You have a child there, my man?”
+
+“No, sir, I have a woman.”
+
+“The deuce you have! Why did she cry out?”
+
+“Oh, she has fallen asleep, and not being used to traveling, she's
+uneasy, and keeps dreaming.”
+
+“A young woman?”
+
+“Yes, a young woman.”
+
+“That would have interested me forty years ago. Perhaps she's your
+wife?”
+
+“My wife!” said the other bitterly. “She's above mating with such as I.
+But there's no reason why I should tell you about that.”
+
+“That's true. And there's no reason why you should not. What harm can I
+do to you or to her?”
+
+The reddleman looked in the old man's face. “Well, sir,” he said at
+last, “I knew her before today, though perhaps it would have been better
+if I had not. But she's nothing to me, and I am nothing to her; and she
+wouldn't have been in my van if any better carriage had been there to
+take her.”
+
+“Where, may I ask?”
+
+“At Anglebury.”
+
+“I know the town well. What was she doing there?”
+
+“Oh, not much--to gossip about. However, she's tired to death now, and
+not at all well, and that's what makes her so restless. She dropped off
+into a nap about an hour ago, and 'twill do her good.”
+
+“A nice-looking girl, no doubt?”
+
+“You would say so.”
+
+The other traveller turned his eyes with interest towards the van
+window, and, without withdrawing them, said, “I presume I might look in
+upon her?”
+
+“No,” said the reddleman abruptly. “It is getting too dark for you to
+see much of her; and, more than that, I have no right to allow you.
+Thank God she sleeps so well, I hope she won't wake till she's home.”
+
+“Who is she? One of the neighbourhood?”
+
+“'Tis no matter who, excuse me.”
+
+“It is not that girl of Blooms-End, who has been talked about more or
+less lately? If so, I know her; and I can guess what has happened.”
+
+“'Tis no matter.... Now, sir, I am sorry to say that we shall soon have
+to part company. My ponies are tired, and I have further to go, and I am
+going to rest them under this bank for an hour.”
+
+The elder traveller nodded his head indifferently, and the reddleman
+turned his horses and van in upon the turf, saying, “Good night.” The
+old man replied, and proceeded on his way as before.
+
+The reddleman watched his form as it diminished to a speck on the road
+and became absorbed in the thickening films of night. He then took
+some hay from a truss which was slung up under the van, and, throwing a
+portion of it in front of the horses, made a pad of the rest, which he
+laid on the ground beside his vehicle. Upon this he sat down, leaning
+his back against the wheel. From the interior a low soft breathing came
+to his ear. It appeared to satisfy him, and he musingly surveyed the
+scene, as if considering the next step that he should take.
+
+To do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed, to be a
+duty in the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour, for there was that
+in the condition of the heath itself which resembled protracted and
+halting dubiousness. It was the quality of the repose appertaining
+to the scene. This was not the repose of actual stagnation, but the
+apparent repose of incredible slowness. A condition of healthy life so
+nearly resembling the torpor of death is a noticeable thing of its
+sort; to exhibit the inertness of the desert, and at the same time to be
+exercising powers akin to those of the meadow, and even of the forest,
+awakened in those who thought of it the attentiveness usually engendered
+by understatement and reserve.
+
+The scene before the reddleman's eyes was a gradual series of ascents
+from the level of the road backward into the heart of the heath. It
+embraced hillocks, pits, ridges, acclivities, one behind the other, till
+all was finished by a high hill cutting against the still light sky.
+The traveller's eye hovered about these things for a time, and finally
+settled upon one noteworthy object up there. It was a barrow. This bossy
+projection of earth above its natural level occupied the loftiest ground
+of the loneliest height that the heath contained. Although from the
+vale it appeared but as a wart on an Atlantean brow, its actual bulk was
+great. It formed the pole and axis of this heathery world.
+
+As the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware that its summit,
+hitherto the highest object in the whole prospect round, was surmounted
+by something higher. It rose from the semiglobular mound like a spike
+from a helmet. The first instinct of an imaginative stranger might have
+been to suppose it the person of one of the Celts who built the barrow,
+so far had all of modern date withdrawn from the scene. It seemed a sort
+of last man among them, musing for a moment before dropping into eternal
+night with the rest of his race.
+
+There the form stood, motionless as the hill beneath. Above the plain
+rose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow rose
+the figure. Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped elsewhere
+than on a celestial globe.
+
+Such a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did the figure give
+to the dark pile of hills that it seemed to be the only obvious
+justification of their outline. Without it, there was the dome without
+the lantern; with it the architectural demands of the mass were
+satisfied. The scene was strangely homogeneous, in that the vale, the
+upland, the barrow, and the figure above it amounted only to unity.
+Looking at this or that member of the group was not observing a complete
+thing, but a fraction of a thing.
+
+The form was so much like an organic part of the entire motionless
+structure that to see it move would have impressed the mind as a strange
+phenomenon. Immobility being the chief characteristic of that whole
+which the person formed portion of, the discontinuance of immobility in
+any quarter suggested confusion.
+
+Yet that is what happened. The figure perceptibly gave up its fixity,
+shifted a step or two, and turned round. As if alarmed, it descended on
+the right side of the barrow, with the glide of a water-drop down a bud,
+and then vanished. The movement had been sufficient to show more clearly
+the characteristics of the figure, and that it was a woman's.
+
+The reason of her sudden displacement now appeared. With her dropping
+out of sight on the right side, a newcomer, bearing a burden, protruded
+into the sky on the left side, ascended the tumulus, and deposited the
+burden on the top. A second followed, then a third, a fourth, a fifth,
+and ultimately the whole barrow was peopled with burdened figures.
+
+The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of
+silhouettes was that the woman had no relation to the forms who had
+taken her place, was sedulously avoiding these, and had come thither
+for another object than theirs. The imagination of the observer clung
+by preference to that vanished, solitary figure, as to something more
+interesting, more important, more likely to have a history worth knowing
+than these newcomers, and unconsciously regarded them as intruders. But
+they remained, and established themselves; and the lonely person who
+hitherto had been queen of the solitude did not at present seem likely
+to return.
+
+
+
+
+3--The Custom of the Country
+
+
+Had a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity of the barrow,
+he would have learned that these persons were boys and men of the
+neighbouring hamlets. Each, as he ascended the barrow, had been heavily
+laden with furze faggots, carried upon the shoulder by means of a long
+stake sharpened at each end for impaling them easily--two in front and
+two behind. They came from a part of the heath a quarter of a mile to
+the rear, where furze almost exclusively prevailed as a product.
+
+Every individual was so involved in furze by his method of carrying the
+faggots that he appeared like a bush on legs till he had thrown them
+down. The party had marched in trail, like a travelling flock of sheep;
+that is to say, the strongest first, the weak and young behind.
+
+The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze thirty feet in
+circumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus, which was known as
+Rainbarrow for many miles round. Some made themselves busy with matches,
+and in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in loosening the
+bramble bonds which held the faggots together. Others, again, while this
+was in progress, lifted their eyes and swept the vast expanse of country
+commanded by their position, now lying nearly obliterated by shade. In
+the valleys of the heath nothing save its own wild face was visible at
+any time of day; but this spot commanded a horizon enclosing a tract of
+far extent, and in many cases lying beyond the heath country. None of
+its features could be seen now, but the whole made itself felt as a
+vague stretch of remoteness.
+
+While the men and lads were building the pile, a change took place in
+the mass of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red suns and
+tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country
+round. They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were
+engaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and stood
+in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale straw-like beams radiated
+around them in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near, glowing
+scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. Some were
+Maenades, with winy faces and blown hair. These tinctured the silent
+bosom of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which
+seemed thenceforth to become scalding caldrons. Perhaps as many
+as thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole bounds of the
+district; and as the hour may be told on a clock-face when the figures
+themselves are invisible, so did the men recognize the locality of each
+fire by its angle and direction, though nothing of the scenery could be
+viewed.
+
+The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting all
+eyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to their own
+attempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface
+of the human circle--now increased by other stragglers, male and
+female--with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark turf around
+with a lively luminousness, which softened off into obscurity where the
+barrow rounded downwards out of sight. It showed the barrow to be the
+segment of a globe, as perfect as on the day when it was thrown up, even
+the little ditch remaining from which the earth was dug. Not a plough
+had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn soil. In the heath's
+barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility to the historian. There had
+been no obliteration, because there had been no tending.
+
+It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some radiant upper
+story of the world, detached from and independent of the dark stretches
+below. The heath down there was now a vast abyss, and no longer a
+continuation of what they stood on; for their eyes, adapted to
+the blaze, could see nothing of the deeps beyond its influence.
+Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than usual from their
+faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp down the inclines to some
+distant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling these to replies
+of the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again. Then the whole
+black phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the brink by
+the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered articulations of
+the wind in the hollows were as complaints and petitions from the “souls
+of mighty worth” suspended therein.
+
+It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into past ages, and
+fetched therefrom an hour and deed which had before been familiar with
+this spot. The ashes of the original British pyre which blazed from that
+summit lay fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their tread. The
+flames from funeral piles long ago kindled there had shone down upon the
+lowlands as these were shining now. Festival fires to Thor and Woden had
+followed on the same ground and duly had their day. Indeed, it is pretty
+well known that such blazes as this the heathmen were now enjoying are
+rather the lineal descendants from jumbled Druidical rites and Saxon
+ceremonies than the invention of popular feeling about Gunpowder Plot.
+
+Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man
+when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature.
+It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against that fiat
+that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery
+and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say,
+Let there be light.
+
+The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled upon the skin
+and clothes of the persons standing round caused their lineaments and
+general contours to be drawn with Dureresque vigour and dash. Yet the
+permanent moral expression of each face it was impossible to discover,
+for as the nimble flames towered, nodded, and swooped through the
+surrounding air, the blots of shade and flakes of light upon the
+countenances of the group changed shape and position endlessly. All
+was unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning. Shadowy
+eye-sockets, deep as those of a death's head, suddenly turned into pits
+of lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining; wrinkles
+were emphasized to ravines, or obliterated entirely by a changed ray.
+Nostrils were dark wells; sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings;
+things with no particular polish on them were glazed; bright objects,
+such as the tip of a furze-hook one of the men carried, were as glass;
+eyeballs glowed like little lanterns. Those whom Nature had depicted as
+merely quaint became grotesque, the grotesque became preternatural; for
+all was in extremity.
+
+Hence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like others been
+called to the heights by the rising flames, was not really the mere nose
+and chin that it appeared to be, but an appreciable quantity of human
+countenance. He stood complacently sunning himself in the heat. With
+a speaker, or stake, he tossed the outlying scraps of fuel into the
+conflagration, looking at the midst of the pile, occasionally lifting
+his eyes to measure the height of the flame, or to follow the great
+sparks which rose with it and sailed away into darkness. The beaming
+sight, and the penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a cumulative
+cheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight. With his stick in his hand
+he began to jig a private minuet, a bunch of copper seals shining and
+swinging like a pendulum from under his waistcoat: he also began to
+sing, in the voice of a bee up a flue--
+
+       “The king' call'd down' his no-bles all',
+          By one', by two', by three';
+       Earl Mar'-shal, I'll' go shrive'-the queen',
+          And thou' shalt wend' with me'.
+
+       “A boon', a boon', quoth Earl' Mar-shal',
+          And fell' on his bend'-ded knee',
+       That what'-so-e'er' the queen' shall say',
+          No harm' there-of' may be'.”
+
+Want of breath prevented a continuance of the song; and the breakdown
+attracted the attention of a firm-standing man of middle age, who kept
+each corner of his crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back into his
+cheek, as if to do away with any suspicion of mirthfulness which might
+erroneously have attached to him.
+
+“A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard 'tis too much for
+the mouldy weasand of such a old man as you,” he said to the wrinkled
+reveller. “Dostn't wish th' wast three sixes again, Grandfer, as you was
+when you first learnt to sing it?”
+
+“Hey?” said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his dance.
+
+“Dostn't wish wast young again, I say? There's a hole in thy poor
+bellows nowadays seemingly.”
+
+“But there's good art in me? If I couldn't make a little wind go a
+long ways I should seem no younger than the most aged man, should I,
+Timothy?”
+
+“And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet Woman Inn?”
+ the other inquired, pointing towards a dim light in the direction of the
+distant highway, but considerably apart from where the reddleman was
+at that moment resting. “What's the rights of the matter about 'em? You
+ought to know, being an understanding man.”
+
+“But a little rakish, hey? I own to it. Master Cantle is that, or he's
+nothing. Yet 'tis a gay fault, neigbbour Fairway, that age will cure.”
+
+“I heard that they were coming home tonight. By this time they must have
+come. What besides?”
+
+“The next thing is for us to go and wish 'em joy, I suppose?”
+
+“Well, no.”
+
+“No? Now, I thought we must. I must, or 'twould be very unlike me--the
+first in every spree that's going!
+
+       “Do thou' put on' a fri'-ar's coat',
+          And I'll' put on' a-no'-ther,
+       And we' will to' Queen Ele'anor go',
+          Like Fri'ar and' his bro'ther.
+
+I met Mis'ess Yeobright, the young bride's aunt, last night, and she
+told me that her son Clym was coming home a' Christmas. Wonderful
+clever, 'a believe--ah, I should like to have all that's under that
+young man's hair. Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry
+way, and she said, 'O that what's shaped so venerable should talk like a
+fool!'--that's what she said to me. I don't care for her, be jowned if I
+do, and so I told her. 'Be jowned if I care for 'ee,' I said. I had her
+there--hey?”
+
+“I rather think she had you,” said Fairway.
+
+“No,” said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly flagging. “'Tisn't
+so bad as that with me?”
+
+“Seemingly 'tis, however, is it because of the wedding that Clym is
+coming home a' Christmas--to make a new arrangement because his mother
+is now left in the house alone?”
+
+“Yes, yes--that's it. But, Timothy, hearken to me,” said the Grandfer
+earnestly. “Though known as such a joker, I be an understanding man if
+you catch me serious, and I am serious now. I can tell 'ee lots about
+the married couple. Yes, this morning at six o'clock they went up the
+country to do the job, and neither vell nor mark have been seen of 'em
+since, though I reckon that this afternoon has brought 'em home again
+man and woman--wife, that is. Isn't it spoke like a man, Timothy, and
+wasn't Mis'ess Yeobright wrong about me?”
+
+“Yes, it will do. I didn't know the two had walked together since last
+fall, when her aunt forbad the banns. How long has this new set-to been
+in mangling then? Do you know, Humphrey?”
+
+“Yes, how long?” said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise turning to
+Humphrey. “I ask that question.”
+
+“Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might have the man
+after all,” replied Humphrey, without removing his eyes from the fire.
+He was a somewhat solemn young fellow, and carried the hook and leather
+gloves of a furze-cutter, his legs, by reason of that occupation, being
+sheathed in bulging leggings as stiff as the Philistine's greaves of
+brass. “That's why they went away to be married, I count. You see, after
+kicking up such a nunny-watch and forbidding the banns 'twould have made
+Mis'ess Yeobright seem foolish-like to have a banging wedding in the
+same parish all as if she'd never gainsaid it.”
+
+“Exactly--seem foolish-like; and that's very bad for the poor things
+that be so, though I only guess as much, to be sure,” said Grandfer
+Cantle, still strenuously preserving a sensible bearing and mien.
+
+“Ah, well, I was at church that day,” said Fairway, “which was a very
+curious thing to happen.”
+
+“If 'twasn't my name's Simple,” said the Grandfer emphatically. “I
+ha'n't been there to-year; and now the winter is a-coming on I won't say
+I shall.”
+
+“I ha'n't been these three years,” said Humphrey; “for I'm so dead
+sleepy of a Sunday; and 'tis so terrible far to get there; and when you
+do get there 'tis such a mortal poor chance that you'll be chose for up
+above, when so many bain't, that I bide at home and don't go at all.”
+
+“I not only happened to be there,” said Fairway, with a fresh collection
+of emphasis, “but I was sitting in the same pew as Mis'ess Yeobright.
+And though you may not see it as such, it fairly made my blood run cold
+to hear her. Yes, it is a curious thing; but it made my blood run
+cold, for I was close at her elbow.” The speaker looked round upon
+the bystanders, now drawing closer to hear him, with his lips gathered
+tighter than ever in the rigorousness of his descriptive moderation.
+
+“'Tis a serious job to have things happen to 'ee there,” said a woman
+behind.
+
+“'Ye are to declare it,' was the parson's words,” Fairway continued.
+“And then up stood a woman at my side--a-touching of me. 'Well, be
+damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I said to
+myself. Yes, neighbours, though I was in the temple of prayer that's
+what I said. 'Tis against my conscience to curse and swear in company,
+and I hope any woman here will overlook it. Still what I did say I did
+say, and 'twould be a lie if I didn't own it.”
+
+“So 'twould, neighbour Fairway.”
+
+“'Be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I said,”
+ the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the same passionless
+severity of face as before, which proved how entirely necessity and not
+gusto had to do with the iteration. “And the next thing I heard was, 'I
+forbid the banns,' from her. 'I'll speak to you after the service,'
+said the parson, in quite a homely way--yes, turning all at once into a
+common man no holier than you or I. Ah, her face was pale! Maybe you
+can call to mind that monument in Weatherbury church--the cross-legged
+soldier that have had his arm knocked away by the schoolchildren? Well,
+he would about have matched that woman's face, when she said, 'I forbid
+the banns.'”
+
+The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into the
+fire, not because these deeds were urgent, but to give themselves time
+to weigh the moral of the story.
+
+“I'm sure when I heard they'd been forbid I felt as glad as if anybody
+had gied me sixpence,” said an earnest voice--that of Olly Dowden, a
+woman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms. Her nature was to be
+civil to enemies as well as to friends, and grateful to all the world
+for letting her remain alive.
+
+“And now the maid have married him just the same,” said Humphrey.
+
+“After that Mis'ess Yeobright came round and was quite agreeable,”
+ Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that his words were no
+appendage to Humphrey's, but the result of independent reflection.
+
+“Supposing they were ashamed, I don't see why they shouldn't have done
+it here-right,” said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked like
+shoes whenever she stooped or turned. “'Tis well to call the neighbours
+together and to hae a good racket once now and then; and it may as
+well be when there's a wedding as at tide-times. I don't care for close
+ways.”
+
+“Ah, now, you'd hardly believe it, but I don't care for gay weddings,”
+ said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round. “I hardly blame
+Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet, if I must
+own it. A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by the hour;
+and they do a man's legs no good when he's over forty.”
+
+“True. Once at the woman's house you can hardly say nay to being one in
+a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself worth
+your victuals.”
+
+“You be bound to dance at Christmas because 'tis the time o' year; you
+must dance at weddings because 'tis the time o' life. At christenings
+folk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if 'tis no further on than the
+first or second chiel. And this is not naming the songs you've got to
+sing.... For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as anything.
+You've as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties, and even
+better. And it don't wear your legs to stumps in talking over a poor
+fellow's ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes.”
+
+“Nine folks out of ten would own 'twas going too far to dance then, I
+suppose?” suggested Grandfer Cantle.
+
+“'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the mug
+have been round a few times.”
+
+“Well, I can't understand a quiet ladylike little body like Tamsin
+Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way,” said Susan Nunsuch,
+the wide woman, who preferred the original subject. “'Tis worse than the
+poorest do. And I shouldn't have cared about the man, though some may
+say he's good-looking.”
+
+“To give him his due he's a clever, learned fellow in his way--a'most as
+clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought up to better things
+than keeping the Quiet Woman. An engineer--that's what the man was, as
+we know; but he threw away his chance, and so 'a took a public house to
+live. His learning was no use to him at all.”
+
+“Very often the case,” said Olly, the besom-maker. “And yet how people
+do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use to
+make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names
+now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot--what
+do I say?--why, almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and elbows
+upon.”
+
+“True--'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to,” said
+Humphrey.
+
+“Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called),
+in the year four,” chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, “I didn't know no
+more what the world was like than the commonest man among ye. And now,
+jown it all, I won't say what I bain't fit for, hey?”
+
+“Couldst sign the book, no doubt,” said Fairway, “if wast young enough
+to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and Mis'ess Tamsin,
+which is more than Humph there could do, for he follows his father in
+learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy
+father's mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name. He
+and your mother were the couple married just afore we were and there
+stood they father's cross with arms stretched out like a great banging
+scarecrow. What a terrible black cross that was--thy father's very
+likeness in en! To save my soul I couldn't help laughing when I zid en,
+though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the marrying,
+and what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack Changley
+and a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window. But the next
+moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I called to mind
+that if thy father and mother had had high words once, they'd been at
+it twenty times since they'd been man and wife, and I zid myself as the
+next poor stunpoll to get into the same mess.... Ah--well, what a day
+'twas!”
+
+“Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few summers. A pretty
+maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to tear her
+smock for a man like that.”
+
+The speaker, a peat- or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group,
+carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large
+dimensions used in that species of labour, and its well-whetted edge
+gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.
+
+“A hundred maidens would have had him if he'd asked 'em,” said the wide
+woman.
+
+“Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would marry?”
+ inquired Humphrey.
+
+“I never did,” said the turf-cutter.
+
+“Nor I,” said another.
+
+“Nor I,” said Grandfer Cantle.
+
+“Well, now, I did once,” said Timothy Fairway, adding more firmness to
+one of his legs. “I did know of such a man. But only once, mind.” He
+gave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it were the duty of every
+person not to be mistaken through thickness of voice. “Yes, I knew of
+such a man,” he said.
+
+“And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been like, Master
+Fairway?” asked the turf-cutter.
+
+“Well, 'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man. What
+'a was I don't say.”
+
+“Is he known in these parts?” said Olly Dowden.
+
+“Hardly,” said Timothy; “but I name no name.... Come, keep the fire up
+there, youngsters.”
+
+“Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?” said a boy from
+amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze. “Be ye a-cold,
+Christian?”
+
+A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, “No, not at all.”
+
+“Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn't know you were
+here,” said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that quarter.
+
+Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a
+great quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes, advanced a step or
+two by his own will, and was pushed by the will of others half a dozen
+steps more. He was Grandfer Cantle's youngest son.
+
+“What be ye quaking for, Christian?” said the turf-cutter kindly.
+
+“I'm the man.”
+
+“What man?”
+
+“The man no woman will marry.”
+
+“The deuce you be!” said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to cover
+Christian's whole surface and a great deal more, Grandfer Cantle
+meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.
+
+“Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard,” said Christian. “D'ye think
+'twill hurt me? I shall always say I don't care, and swear to it, though
+I do care all the while.”
+
+“Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever I know'd,” said
+Mr. Fairway. “I didn't mean you at all. There's another in the country,
+then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune, Christian?”
+
+“'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose. I can't help it, can I?” He turned
+upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by concentric lines
+like targets.
+
+“No, that's true. But 'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran cold
+when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had
+thought only one. 'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How'st know the
+women won't hae thee?”
+
+“I've asked 'em.”
+
+“Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what did
+the last one say to ye? Nothing that can't be got over, perhaps, after
+all?”
+
+“'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
+fool,' was the woman's words to me.”
+
+“Not encouraging, I own,” said Fairway. “'Get out of my sight, you
+slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way of
+saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as
+to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head. How old be
+you, Christian?”
+
+“Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway.”
+
+“Not a boy--not a boy. Still there's hope yet.”
+
+“That's my age by baptism, because that's put down in the great book of
+the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but Mother told me I was
+born some time afore I was christened.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“But she couldn't tell when, to save her life, except that there was no
+moon.”
+
+“No moon--that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!”
+
+“Yes, 'tis bad,” said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.
+
+“Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another woman that had
+an almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the
+saying, 'No moon, no man,' which made her afeard every man-child she
+had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no
+moon?”
+
+“Yes. 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings ever spit out.
+The boy never comes to anything that's born at new moon. A bad job for
+thee, Christian, that you should have showed your nose then of all days
+in the month.”
+
+“I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?” said
+Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.
+
+“Well, 'a was not new,” Mr. Fairway replied, with a disinterested gaze.
+
+“I'd sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of no moon,”
+ continued Christian, in the same shattered recitative. “'Tis said I be
+only the rames of a man, and no good for my race at all; and I suppose
+that's the cause o't.”
+
+“Ay,” said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; “and yet his
+mother cried for scores of hours when 'a was a boy, for fear he should
+outgrow hisself and go for a soldier.”
+
+“Well, there's many just as bad as he.” said Fairway.
+
+“Wethers must live their time as well as other sheep, poor soul.”
+
+“So perhaps I shall rub on? Ought I to be afeared o' nights, Master
+Fairway?”
+
+“You'll have to lie alone all your life; and 'tis not to married couples
+but to single sleepers that a ghost shows himself when 'a do come. One
+has been seen lately, too. A very strange one.”
+
+“No--don't talk about it if 'tis agreeable of ye not to! 'Twill make my
+skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. But you will--ah, you will,
+I know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night o't! A very strange one?
+What sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye said, a very strange one,
+Timothy?--no, no--don't tell me.”
+
+“I don't half believe in spirits myself. But I think it ghostly
+enough--what I was told. 'Twas a little boy that zid it.”
+
+“What was it like?--no, don't--”
+
+“A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if it had been
+dipped in blood.”
+
+Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand his body, and
+Humphrey said, “Where has it been seen?”
+
+“Not exactly here; but in this same heth. But 'tisn't a thing to talk
+about. What do ye say,” continued Fairway in brisker tones, and turning
+upon them as if the idea had not been Grandfer Cantle's--“what do you
+say to giving the new man and wife a bit of a song tonight afore we go
+to bed--being their wedding-day? When folks are just married 'tis as
+well to look glad o't, since looking sorry won't unjoin 'em. I am no
+drinker, as we know, but when the womenfolk and youngsters have gone
+home we can drop down across to the Quiet Woman, and strike up a ballet
+in front of the married folks' door. 'Twill please the young wife, and
+that's what I should like to do, for many's the skinful I've had at her
+hands when she lived with her aunt at Blooms-End.”
+
+“Hey? And so we will!” said Grandfer Cantle, turning so briskly that his
+copper seals swung extravagantly. “I'm as dry as a kex with biding up
+here in the wind, and I haven't seen the colour of drink since
+nammet-time today. 'Tis said that the last brew at the Woman is very
+pretty drinking. And, neighbours, if we should be a little late in the
+finishing, why, tomorrow's Sunday, and we can sleep it off?”
+
+“Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless for an old man,” said
+the wide woman.
+
+“I take things careless; I do--too careless to please the women! Klk!
+I'll sing the 'Jovial Crew,' or any other song, when a weak old man
+would cry his eyes out. Jown it; I am up for anything.
+
+       “The king' look'd o'-ver his left' shoul-der',
+         And a grim' look look'-ed hee',
+       Earl Mar'-shal, he said', but for' my oath'
+         Or hang'-ed thou' shouldst bee'.”
+
+“Well, that's what we'll do,” said Fairway. “We'll give 'em a song, an'
+it please the Lord. What's the good of Thomasin's cousin Clym a-coming
+home after the deed's done? He should have come afore, if so be he
+wanted to stop it, and marry her himself.”
+
+“Perhaps he's coming to bide with his mother a little time, as she must
+feel lonely now the maid's gone.”
+
+“Now, 'tis very odd, but I never feel lonely--no, not at all,” said
+Grandfer Cantle. “I am as brave in the nighttime as a' admiral!”
+
+The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for the fuel had not
+been of that substantial sort which can support a blaze long. Most
+of the other fires within the wide horizon were also dwindling weak.
+Attentive observation of their brightness, colour, and length of
+existence would have revealed the quality of the material burnt, and
+through that, to some extent the natural produce of the district in
+which each bonfire was situate. The clear, kingly effulgence that had
+characterized the majority expressed a heath and furze country like
+their own, which in one direction extended an unlimited number of miles;
+the rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the compass showed
+the lightest of fuel--straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste from
+arable land. The most enduring of all--steady unaltering eyes like
+Planets--signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots, and
+stout billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare, and
+though comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient blazes, now
+began to get the best of them by mere long continuance. The great ones
+had perished, but these remained. They occupied the remotest visible
+positions--sky-backed summits rising out of rich coppice and plantation
+districts to the north, where the soil was different, and heath foreign
+and strange.
+
+Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the whole shining
+throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to that of the little
+window in the vale below. Its nearness was such that, notwithstanding
+its actual smallness, its glow infinitely transcended theirs.
+
+This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and when their
+own fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more; some even of
+the wood fires more recently lighted had reached their decline, but no
+change was perceptible here.
+
+“To be sure, how near that fire is!” said Fairway. “Seemingly. I can see
+a fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and good must be said of
+that fire, surely.”
+
+“I can throw a stone there,” said the boy.
+
+“And so can I!” said Grandfer Cantle.
+
+“No, no, you can't, my sonnies. That fire is not much less than a mile
+off, for all that 'a seems so near.”
+
+“'Tis in the heath, but no furze,” said the turf-cutter.
+
+“'Tis cleft-wood, that's what 'tis,” said Timothy Fairway. “Nothing
+would burn like that except clean timber. And 'tis on the knap afore the
+old captain's house at Mistover. Such a queer mortal as that man is! To
+have a little fire inside your own bank and ditch, that nobody else may
+enjoy it or come anigh it! And what a zany an old chap must be, to light
+a bonfire when there's no youngsters to please.”
+
+“Cap'n Vye has been for a long walk today, and is quite tired out,” said
+Grandfer Cantle, “so 'tisn't likely to be he.”
+
+“And he would hardly afford good fuel like that,” said the wide woman.
+
+“Then it must be his granddaughter,” said Fairway. “Not that a body of
+her age can want a fire much.”
+
+“She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and such
+things please her,” said Susan.
+
+“She's a well-favoured maid enough,” said Humphrey the furze-cutter,
+“especially when she's got one of her dandy gowns on.”
+
+“That's true,” said Fairway. “Well, let her bonfire burn an't will. Ours
+is well-nigh out by the look o't.”
+
+“How dark 'tis now the fire's gone down!” said Christian Cantle,
+looking behind him with his hare eyes. “Don't ye think we'd better get
+home-along, neighbours? The heth isn't haunted, I know; but we'd better
+get home.... Ah, what was that?”
+
+“Only the wind,” said the turf-cutter.
+
+“I don't think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by night except in
+towns. It should be by day in outstep, ill-accounted places like this!”
+
+“Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy, dear, you
+and I will have a jig--hey, my honey?--before 'tis quite too dark to see
+how well-favoured you be still, though so many summers have passed since
+your husband, a son of a witch, snapped you up from me.”
+
+This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of which
+the beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron's broad form
+whisking off towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled. She
+was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway's arm, which had been flung round her
+waist before she had become aware of his intention. The site of the fire
+was now merely a circle of ashes flecked with red embers and sparks, the
+furze having burnt completely away. Once within the circle he whirled
+her round and round in a dance. She was a woman noisily constructed;
+in addition to her enclosing framework of whalebone and lath, she wore
+pattens summer and winter, in wet weather and in dry, to preserve her
+boots from wear; and when Fairway began to jump about with her, the
+clicking of the pattens, the creaking of the stays, and her screams of
+surprise, formed a very audible concert.
+
+“I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!” said Mrs. Nunsuch,
+as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like
+drumsticks among the sparks. “My ankles were all in a fever before, from
+walking through that prickly furze, and now you must make 'em worse with
+these vlankers!”
+
+The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter seized old
+Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with her likewise.
+The young men were not slow to imitate the example of their elders, and
+seized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in the form of a
+three-legged object among the rest; and in half a minute all that could
+be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling of dark shapes amid a boiling
+confusion of sparks, which leapt around the dancers as high as their
+waists. The chief noises were women's shrill cries, men's laughter,
+Susan's stays and pattens, Olly Dowden's “heu-heu-heu!” and the
+strumming of the wind upon the furze-bushes, which formed a kind of tune
+to the demoniac measure they trod. Christian alone stood aloof, uneasily
+rocking himself as he murmured, “They ought not to do it--how the
+vlankers do fly! 'tis tempting the Wicked one, 'tis.”
+
+“What was that?” said one of the lads, stopping.
+
+“Ah--where?” said Christian, hastily closing up to the rest.
+
+The dancers all lessened their speed.
+
+“'Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it--down here.”
+
+“Yes--'tis behind me!” Christian said. “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
+bless the bed that I lie on; four angels guard--”
+
+“Hold your tongue. What is it?” said Fairway.
+
+“Hoi-i-i-i!” cried a voice from the darkness.
+
+“Halloo-o-o-o!” said Fairway.
+
+“Is there any cart track up across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's, of
+Blooms-End?” came to them in the same voice, as a long, slim indistinct
+figure approached the barrow.
+
+“Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as 'tis getting
+late?” said Christian. “Not run away from one another, you know; run
+close together, I mean.”
+
+“Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze, so that we can
+see who the man is,” said Fairway.
+
+When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight raiment, and red
+from top to toe. “Is there a track across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's
+house?” he repeated.
+
+“Ay--keep along the path down there.”
+
+“I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?”
+
+“Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The track is
+rough, but if you've got a light your horses may pick along wi' care.
+Have ye brought your cart far up, neighbour reddleman?”
+
+“I've left it in the bottom, about half a mile back, I stepped on in
+front to make sure of the way, as 'tis night-time, and I han't been here
+for so long.”
+
+“Oh, well you can get up,” said Fairway. “What a turn it did give me
+when I saw him!” he added to the whole group, the reddleman included.
+“Lord's sake, I thought, whatever fiery mommet is this come to trouble
+us? No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain't bad-looking in the
+groundwork, though the finish is queer. My meaning is just to say how
+curious I felt. I half thought it 'twas the devil or the red ghost the
+boy told of.”
+
+“It gied me a turn likewise,” said Susan Nunsuch, “for I had a dream
+last night of a death's head.”
+
+“Don't ye talk o't no more,” said Christian. “If he had a handkerchief
+over his head he'd look for all the world like the Devil in the picture
+of the Temptation.”
+
+“Well, thank you for telling me,” said the young reddleman, smiling
+faintly. “And good night t'ye all.”
+
+He withdrew from their sight down the barrow.
+
+“I fancy I've seen that young man's face before,” said Humphrey. “But
+where, or how, or what his name is, I don't know.”
+
+The reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when another
+person approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to be a
+well-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing which
+can only be expressed by the word genteel. Her face, encompassed by
+the blackness of the receding heath, showed whitely, and with-out
+half-lights, like a cameo.
+
+She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of the type
+usually found where perspicacity is the chief quality enthroned within.
+At moments she seemed to be regarding issues from a Nebo denied to
+others around. She had something of an estranged mien; the solitude
+exhaled from the heath was concentrated in this face that had risen from
+it. The air with which she looked at the heathmen betokened a certain
+unconcern at their presence, or at what might be their opinions of
+her for walking in that lonely spot at such an hour, thus indirectly
+implying that in some respect or other they were not up to her level.
+The explanation lay in the fact that though her husband had been a small
+farmer she herself was a curate's daughter, who had once dreamt of doing
+better things.
+
+Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their
+atmospheres along with them in their orbits; and the matron who entered
+now upon the scene could, and usually did, bring her own tone into a
+company. Her normal manner among the heathfolk had that reticence which
+results from the consciousness of superior communicative power. But
+the effect of coming into society and light after lonely wandering in
+darkness is a sociability in the comer above its usual pitch, expressed
+in the features even more than in words.
+
+“Why, 'tis Mis'ess Yeobright,” said Fairway. “Mis'ess Yeobright, not ten
+minutes ago a man was here asking for you--a reddleman.”
+
+“What did he want?” said she.
+
+“He didn't tell us.”
+
+“Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss to
+understand.”
+
+“I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home at Christmas,
+ma'am,” said Sam, the turf-cutter. “What a dog he used to be for
+bonfires!”
+
+“Yes. I believe he is coming,” she said.
+
+“He must be a fine fellow by this time,” said Fairway.
+
+“He is a man now,” she replied quietly.
+
+“'Tis very lonesome for 'ee in the heth tonight, mis'ess,” said
+Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto maintained. “Mind
+you don't get lost. Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in, and the
+winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard 'em afore. Them that
+know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times.”
+
+“Is that you, Christian?” said Mrs. Yeobright. “What made you hide away
+from me?”
+
+“'Twas that I didn't know you in this light, mis'ess; and being a man of
+the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that's all. Oftentimes if
+you could see how terrible down I get in my mind, 'twould make 'ee quite
+nervous for fear I should die by my hand.”
+
+“You don't take after your father,” said Mrs. Yeobright, looking towards
+the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of originality, was
+dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others had done before.
+
+“Now, Grandfer,” said Timothy Fairway, “we are ashamed of ye. A reverent
+old patriarch man as you be--seventy if a day--to go hornpiping like
+that by yourself!”
+
+“A harrowing old man, Mis'ess Yeobright,” said Christian despondingly.
+“I wouldn't live with him a week, so playward as he is, if I could get
+away.”
+
+“'Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome Mis'ess
+Yeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle,” said the
+besom-woman.
+
+“Faith, and so it would,” said the reveller checking himself
+repentantly. “I've such a bad memory, Mis'ess Yeobright, that I forget
+how I'm looked up to by the rest of 'em. My spirits must be wonderful
+good, you'll say? But not always. 'Tis a weight upon a man to be looked
+up to as commander, and I often feel it.”
+
+“I am sorry to stop the talk,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “But I must be
+leaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road, towards my
+niece's new home, who is returning tonight with her husband; and seeing
+the bonfire and hearing Olly's voice among the rest I came up here to
+learn what was going on. I should like her to walk with me, as her way
+is mine.”
+
+“Ay, sure, ma'am, I'm just thinking of moving,” said Olly.
+
+“Why, you'll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of,” said
+Fairway. “He's only gone back to get his van. We heard that your niece
+and her husband were coming straight home as soon as they were married,
+and we are going down there shortly, to give 'em a song o' welcome.”
+
+“Thank you indeed,” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you can go with
+long clothes; so we won't trouble you to wait.”
+
+“Very well--are you ready, Olly?”
+
+“Yes, ma'am. And there's a light shining from your niece's window, see.
+It will help to keep us in the path.”
+
+She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley which Fairway
+had pointed out; and the two women descended the tumulus.
+
+
+
+
+4--The Halt on the Turnpike Road
+
+
+Down, downward they went, and yet further down--their descent at each
+step seeming to outmeasure their advance. Their skirts were scratched
+noisily by the furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which,
+though dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winter
+weather having as yet arrived to beat them down. Their Tartarean
+situation might by some have been called an imprudent one for two
+unattended women. But these shaggy recesses were at all seasons a
+familiar surrounding to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the addition of
+darkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.
+
+“And so Tamsin has married him at last,” said Olly, when the incline
+had become so much less steep that their foot-steps no longer required
+undivided attention.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright answered slowly, “Yes; at last.”
+
+“How you will miss her--living with 'ee as a daughter, as she always
+have.”
+
+“I do miss her.”
+
+Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely,
+was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive.
+Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with
+impunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright's acquiescence in the
+revival of an evidently sore subject.
+
+“I was quite strook to hear you'd agreed to it, ma'am, that I was,”
+ continued the besom-maker.
+
+“You were not more struck by it than I should have been last year this
+time, Olly. There are a good many sides to that wedding. I could not
+tell you all of them, even if I tried.”
+
+“I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with your
+family. Keeping an inn--what is it? But 'a's clever, that's true, and
+they say he was an engineering gentleman once, but has come down by
+being too outwardly given.”
+
+“I saw that, upon the whole, it would be better she should marry where
+she wished.”
+
+“Poor little thing, her feelings got the better of her, no doubt. 'Tis
+nature. Well, they may call him what they will--he've several acres
+of heth-ground broke up here, besides the public house, and the
+heth-croppers, and his manners be quite like a gentleman's. And what's
+done cannot be undone.”
+
+“It cannot,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “See, here's the wagon-track at last.
+Now we shall get along better.”
+
+The wedding subject was no further dwelt upon; and soon a faint
+diverging path was reached, where they parted company, Olly first
+begging her companion to remind Mr. Wildeve that he had not sent
+her sick husband the bottle of wine promised on the occasion of his
+marriage. The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house,
+behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright followed the straight
+track, which further on joined the highway by the Quiet Woman Inn,
+whither she supposed her niece to have returned with Wildeve from their
+wedding at Anglebury that day.
+
+She first reached Wildeve's Patch, as it was called, a plot of land
+redeemed from the heath, and after long and laborious years brought into
+cultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilled died of
+the labour; the man who succeeded him in possession ruined himself in
+fertilizing it. Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, and received the
+honours due to those who had gone before.
+
+When Mrs. Yeobright had drawn near to the inn, and was about to enter,
+she saw a horse and vehicle some two hundred yards beyond it, coming
+towards her, a man walking alongside with a lantern in his hand. It
+was soon evident that this was the reddleman who had inquired for her.
+Instead of entering the inn at once, she walked by it and towards the
+van.
+
+The conveyance came close, and the man was about to pass her with
+little notice, when she turned to him and said, “I think you have been
+inquiring for me? I am Mrs. Yeobright of Blooms-End.”
+
+The reddleman started, and held up his finger. He stopped the horses,
+and beckoned to her to withdraw with him a few yards aside, which she
+did, wondering.
+
+“You don't know me, ma'am, I suppose?” he said.
+
+“I do not,” said she. “Why, yes, I do! You are young Venn--your father
+was a dairyman somewhere here?”
+
+“Yes; and I knew your niece, Miss Tamsin, a little. I have something bad
+to tell you.”
+
+“About her--no! She has just come home, I believe, with her husband.
+They arranged to return this afternoon--to the inn beyond here.”
+
+“She's not there.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Because she's here. She's in my van,” he added slowly.
+
+“What new trouble has come?” murmured Mrs. Yeobright, putting her hand
+over her eyes.
+
+“I can't explain much, ma'am. All I know is that, as I was going along
+the road this morning, about a mile out of Anglebury, I heard something
+trotting after me like a doe, and looking round there she was, white as
+death itself. 'Oh, Diggory Venn!' she said, 'I thought 'twas you--will
+you help me? I am in trouble.'”
+
+“How did she know your Christian name?” said Mrs. Yeobright doubtingly.
+
+“I had met her as a lad before I went away in this trade. She asked then
+if she might ride, and then down she fell in a faint. I picked her up
+and put her in, and there she has been ever since. She has cried a good
+deal, but she has hardly spoke; all she has told me being that she was
+to have been married this morning. I tried to get her to eat something,
+but she couldn't; and at last she fell asleep.”
+
+“Let me see her at once,” said Mrs. Yeobright, hastening towards the
+van.
+
+The reddleman followed with the lantern, and, stepping up first,
+assisted Mrs. Yeobright to mount beside him. On the door being opened
+she perceived at the end of the van an extemporized couch, around which
+was hung apparently all the drapery that the reddleman possessed,
+to keep the occupant of the little couch from contact with the red
+materials of his trade. A young girl lay thereon, covered with a cloak.
+She was asleep, and the light of the lantern fell upon her features.
+
+A fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed, reposing in a nest
+of wavy chestnut hair. It was between pretty and beautiful. Though her
+eyes were closed, one could easily imagine the light necessarily shining
+in them as the culmination of the luminous workmanship around. The
+groundwork of the face was hopefulness; but over it now I ay like a
+foreign substance a film of anxiety and grief. The grief had been there
+so shortly as to have abstracted nothing of the bloom, and had as yet
+but given a dignity to what it might eventually undermine. The scarlet
+of her lips had not had time to abate, and just now it appeared still
+more intense by the absence of the neighbouring and more transient
+colour of her cheek. The lips frequently parted, with a murmur of words.
+She seemed to belong rightly to a madrigal--to require viewing through
+rhyme and harmony.
+
+One thing at least was obvious: she was not made to be looked at
+thus. The reddleman had appeared conscious of as much, and, while Mrs.
+Yeobright looked in upon her, he cast his eyes aside with a delicacy
+which well became him. The sleeper apparently thought so too, for the
+next moment she opened her own.
+
+The lips then parted with something of anticipation, something more of
+doubt; and her several thoughts and fractions of thoughts, as signalled
+by the changes on her face, were exhibited by the light to the utmost
+nicety. An ingenuous, transparent life was disclosed, as if the flow of
+her existence could be seen passing within her. She understood the scene
+in a moment.
+
+“O yes, it is I, Aunt,” she cried. “I know how frightened you are, and
+how you cannot believe it; but all the same, it is I who have come home
+like this!”
+
+“Tamsin, Tamsin!” said Mrs. Yeobright, stooping over the young woman and
+kissing her. “O my dear girl!”
+
+Thomasin was now on the verge of a sob, but by an unexpected
+self-command she uttered no sound. With a gentle panting breath she sat
+upright.
+
+“I did not expect to see you in this state, any more than you me,” she
+went on quickly. “Where am I, Aunt?”
+
+“Nearly home, my dear. In Egdon Bottom. What dreadful thing is it?”
+
+“I'll tell you in a moment. So near, are we? Then I will get out and
+walk. I want to go home by the path.”
+
+“But this kind man who has done so much will, I am sure, take you
+right on to my house?” said the aunt, turning to the reddleman, who had
+withdrawn from the front of the van on the awakening of the girl, and
+stood in the road.
+
+“Why should you think it necessary to ask me? I will, of course,” said
+he.
+
+“He is indeed kind,” murmured Thomasin. “I was once acquainted with him,
+Aunt, and when I saw him today I thought I should prefer his van to any
+conveyance of a stranger. But I'll walk now. Reddleman, stop the horses,
+please.”
+
+The man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped them
+
+Aunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright saying to its
+owner, “I quite recognize you now. What made you change from the nice
+business your father left you?”
+
+“Well, I did,” he said, and looked at Thomasin, who blushed a little.
+“Then you'll not be wanting me any more tonight, ma'am?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills, at the
+perishing bonfires, and at the lighted window of the inn they had
+neared. “I think not,” she said, “since Thomasin wishes to walk. We can
+soon run up the path and reach home--we know it well.”
+
+And after a few further words they parted, the reddleman moving onwards
+with his van, and the two women remaining standing in the road. As soon
+as the vehicle and its driver had withdrawn so far as to be beyond all
+possible reach of her voice, Mrs. Yeobright turned to her niece.
+
+“Now, Thomasin,” she said sternly, “what's the meaning of this
+disgraceful performance?”
+
+
+
+
+5--Perplexity among Honest People
+
+
+Thomasin looked as if quite overcome by her aunt's change of manner.
+“It means just what it seems to mean: I am--not married,” she replied
+faintly. “Excuse me--for humiliating you, Aunt, by this mishap--I am
+sorry for it. But I cannot help it.”
+
+“Me? Think of yourself first.”
+
+“It was nobody's fault. When we got there the parson wouldn't marry us
+because of some trifling irregularity in the license.”
+
+“What irregularity?”
+
+“I don't know. Mr. Wildeve can explain. I did not think when I went away
+this morning that I should come back like this.” It being dark, Thomasin
+allowed her emotion to escape her by the silent way of tears, which
+could roll down her cheek unseen.
+
+“I could almost say that it serves you right--if I did not feel that
+you don't deserve it,” continued Mrs. Yeobright, who, possessing two
+distinct moods in close contiguity, a gentle mood and an angry, flew
+from one to the other without the least warning. “Remember, Thomasin,
+this business was none of my seeking; from the very first, when you
+began to feel foolish about that man, I warned you he would not make you
+happy. I felt it so strongly that I did what I would never have believed
+myself capable of doing--stood up in the church, and made myself the
+public talk for weeks. But having once consented, I don't submit to
+these fancies without good reason. Marry him you must after this.”
+
+“Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?” said Thomasin,
+with a heavy sigh. “I know how wrong it was of me to love him, but don't
+pain me by talking like that, Aunt! You would not have had me stay there
+with him, would you?--and your house is the only home I have to return
+to. He says we can be married in a day or two.”
+
+“I wish he had never seen you.”
+
+“Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not
+let him see me again. No, I won't have him!”
+
+“It is too late to speak so. Come with me. I am going to the inn to see
+if he has returned. Of course I shall get to the bottom of this story
+at once. Mr. Wildeve must not suppose he can play tricks upon me, or any
+belonging to me.”
+
+“It was not that. The license was wrong, and he couldn't get another the
+same day. He will tell you in a moment how it was, if he comes.”
+
+“Why didn't he bring you back?”
+
+“That was me!” again sobbed Thomasin. “When I found we could not be
+married I didn't like to come back with him, and I was very ill. Then
+I saw Diggory Venn, and was glad to get him to take me home. I cannot
+explain it any better, and you must be angry with me if you will.”
+
+“I shall see about that,” said Mrs. Yeobright; and they turned towards
+the inn, known in the neighbourhood as the Quiet Woman, the sign of
+which represented the figure of a matron carrying her head under her
+arm, beneath which gruesome design was written the couplet so well known
+to frequenters of the inn:--
+
+
+SINCE THE WOMAN'S QUIET LET NO MAN BREED A RIOT.(1)
+
+     (1) The inn which really bore this sign and legend stood
+     some miles to the northwest of the present scene, wherein
+     the house more immediately referred to is now no longer an
+     inn; and the surroundings are much changed. But another inn,
+     some of whose features are also embodied in this
+     description, the RED LION at Winfrith, still remains as a
+     haven for the wayfarer (1912).
+
+The front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose dark
+shape seemed to threaten it from the sky. Upon the door was a neglected
+brass plate, bearing the unexpected inscription, “Mr. Wildeve,
+Engineer”--a useless yet cherished relic from the time when he had been
+started in that profession in an office at Budmouth by those who had
+hoped much from him, and had been disappointed. The garden was at the
+back, and behind this ran a still deep stream, forming the margin of the
+heath in that direction, meadow-land appearing beyond the stream.
+
+But the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be visible of any
+scene at present. The water at the back of the house could be
+heard, idly spinning whirpools in its creep between the rows of dry
+feather-headed reeds which formed a stockade along each bank. Their
+presence was denoted by sounds as of a congregation praying humbly,
+produced by their rubbing against each other in the slow wind.
+
+The window, whence the candlelight had shone up the vale to the eyes
+of the bonfire group, was uncurtained, but the sill lay too high for a
+pedestrian on the outside to look over it into the room. A vast shadow,
+in which could be dimly traced portions of a masculine contour, blotted
+half the ceiling.
+
+“He seems to be at home,” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Must I come in, too, Aunt?” asked Thomasin faintly. “I suppose not; it
+would be wrong.”
+
+“You must come, certainly--to confront him, so that he may make no false
+representations to me. We shall not be five minutes in the house, and
+then we'll walk home.”
+
+Entering the open passage, she tapped at the door of the private
+parlour, unfastened it, and looked in.
+
+The back and shoulders of a man came between Mrs. Yeobright's eyes and
+the fire. Wildeve, whose form it was, immediately turned, arose, and
+advanced to meet his visitors.
+
+He was quite a young man, and of the two properties, form and motion,
+the latter first attracted the eye in him. The grace of his movement
+was singular--it was the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing career.
+Next came into notice the more material qualities, among which was a
+profuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face, lending to his
+forehead the high-cornered outline of an early Gothic shield; and a neck
+which was smooth and round as a cylinder. The lower half of his figure
+was of light build. Altogether he was one in whom no man would have seen
+anything to admire, and in whom no woman would have seen anything to
+dislike.
+
+He discerned the young girl's form in the passage, and said, “Thomasin,
+then, has reached home. How could you leave me in that way, darling?”
+ And turning to Mrs. Yeobright--“It was useless to argue with her. She
+would go, and go alone.”
+
+“But what's the meaning of it all?” demanded Mrs. Yeobright haughtily.
+
+“Take a seat,” said Wildeve, placing chairs for the two women. “Well,
+it was a very stupid mistake, but such mistakes will happen. The license
+was useless at Anglebury. It was made out for Budmouth, but as I didn't
+read it I wasn't aware of that.”
+
+“But you had been staying at Anglebury?”
+
+“No. I had been at Budmouth--till two days ago--and that was where I
+had intended to take her; but when I came to fetch her we decided upon
+Anglebury, forgetting that a new license would be necessary. There was
+not time to get to Budmouth afterwards.”
+
+“I think you are very much to blame,” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“It was quite my fault we chose Anglebury,” Thomasin pleaded. “I
+proposed it because I was not known there.”
+
+“I know so well that I am to blame that you need not remind me of it,”
+ replied Wildeve shortly.
+
+“Such things don't happen for nothing,” said the aunt. “It is a great
+slight to me and my family; and when it gets known there will be a
+very unpleasant time for us. How can she look her friends in the face
+tomorrow? It is a very great injury, and one I cannot easily forgive. It
+may even reflect on her character.”
+
+“Nonsense,” said Wildeve.
+
+Thomasin's large eyes had flown from the face of one to the face of
+the other during this discussion, and she now said anxiously, “Will you
+allow me, Aunt, to talk it over alone with Damon for five minutes? Will
+you, Damon?”
+
+“Certainly, dear,” said Wildeve, “if your aunt will excuse us.” He led
+her into an adjoining room, leaving Mrs. Yeobright by the fire.
+
+As soon as they were alone, and the door closed, Thomasin said, turning
+up her pale, tearful face to him, “It is killing me, this, Damon! I did
+not mean to part from you in anger at Anglebury this morning; but I was
+frightened and hardly knew what I said. I've not let Aunt know how much
+I suffered today; and it is so hard to command my face and voice, and to
+smile as if it were a slight thing to me; but I try to do so, that she
+may not be still more indignant with you. I know you could not help it,
+dear, whatever Aunt may think.”
+
+“She is very unpleasant.”
+
+“Yes,” Thomasin murmured, “and I suppose I seem so now.... Damon, what do
+you mean to do about me?”
+
+“Do about you?”
+
+“Yes. Those who don't like you whisper things which at moments make me
+doubt you. We mean to marry, I suppose, don't we?”
+
+“Of course we do. We have only to go to Budmouth on Monday, and we marry
+at once.”
+
+“Then do let us go!--O Damon, what you make me say!” She hid her face in
+her handkerchief. “Here am I asking you to marry me, when by rights
+you ought to be on your knees imploring me, your cruel mistress, not
+to refuse you, and saying it would break your heart if I did. I used to
+think it would be pretty and sweet like that; but how different!”
+
+“Yes, real life is never at all like that.”
+
+“But I don't care personally if it never takes place,” she added with a
+little dignity; “no, I can live without you. It is Aunt I think of. She
+is so proud, and thinks so much of her family respectability, that she
+will be cut down with mortification if this story should get abroad
+before--it is done. My cousin Clym, too, will be much wounded.”
+
+“Then he will be very unreasonable. In fact, you are all rather
+unreasonable.”
+
+Thomasin coloured a little, and not with love. But whatever the
+momentary feeling which caused that flush in her, it went as it came,
+and she humbly said, “I never mean to be, if I can help it. I merely
+feel that you have my aunt to some extent in your power at last.”
+
+“As a matter of justice it is almost due to me,” said Wildeve. “Think
+what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is to
+any man to have the banns forbidden--the double insult to a man unlucky
+enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven
+knows what, as I am. I can never forget those banns. A harsher man would
+rejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your aunt by going no
+further in the business.”
+
+She looked wistfully at him with her sorrowful eyes as he said those
+words, and her aspect showed that more than one person in the room could
+deplore the possession of sensitiveness. Seeing that she was really
+suffering he seemed disturbed and added, “This is merely a reflection
+you know. I have not the least intention to refuse to complete the
+marriage, Tamsie mine--I could not bear it.”
+
+“You could not, I know!” said the fair girl, brightening. “You, who
+cannot bear the sight of pain in even an insect, or any disagreeable
+sound, or unpleasant smell even, will not long cause pain to me and
+mine.”
+
+“I will not, if I can help it.”
+
+“Your hand upon it, Damon.”
+
+He carelessly gave her his hand.
+
+“Ah, by my crown, what's that?” he said suddenly.
+
+There fell upon their ears the sound of numerous voices singing in
+front of the house. Among these, two made themselves prominent by their
+peculiarity: one was a very strong bass, the other a wheezy thin piping.
+Thomasin recognized them as belonging to Timothy Fairway and Grandfer
+Cantle respectively.
+
+“What does it mean--it is not skimmity-riding, I hope?” she said, with a
+frightened gaze at Wildeve.
+
+“Of course not; no, it is that the heath-folk have come to sing to us
+a welcome. This is intolerable!” He began pacing about, the men outside
+singing cheerily--
+
+
+“He told' her that she' was the joy' of his life', And if' she'd
+con-sent' he would make her his wife'; She could' not refuse' him;
+to church' so they went', Young Will was forgot', and young Sue' was
+content'; And then' was she kiss'd' and set down' on his knee', No man'
+in the world' was so lov'-ing as he'!”
+
+
+Mrs. Yeobright burst in from the outer room. “Thomasin, Thomasin!” she
+said, looking indignantly at Wildeve; “here's a pretty exposure! Let us
+escape at once. Come!”
+
+It was, however, too late to get away by the passage. A rugged knocking
+had begun upon the door of the front room. Wildeve, who had gone to the
+window, came back.
+
+“Stop!” he said imperiously, putting his hand upon Mrs. Yeobright's arm.
+“We are regularly besieged. There are fifty of them out there if there's
+one. You stay in this room with Thomasin; I'll go out and face them. You
+must stay now, for my sake, till they are gone, so that it may seem as
+if all was right. Come, Tamsie dear, don't go making a scene--we must
+marry after this; that you can see as well as I. Sit still, that's
+all--and don't speak much. I'll manage them. Blundering fools!”
+
+He pressed the agitated girl into a seat, returned to the outer room and
+opened the door. Immediately outside, in the passage, appeared Grandfer
+Cantle singing in concert with those still standing in front of the
+house. He came into the room and nodded abstractedly to Wildeve, his
+lips still parted, and his features excruciatingly strained in the
+emission of the chorus. This being ended, he said heartily, “Here's
+welcome to the new-made couple, and God bless 'em!”
+
+“Thank you,” said Wildeve, with dry resentment, his face as gloomy as a
+thunderstorm.
+
+At the Grandfer's heels now came the rest of the group, which included
+Fairway, Christian, Sam the turf-cutter, Humphrey, and a dozen others.
+All smiled upon Wildeve, and upon his tables and chairs likewise, from
+a general sense of friendliness towards the articles as well as towards
+their owner.
+
+“We be not here afore Mrs. Yeobright after all,” said Fairway,
+recognizing the matron's bonnet through the glass partition which
+divided the public apartment they had entered from the room where the
+women sat. “We struck down across, d'ye see, Mr. Wildeve, and she went
+round by the path.”
+
+“And I see the young bride's little head!” said Grandfer, peeping in the
+same direction, and discerning Thomasin, who was waiting beside her aunt
+in a miserable and awkward way. “Not quite settled in yet--well, well,
+there's plenty of time.”
+
+Wildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner he treated
+them the sooner they would go, he produced a stone jar, which threw a
+warm halo over matters at once.
+
+“That's a drop of the right sort, I can see,” said Grandfer Cantle, with
+the air of a man too well-mannered to show any hurry to taste it.
+
+“Yes,” said Wildeve, “'tis some old mead. I hope you will like it.”
+
+“O ay!” replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural when the words
+demanded by politeness coincide with those of deepest feeling. “There
+isn't a prettier drink under the sun.”
+
+“I'll take my oath there isn't,” added Grandfer Cantle. “All that can be
+said against mead is that 'tis rather heady, and apt to lie about a man
+a good while. But tomorrow's Sunday, thank God.”
+
+“I feel'd for all the world like some bold soldier after I had had some
+once,” said Christian.
+
+“You shall feel so again,” said Wildeve, with condescension, “Cups or
+glasses, gentlemen?”
+
+“Well, if you don't mind, we'll have the beaker, and pass 'en round;
+'tis better than heling it out in dribbles.”
+
+“Jown the slippery glasses,” said Grandfer Cantle. “What's the good of
+a thing that you can't put down in the ashes to warm, hey, neighbours;
+that's what I ask?”
+
+“Right, Grandfer,” said Sam; and the mead then circulated.
+
+“Well,” said Timothy Fairway, feeling demands upon his praise in some
+form or other, “'tis a worthy thing to be married, Mr. Wildeve; and the
+woman you've got is a dimant, so says I. Yes,” he continued, to Grandfer
+Cantle, raising his voice so as to be heard through the partition, “her
+father (inclining his head towards the inner room) was as good a
+feller as ever lived. He always had his great indignation ready against
+anything underhand.”
+
+“Is that very dangerous?” said Christian.
+
+“And there were few in these parts that were upsides with him,” said
+Sam. “Whenever a club walked he'd play the clarinet in the band that
+marched before 'em as if he'd never touched anything but a clarinet all
+his life. And then, when they got to church door he'd throw down the
+clarinet, mount the gallery, snatch up the bass viol, and rozum away as
+if he'd never played anything but a bass viol. Folk would say--folk that
+knowed what a true stave was--'Surely, surely that's never the same man
+that I saw handling the clarinet so masterly by now!”
+
+“I can mind it,” said the furze-cutter. “'Twas a wonderful thing that
+one body could hold it all and never mix the fingering.”
+
+“There was Kingsbere church likewise,” Fairway recommenced, as one
+opening a new vein of the same mine of interest.
+
+Wildeve breathed the breath of one intolerably bored, and glanced
+through the partition at the prisoners.
+
+“He used to walk over there of a Sunday afternoon to visit his old
+acquaintance Andrew Brown, the first clarinet there; a good man enough,
+but rather screechy in his music, if you can mind?”
+
+“'A was.”
+
+“And neighbour Yeobright would take Andrey's place for some part of
+the service, to let Andrey have a bit of a nap, as any friend would
+naturally do.”
+
+“As any friend would,” said Grandfer Cantle, the other listeners
+expressing the same accord by the shorter way of nodding their heads.
+
+“No sooner was Andrey asleep and the first whiff of neighbour
+Yeobright's wind had got inside Andrey's clarinet than everyone in
+church feeled in a moment there was a great soul among 'em. All heads
+would turn, and they'd say, 'Ah, I thought 'twas he!' One Sunday I can
+well mind--a bass viol day that time, and Yeobright had brought his own.
+'Twas the Hundred-and-thirty-third to 'Lydia'; and when they'd come
+to 'Ran down his beard and o'er his robes its costly moisture shed,'
+neighbour Yeobright, who had just warmed to his work, drove his bow into
+them strings that glorious grand that he e'en a'most sawed the bass
+viol into two pieces. Every winder in church rattled as if 'twere a
+thunderstorm. Old Pa'son Williams lifted his hands in his great holy
+surplice as natural as if he'd been in common clothes, and seemed to say
+hisself, 'O for such a man in our parish!' But not a soul in Kingsbere
+could hold a candle to Yeobright.”
+
+“Was it quite safe when the winder shook?” Christian inquired.
+
+He received no answer, all for the moment sitting rapt in admiration
+of the performance described. As with Farinelli's singing before the
+princesses, Sheridan's renowned Begum Speech, and other such examples,
+the fortunate condition of its being for ever lost to the world invested
+the deceased Mr. Yeobright's tour de force on that memorable afternoon
+with a cumulative glory which comparative criticism, had that been
+possible, might considerably have shorn down.
+
+“He was the last you'd have expected to drop off in the prime of life,”
+ said Humphrey.
+
+“Ah, well; he was looking for the earth some months afore he went. At
+that time women used to run for smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill
+Fair, and my wife that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid,
+hardly husband-high, went with the rest of the maidens, for 'a was a
+good, runner afore she got so heavy. When she came home I said--we were
+then just beginning to walk together--'What have ye got, my honey?'
+'I've won--well, I've won--a gown-piece,' says she, her colours coming
+up in a moment. 'Tis a smock for a crown, I thought; and so it turned
+out. Ay, when I think what she'll say to me now without a mossel of red
+in her face, it do seem strange that 'a wouldn't say such a little thing
+then.... However, then she went on, and that's what made me bring up the
+story. Well, whatever clothes I've won, white or figured, for eyes to
+see or for eyes not to see' ['a could do a pretty stroke of modesty in
+those days), 'I'd sooner have lost it than have seen what I have. Poor
+Mr. Yeobright was took bad directly he reached the fair ground, and was
+forced to go home again.' That was the last time he ever went out of the
+parish.”
+
+“'A faltered on from one day to another, and then we heard he was gone.”
+
+“D'ye think he had great pain when 'a died?” said Christian.
+
+“O no--quite different. Nor any pain of mind. He was lucky enough to be
+God A'mighty's own man.”
+
+“And other folk--d'ye think 'twill be much pain to 'em, Mister Fairway?”
+
+“That depends on whether they be afeard.”
+
+“I bain't afeard at all, I thank God!” said Christian strenuously. “I'm
+glad I bain't, for then 'twon't pain me.... I don't think I be afeard--or
+if I be I can't help it, and I don't deserve to suffer. I wish I was not
+afeard at all!”
+
+There was a solemn silence, and looking from the window, which was
+unshuttered and unblinded, Timothy said, “Well, what a fess little
+bonfire that one is, out by Cap'n Vye's! 'Tis burning just the same now
+as ever, upon my life.”
+
+All glances went through the window, and nobody noticed that Wildeve
+disguised a brief, telltale look. Far away up the sombre valley of
+heath, and to the right of Rainbarrow, could indeed be seen the light,
+small, but steady and persistent as before.
+
+“It was lighted before ours was,” Fairway continued; “and yet every one
+in the country round is out afore 'n.”
+
+“Perhaps there's meaning in it!” murmured Christian.
+
+“How meaning?” said Wildeve sharply.
+
+Christian was too scattered to reply, and Timothy helped him.
+
+“He means, sir, that the lonesome dark-eyed creature up there that some
+say is a witch--ever I should call a fine young woman such a name--is
+always up to some odd conceit or other; and so perhaps 'tis she.”
+
+“I'd be very glad to ask her in wedlock, if she'd hae me and take
+the risk of her wild dark eyes ill-wishing me,” said Grandfer Cantle
+staunchly.
+
+“Don't ye say it, Father!” implored Christian.
+
+“Well, be dazed if he who do marry the maid won't hae an uncommon
+picture for his best parlour,” said Fairway in a liquid tone, placing
+down the cup of mead at the end of a good pull.
+
+“And a partner as deep as the North Star,” said Sam, taking up the cup
+and finishing the little that remained. “Well, really, now I think we
+must be moving,” said Humphrey, observing the emptiness of the vessel.
+
+“But we'll gie 'em another song?” said Grandfer Cantle. “I'm as full of
+notes as a bird!”
+
+“Thank you, Grandfer,” said Wildeve. “But we will not trouble you now.
+Some other day must do for that--when I have a party.”
+
+“Be jown'd if I don't learn ten new songs for't, or I won't learn a
+line!” said Grandfer Cantle. “And you may be sure I won't disappoint ye
+by biding away, Mr. Wildeve.”
+
+“I quite believe you,” said that gentleman.
+
+All then took their leave, wishing their entertainer long life and
+happiness as a married man, with recapitulations which occupied some
+time. Wildeve attended them to the door, beyond which the deep-dyed
+upward stretch of heath stood awaiting them, an amplitude of darkness
+reigning from their feet almost to the zenith, where a definite form
+first became visible in the lowering forehead of Rainbarrow. Diving
+into the dense obscurity in a line headed by Sam the turf-cutter, they
+pursued their trackless way home.
+
+When the scratching of the furze against their leggings had fainted upon
+the ear, Wildeve returned to the room where he had left Thomasin and her
+aunt. The women were gone.
+
+They could only have left the house in one way, by the back window; and
+this was open.
+
+Wildeve laughed to himself, remained a moment thinking, and idly
+returned to the front room. Here his glance fell upon a bottle of wine
+which stood on the mantelpiece. “Ah--old Dowden!” he murmured; and going
+to the kitchen door shouted, “Is anybody here who can take something to
+old Dowden?”
+
+There was no reply. The room was empty, the lad who acted as his
+factotum having gone to bed. Wildeve came back put on his hat, took the
+bottle, and left the house, turning the key in the door, for there was
+no guest at the inn tonight. As soon as he was on the road the little
+bonfire on Mistover Knap again met his eye.
+
+“Still waiting, are you, my lady?” he murmured.
+
+However, he did not proceed that way just then; but leaving the hill to
+the left of him, he stumbled over a rutted road that brought him to a
+cottage which, like all other habitations on the heath at this hour, was
+only saved from being visible by a faint shine from its bedroom window.
+This house was the home of Olly Dowden, the besom-maker, and he entered.
+
+The lower room was in darkness; but by feeling his way he found a table,
+whereon he placed the bottle, and a minute later emerged again upon the
+heath. He stood and looked northeast at the undying little fire--high up
+above him, though not so high as Rainbarrow.
+
+We have been told what happens when a woman deliberates; and the epigram
+is not always terminable with woman, provided that one be in the case,
+and that a fair one. Wildeve stood, and stood longer, and breathed
+perplexedly, and then said to himself with resignation, “Yes--by Heaven,
+I must go to her, I suppose!”
+
+Instead of turning in the direction of home he pressed on rapidly by a
+path under Rainbarrow towards what was evidently a signal light.
+
+
+
+
+6--The Figure against the Sky
+
+
+When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to its
+accustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached the
+barrow from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay. Had
+the reddleman been watching he might have recognized her as the woman
+who had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the approach
+of strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top, where the red
+coals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes in the corpse
+of day. There she stood still around her stretching the vast night
+atmosphere, whose incomplete darkness in comparison with the total
+darkness of the heath below it might have represented a venial beside a
+mortal sin.
+
+That she was tall and straight in build, that she was lady-like in her
+movements, was all that could be learnt of her just now, her form being
+wrapped in a shawl folded in the old cornerwise fashion, and her head in
+a large kerchief, a protection not superfluous at this hour and place.
+Her back was towards the wind, which blew from the northwest; but
+whether she had avoided that aspect because of the chilly gusts which
+played about her exceptional position, or because her interest lay in
+the southeast, did not at first appear.
+
+Her reason for standing so dead still as the pivot of this circle
+of heath-country was just as obscure. Her extraordinary fixity, her
+conspicuous loneliness, her heedlessness of night, betokened among other
+things an utter absence of fear. A tract of country unaltered from that
+sinister condition which made Caesar anxious every year to get clear of
+its glooms before the autumnal equinox, a kind of landscape and weather
+which leads travellers from the South to describe our island as Homer's
+Cimmerian land, was not, on the face of it, friendly to women.
+
+It might reasonably have been supposed that she was listening to the
+wind, which rose somewhat as the night advanced, and laid hold of the
+attention. The wind, indeed, seemed made for the scene, as the scene
+seemed made for the hour. Part of its tone was quite special; what was
+heard there could be heard nowhere else. Gusts in innumerable series
+followed each other from the northwest, and when each one of them raced
+past the sound of its progress resolved into three. Treble, tenor, and
+bass notes were to be found therein. The general ricochet of the whole
+over pits and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. Next there
+could be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in force,
+above them in pitch, a dwindled voice strove hard at a husky tune, which
+was the peculiar local sound alluded to. Thinner and less immediately
+traceable than the other two, it was far more impressive than either. In
+it lay what may be called the linguistic peculiarity of the heath; and
+being audible nowhere on earth off a heath, it afforded a shadow of
+reason for the woman's tenseness, which continued as unbroken as ever.
+
+Throughout the blowing of these plaintive November winds that note
+bore a great resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain to the
+throat of fourscore and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and
+it brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, the
+material minutiae in which it originated could be realized as by touch.
+It was the united products of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these
+were neither stems, leaves, fruit, blades, prickles, lichen, nor moss.
+
+They were the mummied heathbells of the past summer, originally tender
+and purple, now washed colourless by Michaelmas rains, and dried to dead
+skins by October suns. So low was an individual sound from these that a
+combination of hundreds only just emerged from silence, and the myriads
+of the whole declivity reached the woman's ear but as a shrivelled and
+intermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent among the many
+afloat tonight could have such power to impress a listener with
+thoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the infinity of those combined
+multitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny trumpets was seized on
+entered, scoured and emerged from by the wind as thoroughly as if it
+were as vast as a crater.
+
+“The spirit moved them.” A meaning of the phrase forced itself upon the
+attention; and an emotional listener's fetichistic mood might have
+ended in one of more advanced quality. It was not, after all, that the
+left-hand expanse of old blooms spoke, or the right-hand, or those
+of the slope in front; but it was the single person of something else
+speaking through each at once.
+
+Suddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild rhetoric
+of night a sound which modulated so naturally into the rest that its
+beginning and ending were hardly to be distinguished. The bluffs, and
+the bushes, and the heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so did
+the woman; and her articulation was but as another phrase of the same
+discourse as theirs. Thrown out on the winds it became twined in with
+them, and with them it flew away.
+
+What she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at something
+in her mind which had led to her presence here. There was a spasmodic
+abandonment about it as if, in allowing herself to utter the sound the
+woman's brain had authorized what it could not regulate. One point was
+evident in this; that she had been existing in a suppressed state, and
+not in one of languor, or stagnation.
+
+Far away down the valley the faint shine from the window of the inn
+still lasted on; and a few additional moments proved that the window, or
+what was within it, had more to do with the woman's sigh than had either
+her own actions or the scene immediately around. She lifted her left
+hand, which held a closed telescope. This she rapidly extended, as if
+she were well accustomed to the operation, and raising it to her eye
+directed it towards the light beaming from the inn.
+
+The handkerchief which had hooded her head was now a little thrown back,
+her face being somewhat elevated. A profile was visible against the dull
+monochrome of cloud around her; and it was as though side shadows from
+the features of Sappho and Mrs. Siddons had converged upwards from the
+tomb to form an image like neither but suggesting both. This, however,
+was mere superficiality. In respect of character a face may make certain
+admissions by its outline; but it fully confesses only in its changes.
+So much is this the case that what is called the play of the features
+often helps more in understanding a man or woman than the earnest
+labours of all the other members together. Thus the night revealed
+little of her whose form it was embracing, for the mobile parts of her
+countenance could not be seen.
+
+At last she gave up her spying attitude, closed the telescope, and
+turned to the decaying embers. From these no appreciable beams now
+radiated, except when a more than usually smart gust brushed over their
+faces and raised a fitful glow which came and went like the blush of a
+girl. She stooped over the silent circle, and selecting from the brands
+a piece of stick which bore the largest live coal at its end, brought it
+to where she had been standing before.
+
+She held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal with her mouth at
+the same time; till it faintly illuminated the sod, and revealed a small
+object, which turned out to be an hourglass, though she wore a watch.
+She blew long enough to show that the sand had all slipped through.
+
+“Ah!” she said, as if surprised.
+
+The light raised by her breath had been very fitful, and a momentary
+irradiation of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. That
+consisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being still
+enveloped. She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand, the
+telescope under her arm, and moved on.
+
+Along the ridge ran a faint foot-track, which the lady followed. Those
+who knew it well called it a path; and, while a mere visitor would have
+passed it unnoticed even by day, the regular haunters of the heath
+were at no loss for it at midnight. The whole secret of following these
+incipient paths, when there was not light enough in the atmosphere to
+show a turnpike road, lay in the development of the sense of touch in
+the feet, which comes with years of night-rambling in little-trodden
+spots. To a walker practised in such places a difference between impact
+on maiden herbage, and on the crippled stalks of a slight footway, is
+perceptible through the thickest boot or shoe.
+
+The solitary figure who walked this beat took no notice of the windy
+tune still played on the dead heathbells. She did not turn her head to
+look at a group of dark creatures further on, who fled from her presence
+as she skirted a ravine where they fed. They were about a score of the
+small wild ponies known as heath-croppers. They roamed at large on the
+undulations of Egdon, but in numbers too few to detract much from the
+solitude.
+
+The pedestrian noticed nothing just now, and a clue to her abstraction
+was afforded by a trivial incident. A bramble caught hold of her skirt,
+and checked her progress. Instead of putting it off and hastening along,
+she yielded herself up to the pull, and stood passively still. When she
+began to extricate herself it was by turning round and round, and so
+unwinding the prickly switch. She was in a desponding reverie.
+
+Her course was in the direction of the small undying fire which had
+drawn the attention of the men on Rainbarrow and of Wildeve in the
+valley below. A faint illumination from its rays began to glow upon
+her face, and the fire soon revealed itself to be lit, not on the level
+ground, but on a salient corner or redan of earth, at the junction of
+two converging bank fences. Outside was a ditch, dry except immediately
+under the fire, where there was a large pool, bearded all round by
+heather and rushes. In the smooth water of the pool the fire appeared
+upside down.
+
+The banks meeting behind were bare of a hedge, save such as was formed
+by disconnected tufts of furze, standing upon stems along the top, like
+impaled heads above a city wall. A white mast, fitted up with spars
+and other nautical tackle, could be seen rising against the dark clouds
+whenever the flames played brightly enough to reach it. Altogether the
+scene had much the appearance of a fortification upon which had been
+kindled a beacon fire.
+
+Nobody was visible; but ever and anon a whitish something moved above
+the bank from behind, and vanished again. This was a small human hand,
+in the act of lifting pieces of fuel into the fire, but for all that
+could be seen the hand, like that which troubled Belshazzar, was there
+alone. Occasionally an ember rolled off the bank, and dropped with a
+hiss into the pool.
+
+At one side of the pool rough steps built of clods enabled everyone who
+wished to do so to mount the bank; which the woman did. Within was a
+paddock in an uncultivated state, though bearing evidence of having once
+been tilled; but the heath and fern had insidiously crept in, and were
+reasserting their old supremacy. Further ahead were dimly visible an
+irregular dwelling-house, garden, and outbuildings, backed by a clump of
+firs.
+
+The young lady--for youth had revealed its presence in her buoyant bound
+up the bank--walked along the top instead of descending inside, and came
+to the corner where the fire was burning. One reason for the permanence
+of the blaze was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces of
+wood, cleft and sawn--the knotty boles of old thorn trees which grew in
+twos and threes about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed pile of these lay
+in the inner angle of the bank; and from this corner the upturned face
+of a little boy greeted her eyes. He was dilatorily throwing up a piece
+of wood into the fire every now and then, a business which seemed to
+have engaged him a considerable part of the evening, for his face was
+somewhat weary.
+
+“I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia,” he said, with a sigh of
+relief. “I don't like biding by myself.”
+
+“Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. I have been gone
+only twenty minutes.”
+
+“It seemed long,” murmured the sad boy. “And you have been so many
+times.”
+
+“Why, I thought you would be pleased to have a bonfire. Are you not much
+obliged to me for making you one?”
+
+“Yes; but there's nobody here to play wi' me.”
+
+“I suppose nobody has come while I've been away?”
+
+“Nobody except your grandfather--he looked out of doors once for 'ee.
+I told him you were walking round upon the hill to look at the other
+bonfires.”
+
+“A good boy.”
+
+“I think I hear him coming again, miss.”
+
+An old man came into the remoter light of the fire from the direction
+of the homestead. He was the same who had overtaken the reddleman on the
+road that afternoon. He looked wistfully to the top of the bank at
+the woman who stood there, and his teeth, which were quite unimpaired,
+showed like parian from his parted lips.
+
+“When are you coming indoors, Eustacia?” he asked. “'Tis almost bedtime.
+I've been home these two hours, and am tired out. Surely 'tis somewhat
+childish of you to stay out playing at bonfires so long, and wasting
+such fuel. My precious thorn roots, the rarest of all firing, that I
+laid by on purpose for Christmas--you have burnt 'em nearly all!”
+
+“I promised Johnny a bonfire, and it pleases him not to let it go out
+just yet,” said Eustacia, in a way which told at once that she was
+absolute queen here. “Grandfather, you go in to bed. I shall follow you
+soon. You like the fire, don't you, Johnny?”
+
+The boy looked up doubtfully at her and murmured, “I don't think I want
+it any longer.”
+
+Her grandfather had turned back again, and did not hear the boy's reply.
+As soon as the white-haired man had vanished she said in a tone of pique
+to the child, “Ungrateful little boy, how can you contradict me? Never
+shall you have a bonfire again unless you keep it up now. Come, tell me
+you like to do things for me, and don't deny it.”
+
+The repressed child said, “Yes, I do, miss,” and continued to stir the
+fire perfunctorily.
+
+“Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence,” said
+Eustacia, more gently. “Put in one piece of wood every two or three
+minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge a
+little longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a frog
+jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure you
+run and tell me, because it is a sign of rain.”
+
+“Yes, Eustacia.”
+
+“Miss Vye, sir.”
+
+“Miss Vy--stacia.”
+
+“That will do. Now put in one stick more.”
+
+The little slave went on feeding the fire as before. He seemed a mere
+automaton, galvanized into moving and speaking by the wayward Eustacia's
+will. He might have been the brass statue which Albertus Magnus is said
+to have animated just so far as to make it chatter, and move, and be his
+servant.
+
+Before going on her walk again the young girl stood still on the bank
+for a few instants and listened. It was to the full as lonely a place
+as Rainbarrow, though at rather a lower level; and it was more sheltered
+from wind and weather on account of the few firs to the north. The bank
+which enclosed the homestead, and protected it from the lawless state of
+the world without, was formed of thick square clods, dug from the ditch
+on the outside, and built up with a slight batter or incline, which
+forms no slight defense where hedges will not grow because of the wind
+and the wilderness, and where wall materials are unattainable. Otherwise
+the situation was quite open, commanding the whole length of the valley
+which reached to the river behind Wildeve's house. High above this to
+the right, and much nearer thitherward than the Quiet Woman Inn, the
+blurred contour of Rainbarrow obstructed the sky.
+
+After her attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow ravines a
+gesture of impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant words
+every now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden
+listenings between her sighs. Descending from her perch she again
+sauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she did not go the
+whole way.
+
+Twice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes and each time she
+said--
+
+“Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?”
+
+“No, Miss Eustacia,” the child replied.
+
+“Well,” she said at last, “I shall soon be going in, and then I will
+give you the crooked sixpence, and let you go home.”
+
+“Thank'ee, Miss Eustacia,” said the tired stoker, breathing more easily.
+And Eustacia again strolled away from the fire, but this time not
+towards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and went round to the wicket
+before the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the scene.
+
+Fifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks, with the
+fire upon it; within the bank, lifting up to the fire one stick at a
+time, just as before, the figure of the little child. She idly watched
+him as he occasionally climbed up in the nook of the bank and stood
+beside the brands. The wind blew the smoke, and the child's hair, and
+the corner of his pinafore, all in the same direction; the breeze died,
+and the pinafore and hair lay still, and the smoke went up straight.
+
+While Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy's form visibly
+started--he slid down the bank and ran across towards the white gate.
+
+“Well?” said Eustacia.
+
+“A hopfrog have jumped into the pond. Yes, I heard 'en!”
+
+“Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. You will not be
+afraid?” She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leapt into her throat
+at the boy's words.
+
+“No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence.”
+
+“Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can--not that way--through the
+garden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a bonfire as yours.”
+
+The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched away
+into the shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving her
+telescope and hourglass by the gate, brushed forward from the wicket
+towards the angle of the bank, under the fire.
+
+Here, screened by the outwork, she waited. In a few moments a splash was
+audible from the pond outside. Had the child been there he would have
+said that a second frog had jumped in; but by most people the sound
+would have been likened to the fall of a stone into the water. Eustacia
+stepped upon the bank.
+
+“Yes?” she said, and held her breath.
+
+Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against the
+low-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool.
+He came round it and leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh escaped
+her--the third utterance which the girl had indulged in tonight. The
+first, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed anxiety; the
+second, on the ridge, had expressed impatience; the present was one
+of triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes rest upon him without
+speaking, as upon some wondrous thing she had created out of chaos.
+
+“I have come,” said the man, who was Wildeve. “You give me no peace. Why
+do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the evening.”
+ The words were not without emotion, and retained their level tone as if
+by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.
+
+At this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover the girl seemed to
+repress herself also. “Of course you have seen my fire,” she answered
+with languid calmness, artificially maintained. “Why shouldn't I have a
+bonfire on the Fifth of November, like other denizens of the heath?”
+
+“I knew it was meant for me.”
+
+“How did you know it? I have had no word with you since you--you chose
+her, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely, as if I had
+never been yours life and soul so irretrievably!”
+
+“Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day of the month
+and at this same place you lighted exactly such a fire as a signal for
+me to come and see you? Why should there have been a bonfire again by
+Captain Vye's house if not for the same purpose?”
+
+“Yes, yes--I own it,” she cried under her breath, with a drowsy fervour
+of manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her. “Don't begin
+speaking to me as you did, Damon; you will drive me to say words I would
+not wish to say to you. I had given you up, and resolved not to think of
+you any more; and then I heard the news, and I came out and got the fire
+ready because I thought that you had been faithful to me.”
+
+“What have you heard to make you think that?” said Wildeve, astonished.
+
+“That you did not marry her!” she murmured exultingly. “And I knew it
+was because you loved me best, and couldn't do it.... Damon, you have
+been cruel to me to go away, and I have said I would never forgive you.
+I do not think I can forgive you entirely, even now--it is too much for
+a woman of any spirit to quite overlook.”
+
+“If I had known you wished to call me up here only to reproach me, I
+wouldn't have come.”
+
+“But I don't mind it, and I do forgive you now that you have not married
+her, and have come back to me!”
+
+“Who told you that I had not married her?”
+
+“My grandfather. He took a long walk today, and as he was coming home he
+overtook some person who told him of a broken-off wedding--he thought it
+might be yours, and I knew it was.”
+
+“Does anybody else know?”
+
+“I suppose not. Now Damon, do you see why I lit my signal fire? You did
+not think I would have lit it if I had imagined you to have become the
+husband of this woman. It is insulting my pride to suppose that.”
+
+Wildeve was silent; it was evident that he had supposed as much.
+
+“Did you indeed think I believed you were married?” she again demanded
+earnestly. “Then you wronged me; and upon my life and heart I can hardly
+bear to recognize that you have such ill thoughts of me! Damon, you are
+not worthy of me--I see it, and yet I love you. Never mind, let it go--I
+must bear your mean opinion as best I may.... It is true, is it not,” she
+added with ill-concealed anxiety, on his making no demonstration, “that
+you could not bring yourself to give me up, and are still going to love
+me best of all?”
+
+“Yes; or why should I have come?” he said touchily. “Not that
+fidelity will be any great merit in me after your kind speech about my
+unworthiness, which should have been said by myself if by anybody, and
+comes with an ill grace from you. However, the curse of inflammability
+is upon me, and I must live under it, and take any snub from a woman. It
+has brought me down from engineering to innkeeping--what lower stage it
+has in store for me I have yet to learn.” He continued to look upon her
+gloomily.
+
+She seized the moment, and throwing back the shawl so that the firelight
+shone full upon her face and throat, said with a smile, “Have you seen
+anything better than that in your travels?”
+
+Eustacia was not one to commit herself to such a position without good
+ground. He said quietly, “No.”
+
+“Not even on the shoulders of Thomasin?”
+
+“Thomasin is a pleasing and innocent woman.”
+
+“That's nothing to do with it,” she cried with quick passionateness. “We
+will leave her out; there are only you and me now to think of.” After a
+long look at him she resumed with the old quiescent warmth, “Must I go
+on weakly confessing to you things a woman ought to conceal; and
+own that no words can express how gloomy I have been because of that
+dreadful belief I held till two hours ago--that you had quite deserted
+me?”
+
+“I am sorry I caused you that pain.”
+
+“But perhaps it is not wholly because of you that I get gloomy,” she
+archly added. “It is in my nature to feel like that. It was born in my
+blood, I suppose.”
+
+“Hypochondriasis.”
+
+“Or else it was coming into this wild heath. I was happy enough at
+Budmouth. O the times, O the days at Budmouth! But Egdon will be
+brighter again now.”
+
+“I hope it will,” said Wildeve moodily. “Do you know the consequence
+of this recall to me, my old darling? I shall come to see you again as
+before, at Rainbarrow.”
+
+“Of course you will.”
+
+“And yet I declare that until I got here tonight I intended, after this
+one good-bye, never to meet you again.”
+
+“I don't thank you for that,” she said, turning away, while indignation
+spread through her like subterranean heat. “You may come again to
+Rainbarrow if you like, but you won't see me; and you may call, but I
+shall not listen; and you may tempt me, but I won't give myself to you
+any more.”
+
+“You have said as much before, sweet; but such natures as yours don't so
+easily adhere to their words. Neither, for the matter of that, do such
+natures as mine.”
+
+“This is the pleasure I have won by my trouble,” she whispered bitterly.
+“Why did I try to recall you? Damon, a strange warring takes place in my
+mind occasionally. I think when I become calm after you woundings, 'Do
+I embrace a cloud of common fog after all?' You are a chameleon, and now
+you are at your worst colour. Go home, or I shall hate you!”
+
+He looked absently towards Rainbarrow while one might have counted
+twenty, and said, as if he did not much mind all this, “Yes, I will go
+home. Do you mean to see me again?”
+
+“If you own to me that the wedding is broken off because you love me
+best.”
+
+“I don't think it would be good policy,” said Wildeve, smiling. “You
+would get to know the extent of your power too clearly.”
+
+“But tell me!”
+
+“You know.”
+
+“Where is she now?”
+
+“I don't know. I prefer not to speak of her to you. I have not yet
+married her; I have come in obedience to your call. That is enough.”
+
+“I merely lit that fire because I was dull, and thought I would get a
+little excitement by calling you up and triumphing over you as the Witch
+of Endor called up Samuel. I determined you should come; and you have
+come! I have shown my power. A mile and half hither, and a mile and
+half back again to your home--three miles in the dark for me. Have I not
+shown my power?”
+
+He shook his head at her. “I know you too well, my Eustacia; I know you
+too well. There isn't a note in you which I don't know; and that hot
+little bosom couldn't play such a cold-blooded trick to save its life. I
+saw a woman on Rainbarrow at dusk looking down towards my house. I think
+I drew out you before you drew out me.”
+
+The revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly in Wildeve now; and
+he leant forward as if about to put his face towards her cheek.
+
+“O no,” she said, intractably moving to the other side of the decayed
+fire. “What did you mean by that?”
+
+“Perhaps I may kiss your hand?”
+
+“No, you may not.”
+
+“Then I may shake your hand?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then I wish you good night without caring for either. Good-bye,
+good-bye.”
+
+She returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-master he
+vanished on the other side of the pool as he had come.
+
+Eustacia sighed--it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which shook
+her like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like an
+electric light upon her lover--as it sometimes would--and showed his
+imperfections, she shivered thus. But it was over in a second, and
+she loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on. She
+scattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately, and up to
+her bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles which denoted her to be
+undressing in the darkness other heavy breaths frequently came; and the
+same kind of shudder occasionally moved through her when, ten minutes
+later, she lay on her bed asleep.
+
+
+
+
+7--Queen of Night
+
+
+Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would
+have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and
+instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not
+quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to
+be entirely in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff, the
+spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world would
+have noticed the change of government. There would have been the same
+inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely
+there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas,
+the same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we endure now.
+
+She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness, as
+without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair was
+to fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form
+its shadow--it closed over her forehead like nightfall extinguishing the
+western glow.
+
+Her nerves extended into those tresses, and her temper could always
+be softened by stroking them down. When her hair was brushed she would
+instantly sink into stillness and look like the Sphinx. If, in passing
+under one of the Egdon banks, any of its thick skeins were caught,
+as they sometimes were, by a prickly tuft of the large Ulex
+Europoeus--which will act as a sort of hairbrush--she would go back a
+few steps, and pass against it a second time.
+
+She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light, as
+it came and went, and came again, was partially hampered by their
+oppressive lids and lashes; and of these the under lid was much fuller
+than it usually is with English women. This enabled her to indulge in
+reverie without seeming to do so--she might have been believed capable
+of sleeping without closing them up. Assuming that the souls of men and
+women were visible essences, you could fancy the colour of Eustacia's
+soul to be flamelike. The sparks from it that rose into her dark pupils
+gave the same impression.
+
+The mouth seemed formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiver
+than to kiss. Some might have added, less to kiss than to curl. Viewed
+sideways, the closing-line of her lips formed, with almost geometric
+precision, the curve so well known in the arts of design as the
+cima-recta, or ogee. The sight of such a flexible bend as that on grim
+Egdon was quite an apparition. It was felt at once that the mouth did
+not come over from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates whose lips met
+like the two halves of a muffin. One had fancied that such lip-curves
+were mostly lurking underground in the South as fragments of forgotten
+marbles. So fine were the lines of her lips that, though full, each
+corner of her mouth was as clearly cut as the point of a spear. This
+keenness of corner was only blunted when she was given over to sudden
+fits of gloom, one of the phases of the night-side of sentiment which
+she knew too well for her years.
+
+Her presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon roses, rubies,
+and tropical midnight; her moods recalled lotus-eaters and the march in
+Athalie; her motions, the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, the viola.
+In a dim light, and with a slight rearrangement of her hair, her general
+figure might have stood for that of either of the higher female deities.
+The new moon behind her head, an old helmet upon it, a diadem of
+accidental dewdrops round her brow, would have been adjuncts sufficient
+to strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or Hera respectively, with as
+close an approximation to the antique as that which passes muster on
+many respected canvases.
+
+But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be
+somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, and the
+consciousness of this limitation had biassed her development. Egdon was
+her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark
+in its tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciled thereto. Her
+appearance accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness, and
+the shady splendour of her beauty was the real surface of the sad and
+stifled warmth within her. A true Tartarean dignity sat upon her brow,
+and not factitiously or with marks of constraint, for it had grown in
+her with years.
+
+Across the upper part of her head she wore a thin fillet of black
+velvet, restraining the luxuriance of her shady hair, in a way which
+added much to this class of majesty by irregularly clouding her
+forehead. “Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow
+band drawn over the brow,” says Richter. Some of the neighbouring
+girls wore coloured ribbon for the same purpose, and sported metallic
+ornaments elsewhere; but if anyone suggested coloured ribbon and
+metallic ornaments to Eustacia Vye she laughed and went on.
+
+Why did a woman of this sort live on Egdon Heath? Budmouth was her
+native place, a fashionable seaside resort at that date. She was the
+daughter of the bandmaster of a regiment which had been quartered
+there--a Corfiote by birth, and a fine musician--who met his future
+wife during her trip thither with her father the captain, a man of good
+family. The marriage was scarcely in accord with the old man's wishes,
+for the bandmaster's pockets were as light as his occupation. But the
+musician did his best; adopted his wife's name, made England permanently
+his home, took great trouble with his child's education, the expenses
+of which were defrayed by the grandfather, and throve as the chief local
+musician till her mother's death, when he left off thriving, drank, and
+died also. The girl was left to the care of her grandfather, who, since
+three of his ribs became broken in a shipwreck, had lived in this airy
+perch on Egdon, a spot which had taken his fancy because the house was
+to be had for next to nothing, and because a remote blue tinge on
+the horizon between the hills, visible from the cottage door, was
+traditionally believed to be the English Channel. She hated the change;
+she felt like one banished; but here she was forced to abide.
+
+Thus it happened that in Eustacia's brain were juxtaposed the strangest
+assortment of ideas, from old time and from new. There was no middle
+distance in her perspective--romantic recollections of sunny afternoons
+on an esplanade, with military bands, officers, and gallants around,
+stood like gilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding Egdon.
+Every bizarre effect that could result from the random intertwining of
+watering-place glitter with the grand solemnity of a heath, was to be
+found in her. Seeing nothing of human life now, she imagined all the
+more of what she had seen.
+
+Where did her dignity come from? By a latent vein from Alcinous' line,
+her father hailing from Phaeacia's isle?--or from Fitzalan and De Vere,
+her maternal grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage? Perhaps it
+was the gift of Heaven--a happy convergence of natural laws. Among other
+things opportunity had of late years been denied her of learning to
+be undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation on a heath renders
+vulgarity well-nigh impossible. It would have been as easy for the
+heath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her. A narrow life in
+Budmouth might have completely demeaned her.
+
+The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over
+is to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a triumph.
+In the captain's cottage she could suggest mansions she had never seen.
+Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion than any of
+them, the open hills. Like the summer condition of the place around her,
+she was an embodiment of the phrase “a populous solitude”--apparently so
+listless, void, and quiet, she was really busy and full.
+
+To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her the
+one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.
+And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more
+than for any particular lover.
+
+She could show a most reproachful look at times, but it was directed
+less against human beings than against certain creatures of her mind,
+the chief of these being Destiny, through whose interference she dimly
+fancied it arose that love alighted only on gliding youth--that any love
+she might win would sink simultaneously with the sand in the glass.
+She thought of it with an ever-growing consciousness of cruelty, which
+tended to breed actions of reckless unconventionality, framed to snatch
+a year's, a week's, even an hour's passion from anywhere while it could
+be won. Through want of it she had sung without being merry, possessed
+without enjoying, outshone without triumphing. Her loneliness deepened
+her desire. On Egdon, coldest and meanest kisses were at famine prices,
+and where was a mouth matching hers to be found?
+
+Fidelity in love for fidelity's sake had less attraction for her than
+for most women; fidelity because of love's grip had much. A blaze of
+love, and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same
+which should last long years. On this head she knew by prevision what
+most women learn only by experience--she had mentally walked round love,
+told the towers thereof, considered its palaces, and concluded that love
+was but a doleful joy. Yet she desired it, as one in a desert would be
+thankful for brackish water.
+
+She often repeated her prayers; not at particular times, but, like the
+unaffectedly devout, when she desired to pray. Her prayer was always
+spontaneous, and often ran thus, “O deliver my heart from this fearful
+gloom and loneliness; send me great love from somewhere, else I shall
+die.”
+
+Her high gods were William the Conqueror, Strafford, and Napoleon
+Buonaparte, as they had appeared in the Lady's History used at the
+establishment in which she was educated. Had she been a mother she would
+have christened her boys such names as Saul or Sisera in preference to
+Jacob or David, neither of whom she admired. At school she had used
+to side with the Philistines in several battles, and had wondered if
+Pontius Pilate were as handsome as he was frank and fair.
+
+Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed, weighed in
+relation to her situation among the very rearward of thinkers, very
+original. Her instincts towards social non-comformity were at the root
+of this. In the matter of holidays, her mood was that of horses who,
+when turned out to grass, enjoy looking upon their kind at work on the
+highway. She only valued rest to herself when it came in the midst of
+other people's labour. Hence she hated Sundays when all was at rest, and
+often said they would be the death of her. To see the heathmen in their
+Sunday condition, that is, with their hands in their pockets, their
+boots newly oiled, and not laced up (a particularly Sunday sign),
+walking leisurely among the turves and furze-faggots they had cut during
+the week, and kicking them critically as if their use were unknown, was
+a fearful heaviness to her. To relieve the tedium of this untimely day
+she would overhaul the cupboards containing her grandfather's old charts
+and other rubbish, humming Saturday-night ballads of the country people
+the while. But on Saturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm, and
+it was always on a weekday that she read the Bible, that she might be
+unoppressed with a sense of doing her duty.
+
+Such views of life were to some extent the natural begettings of her
+situation upon her nature. To dwell on a heath without studying its
+meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue. The
+subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught its
+vapours. An environment which would have made a contented woman a poet,
+a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy
+woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.
+
+Eustacia had got beyond the vision of some marriage of inexpressible
+glory; yet, though her emotions were in full vigour, she cared for no
+meaner union. Thus we see her in a strange state of isolation. To have
+lost the godlike conceit that we may do what we will, and not to have
+acquired a homely zest for doing what we can, shows a grandeur of temper
+which cannot be objected to in the abstract, for it denotes a mind
+that, though disappointed, forswears compromise. But, if congenial to
+philosophy, it is apt to be dangerous to the commonwealth. In a world
+where doing means marrying, and the commonwealth is one of hearts and
+hands, the same peril attends the condition.
+
+And so we see our Eustacia--for at times she was not altogether
+unlovable--arriving at that stage of enlightenment which feels that
+nothing is worth while, and filling up the spare hours of her existence
+by idealizing Wildeve for want of a better object. This was the sole
+reason of his ascendency: she knew it herself. At moments her pride
+rebelled against her passion for him, and she even had longed to be
+free. But there was only one circumstance which could dislodge him, and
+that was the advent of a greater man.
+
+For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits, and took
+slow walks to recover them, in which she carried her grandfather's
+telescope and her grandmother's hourglass--the latter because of a
+peculiar pleasure she derived from watching a material representation of
+time's gradual glide away. She seldom schemed, but when she did scheme,
+her plans showed rather the comprehensive strategy of a general than the
+small arts called womanish, though she could utter oracles of Delphian
+ambiguity when she did not choose to be direct. In heaven she will
+probably sit between the Heloises and the Cleopatras.
+
+
+
+
+8--Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody
+
+
+As soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire he clasped
+the money tight in the palm of his hand, as if thereby to fortify his
+courage, and began to run. There was really little danger in allowing a
+child to go home alone on this part of Egdon Heath. The distance to
+the boy's house was not more than three-eighths of a mile, his father's
+cottage, and one other a few yards further on, forming part of the small
+hamlet of Mistover Knap: the third and only remaining house was that
+of Captain Vye and Eustacia, which stood quite away from the small
+cottages and was the loneliest of lonely houses on these thinly
+populated slopes.
+
+He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more courageous,
+walked leisurely along, singing in an old voice a little song about a
+sailor-boy and a fair one, and bright gold in store. In the middle of
+this the child stopped--from a pit under the hill ahead of him shone a
+light, whence proceeded a cloud of floating dust and a smacking noise.
+
+Only unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy. The shrivelled voice
+of the heath did not alarm him, for that was familiar. The thornbushes
+which arose in his path from time to time were less satisfactory, for
+they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit after dark of putting
+on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling giants, and hideous cripples.
+Lights were not uncommon this evening, but the nature of all of them was
+different from this. Discretion rather than terror prompted the boy
+to turn back instead of passing the light, with a view of asking Miss
+Eustacia Vye to let her servant accompany him home.
+
+When the boy had reascended to the top of the valley he found the fire
+to be still burning on the bank, though lower than before. Beside it,
+instead of Eustacia's solitary form, he saw two persons, the second
+being a man. The boy crept along under the bank to ascertain from
+the nature of the proceedings if it would be prudent to interrupt so
+splendid a creature as Miss Eustacia on his poor trivial account.
+
+After listening under the bank for some minutes to the talk he turned in
+a perplexed and doubting manner and began to withdraw as silently as
+he had come. That he did not, upon the whole, think it advisable to
+interrupt her conversation with Wildeve, without being prepared to bear
+the whole weight of her displeasure, was obvious.
+
+Here was a Scyllaeo-Charybdean position for a poor boy. Pausing when
+again safe from discovery, he finally decided to face the pit phenomenon
+as the lesser evil. With a heavy sigh he retraced the slope, and
+followed the path he had followed before.
+
+The light had gone, the rising dust had disappeared--he hoped for ever.
+He marched resolutely along, and found nothing to alarm him till, coming
+within a few yards of the sandpit, he heard a slight noise in front,
+which led him to halt. The halt was but momentary, for the noise
+resolved itself into the steady bites of two animals grazing.
+
+“Two he'th-croppers down here,” he said aloud. “I have never known 'em
+come down so far afore.”
+
+The animals were in the direct line of his path, but that the child
+thought little of; he had played round the fetlocks of horses from his
+infancy. On coming nearer, however, the boy was somewhat surprised to
+find that the little creatures did not run off, and that each wore a
+clog, to prevent his going astray; this signified that they had been
+broken in. He could now see the interior of the pit, which, being in
+the side of the hill, had a level entrance. In the innermost corner the
+square outline of a van appeared, with its back towards him. A light
+came from the interior, and threw a moving shadow upon the vertical face
+of gravel at the further side of the pit into which the vehicle faced.
+
+The child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy, and his dread of
+those wanderers reached but to that mild pitch which titillates rather
+than pains. Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and his family from
+being gipsies themselves. He skirted the gravel pit at a respectful
+distance, ascended the slope, and came forward upon the brow, in order
+to look into the open door of the van and see the original of the
+shadow.
+
+The picture alarmed the boy. By a little stove inside the van sat a
+figure red from head to heels--the man who had been Thomasin's friend.
+He was darning a stocking, which was red like the rest of him. Moreover,
+as he darned he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of which were red also.
+
+At this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the outer shadows
+was audibly shaking off the clog attached to its foot. Aroused by the
+sound, the reddleman laid down his stocking, lit a lantern which hung
+beside him, and came out from the van. In sticking up the candle he
+lifted the lantern to his face, and the light shone into the whites
+of his eyes and upon his ivory teeth, which, in contrast with the
+red surrounding, lent him a startling aspect enough to the gaze of a
+juvenile. The boy knew too well for his peace of mind upon whose lair
+he had lighted. Uglier persons than gipsies were known to cross Egdon at
+times, and a reddleman was one of them.
+
+“How I wish 'twas only a gipsy!” he murmured.
+
+The man was by this time coming back from the horses. In his fear of
+being seen the boy rendered detection certain by nervous motion. The
+heather and peat stratum overhung the brow of the pit in mats, hiding
+the actual verge. The boy had stepped beyond the solid ground; the
+heather now gave way, and down he rolled over the scarp of grey sand to
+the very foot of the man.
+
+The red man opened the lantern and turned it upon the figure of the
+prostrate boy.
+
+“Who be ye?” he said.
+
+“Johnny Nunsuch, master!”
+
+“What were you doing up there?”
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+“Watching me, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes, master.”
+
+“What did you watch me for?”
+
+“Because I was coming home from Miss Vye's bonfire.”
+
+“Beest hurt?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why, yes, you be--your hand is bleeding. Come under my tilt and let me
+tie it up.”
+
+“Please let me look for my sixpence.”
+
+“How did you come by that?”
+
+“Miss Vye gied it to me for keeping up her bonfire.”
+
+The sixpence was found, and the man went to the van, the boy behind,
+almost holding his breath.
+
+The man took a piece of rag from a satchel containing sewing materials,
+tore off a strip, which, like everything else, was tinged red, and
+proceeded to bind up the wound.
+
+“My eyes have got foggy-like--please may I sit down, master?” said the
+boy.
+
+“To be sure, poor chap. 'Tis enough to make you feel fainty. Sit on that
+bundle.”
+
+The man finished tying up the gash, and the boy said, “I think I'll go
+home now, master.”
+
+“You are rather afraid of me. Do you know what I be?”
+
+The child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down with much misgiving
+and finally said, “Yes.”
+
+“Well, what?”
+
+“The reddleman!” he faltered.
+
+“Yes, that's what I be. Though there's more than one. You little
+children think there's only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one devil,
+and one reddleman, when there's lots of us all.”
+
+“Is there? You won't carry me off in your bags, will ye, master? 'Tis
+said that the reddleman will sometimes.”
+
+“Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. You see all these bags
+at the back of my cart? They are not full of little boys--only full of
+red stuff.”
+
+“Was you born a reddleman?”
+
+“No, I took to it. I should be as white as you if I were to give up the
+trade--that is, I should be white in time--perhaps six months; not at
+first, because 'tis grow'd into my skin and won't wash out. Now, you'll
+never be afraid of a reddleman again, will ye?”
+
+“No, never. Willy Orchard said he seed a red ghost here t'other
+day--perhaps that was you?”
+
+“I was here t'other day.”
+
+“Were you making that dusty light I saw by now?”
+
+“Oh yes, I was beating out some bags. And have you had a good bonfire up
+there? I saw the light. Why did Miss Vye want a bonfire so bad that she
+should give you sixpence to keep it up?”
+
+“I don't know. I was tired, but she made me bide and keep up the fire
+just the same, while she kept going up across Rainbarrow way.”
+
+“And how long did that last?”
+
+“Until a hopfrog jumped into the pond.”
+
+The reddleman suddenly ceased to talk idly. “A hopfrog?” he inquired.
+“Hopfrogs don't jump into ponds this time of year.”
+
+“They do, for I heard one.”
+
+“Certain-sure?”
+
+“Yes. She told me afore that I should hear'n; and so I did. They say
+she's clever and deep, and perhaps she charmed 'en to come.”
+
+“And what then?”
+
+“Then I came down here, and I was afeard, and I went back; but I didn't
+like to speak to her, because of the gentleman, and I came on here
+again.”
+
+“A gentleman--ah! What did she say to him, my man?”
+
+“Told him she supposed he had not married the other woman because he
+liked his old sweetheart best; and things like that.”
+
+“What did the gentleman say to her, my sonny?”
+
+“He only said he did like her best, and how he was coming to see her
+again under Rainbarrow o' nights.”
+
+“Ha!” cried the reddleman, slapping his hand against the side of his van
+so that the whole fabric shook under the blow. “That's the secret o't!”
+
+The little boy jumped clean from the stool.
+
+“My man, don't you be afraid,” said the dealer in red, suddenly becoming
+gentle. “I forgot you were here. That's only a curious way reddlemen
+have of going mad for a moment; but they don't hurt anybody. And what
+did the lady say then?”
+
+“I can't mind. Please, Master Reddleman, may I go home-along now?”
+
+“Ay, to be sure you may. I'll go a bit of ways with you.”
+
+He conducted the boy out of the gravel pit and into the path leading
+to his mother's cottage. When the little figure had vanished in the
+darkness the reddleman returned, resumed his seat by the fire, and
+proceeded to darn again.
+
+
+
+
+9--Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
+
+
+Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. Since the
+introduction of railways Wessex farmers have managed to do without these
+Mephistophelian visitants, and the bright pigment so largely used by
+shepherds in preparing sheep for the fair is obtained by other routes.
+Even those who yet survive are losing the poetry of existence which
+characterized them when the pursuit of the trade meant periodical
+journeys to the pit whence the material was dug, a regular camping out
+from month to month, except in the depth of winter, a peregrination
+among farms which could be counted by the hundred, and in spite of this
+Arab existence the preservation of that respectability which is insured
+by the never-failing production of a well-lined purse.
+
+Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on, and stamps
+unmistakably, as with the mark of Cain, any person who has handled it
+half an hour.
+
+A child's first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in his life. That
+blood-coloured figure was a sublimation of all the horrid dreams
+which had afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began. “The
+reddleman is coming for you!” had been the formulated threat of Wessex
+mothers for many generations. He was successfully supplanted for a
+while, at the beginning of the present century, by Buonaparte; but as
+process of time rendered the latter personage stale and ineffective the
+older phrase resumed its early prominence. And now the reddleman has
+in his turn followed Buonaparte to the land of worn-out bogeys, and his
+place is filled by modern inventions.
+
+The reddleman lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. He was about
+as thriving as travelling basket and mat makers; but he had nothing
+to do with them. He was more decently born and brought up than the
+cattledrovers who passed and repassed him in his wanderings; but they
+merely nodded to him. His stock was more valuable than that of pedlars;
+but they did not think so, and passed his cart with eyes straight ahead.
+He was such an unnatural colour to look at that the men of roundabouts
+and waxwork shows seemed gentlemen beside him; but he considered them
+low company, and remained aloof. Among all these squatters and folks
+of the road the reddleman continually found himself; yet he was not of
+them. His occupation tended to isolate him, and isolated he was mostly
+seen to be.
+
+It was sometimes suggested that reddlemen were criminals for whose
+misdeeds other men wrongfully suffered--that in escaping the law they
+had not escaped their own consciences, and had taken to the trade as a
+lifelong penance. Else why should they have chosen it? In the present
+case such a question would have been particularly apposite. The
+reddleman who had entered Egdon that afternoon was an instance of the
+pleasing being wasted to form the ground-work of the singular, when an
+ugly foundation would have done just as well for that purpose. The one
+point that was forbidding about this reddleman was his colour. Freed
+from that he would have been as agreeable a specimen of rustic manhood
+as one would often see. A keen observer might have been inclined to
+think--which was, indeed, partly the truth--that he had relinquished
+his proper station in life for want of interest in it. Moreover, after
+looking at him one would have hazarded the guess that good nature, and
+an acuteness as extreme as it could be without verging on craft, formed
+the framework of his character.
+
+While he darned the stocking his face became rigid with thought. Softer
+expressions followed this, and then again recurred the tender sadness
+which had sat upon him during his drive along the highway that
+afternoon. Presently his needle stopped. He laid down the stocking,
+arose from his seat, and took a leathern pouch from a hook in the corner
+of the van. This contained among other articles a brown-paper packet,
+which, to judge from the hinge-like character of its worn folds, seemed
+to have been carefully opened and closed a good many times. He sat down
+on a three-legged milking stool that formed the only seat in the van,
+and, examining his packet by the light of a candle, took thence an old
+letter and spread it open. The writing had originally been traced on
+white paper, but the letter had now assumed a pale red tinge from the
+accident of its situation; and the black strokes of writing thereon
+looked like the twigs of a winter hedge against a vermilion sunset. The
+letter bore a date some two years previous to that time, and was signed
+“Thomasin Yeobright.” It ran as follows:--
+
+
+DEAR DIGGORY VENN,--The question you put when you overtook me coming
+home from Pond-close gave me such a surprise that I am afraid I did not
+make you exactly understand what I meant. Of course, if my aunt had not
+met me I could have explained all then at once, but as it was there was
+no chance. I have been quite uneasy since, as you know I do not wish
+to pain you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in contradicting what
+I seemed to say then. I cannot, Diggory, marry you, or think of letting
+you call me your sweetheart. I could not, indeed, Diggory. I hope you
+will not much mind my saying this, and feel in a great pain. It makes me
+very sad when I think it may, for I like you very much, and I always put
+you next to my cousin Clym in my mind. There are so many reasons why we
+cannot be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter. I did not
+in the least expect that you were going to speak on such a thing when
+you followed me, because I had never thought of you in the sense of a
+lover at all. You must not becall me for laughing when you spoke; you
+mistook when you thought I laughed at you as a foolish man. I laughed
+because the idea was so odd, and not at you at all. The great reason
+with my own personal self for not letting you court me is, that I do not
+feel the things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you
+with the meaning of being your wife. It is not as you think, that I have
+another in my mind, for I do not encourage anybody, and never have in
+my life. Another reason is my aunt. She would not, I know, agree to it,
+even if I wished to have you. She likes you very well, but she will
+want me to look a little higher than a small dairy-farmer, and marry
+a professional man. I hope you will not set your heart against me for
+writing plainly, but I felt you might try to see me again, and it is
+better that we should not meet. I shall always think of you as a good
+man, and be anxious for your well-doing. I send this by Jane Orchard's
+little maid,--And remain Diggory, your faithful friend,
+
+THOMASIN YEOBRIGHT.
+
+To MR. VENN, Dairy-farmer.
+
+
+Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning long ago,
+the reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today. During the interval
+he had shifted his position even further from hers than it had
+originally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he was really in
+very good circumstances still. Indeed, seeing that his expenditure was
+only one-fourth of his income, he might have been called a prosperous
+man.
+
+Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and the
+business to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many ways
+congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions,
+had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon
+her who attracted him thither. To be in Thomasin's heath, and near her,
+yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure left to him.
+
+Then came the incident of that day, and the reddleman, still loving
+her well, was excited by this accidental service to her at a critical
+juncture to vow an active devotion to her cause, instead of, as
+hitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had happened it was
+impossible that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve's intentions.
+But her hope was apparently centred upon him; and dismissing his regrets
+Venn determined to aid her to be happy in her own chosen way. That this
+way was, of all others, the most distressing to himself, was awkward
+enough; but the reddleman's love was generous.
+
+His first active step in watching over Thomasin's interests was taken
+about seven o'clock the next evening and was dictated by the news which
+he had learnt from the sad boy. That Eustacia was somehow the cause
+of Wildeve's carelessness in relation to the marriage had at once been
+Venn's conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting between them. It did
+not occur to his mind that Eustacia's love signal to Wildeve was the
+tender effect upon the deserted beauty of the intelligence which her
+grandfather had brought home. His instinct was to regard her as a
+conspirator against rather than as an antecedent obstacle to Thomasin's
+happiness.
+
+During the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the condition of
+Thomasin, but he did not venture to intrude upon a threshold to which
+he was a stranger, particularly at such an unpleasant moment as this. He
+had occupied his time in moving with his ponies and load to a new point
+in the heath, eastward to his previous station; and here he selected a
+nook with a careful eye to shelter from wind and rain, which seemed to
+mean that his stay there was to be a comparatively extended one. After
+this he returned on foot some part of the way that he had come; and,
+it being now dark, he diverged to the left till he stood behind a holly
+bush on the edge of a pit not twenty yards from Rainbarrow.
+
+He watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. Nobody except
+himself came near the spot that night.
+
+But the loss of his labour produced little effect upon the reddleman.
+He had stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upon a certain
+mass of disappointment as the natural preface to all realizations,
+without which preface they would give cause for alarm.
+
+The same hour the next evening found him again at the same place; but
+Eustacia and Wildeve, the expected trysters, did not appear.
+
+He pursued precisely the same course yet four nights longer, and without
+success. But on the next, being the day-week of their previous meeting,
+he saw a female shape floating along the ridge and the outline of
+a young man ascending from the valley. They met in the little ditch
+encircling the tumulus--the original excavation from which it had been
+thrown up by the ancient British people.
+
+The reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin, was aroused
+to strategy in a moment. He instantly left the bush and crept forward on
+his hands and knees. When he had got as close as he might safely venture
+without discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind, the conversation
+of the trysting pair could not be overheard.
+
+Near him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas strewn with
+large turves, which lay edgeways and upside down awaiting removal by
+Timothy Fairway, previous to the winter weather. He took two of these
+as he lay, and dragged them over him till one covered his head and
+shoulders, the other his back and legs. The reddleman would now have
+been quite invisible, even by daylight; the turves, standing upon him
+with the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they were growing. He
+crept along again, and the turves upon his back crept with him. Had he
+approached without any covering the chances are that he would not
+have been perceived in the dusk; approaching thus, it was as though he
+burrowed underground. In this manner he came quite close to where the
+two were standing.
+
+“Wish to consult me on the matter?” reached his ears in the rich,
+impetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. “Consult me? It is an indignity to
+me to talk so--I won't bear it any longer!” She began weeping. “I have
+loved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to my regret; and
+yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you wish to consult
+with me whether it would not be better to marry Thomasin. Better--of
+course it would be. Marry her--she is nearer to your own position in
+life than I am!”
+
+“Yes, yes; that's very well,” said Wildeve peremptorily. “But we must
+look at things as they are. Whatever blame may attach to me for having
+brought it about, Thomasin's position is at present much worse than
+yours. I simply tell you that I am in a strait.”
+
+“But you shall not tell me! You must see that it is only harassing me.
+Damon, you have not acted well; you have sunk in my opinion. You have
+not valued my courtesy--the courtesy of a lady in loving you--who used
+to think of far more ambitious things. But it was Thomasin's fault.
+
+“She won you away from me, and she deserves to suffer for it. Where is
+she staying now? Not that I care, nor where I am myself. Ah, if I were
+dead and gone how glad she would be! Where is she, I ask?”
+
+“Thomasin is now staying at her aunt's shut up in a bedroom, and keeping
+out of everybody's sight,” he said indifferently.
+
+“I don't think you care much about her even now,” said Eustacia with
+sudden joyousness, “for if you did you wouldn't talk so coolly about
+her. Do you talk so coolly to her about me? Ah, I expect you do! Why did
+you originally go away from me? I don't think I can ever forgive you,
+except on one condition, that whenever you desert me, you come back
+again, sorry that you served me so.”
+
+“I never wish to desert you.”
+
+“I do not thank you for that. I should hate it to be all smooth. Indeed,
+I think I like you to desert me a little once now and then. Love is the
+dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, it is a shame to
+say so; but it is true!” She indulged in a little laugh. “My low spirits
+begin at the very idea. Don't you offer me tame love, or away you go!”
+
+“I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman,” said
+Wildeve, “so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthy
+person. It is I who am the sinner after all; I am not worth the little
+finger of either of you.”
+
+“But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from any sense of justice,”
+ replied Eustacia quickly. “If you do not love her it is the most
+merciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That's always
+the best way. There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose. When you have
+left me I am always angry with myself for things that I have said to
+you.”
+
+Wildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. The
+pause was filled up by the intonation of a pollard thorn a little way to
+windward, the breezes filtering through its unyielding twigs as through
+a strainer. It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched teeth.
+
+She continued, half sorrowfully, “Since meeting you last, it has
+occurred to me once or twice that perhaps it was not for love of me you
+did not marry her. Tell me, Damon--I'll try to bear it. Had I nothing
+whatever to do with the matter?”
+
+“Do you press me to tell?”
+
+“Yes, I must know. I see I have been too ready to believe in my own
+power.”
+
+“Well, the immediate reason was that the license would not do for the
+place, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point
+you had nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to me in a
+tone which I don't at all like.”
+
+“Yes, yes! I am nothing in it--I am nothing in it. You only trifle with
+me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so much of
+you!”
+
+“Nonsense; do not be so passionate.... Eustacia, how we roved among these
+bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shades of the
+hills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!”
+
+She remained in moody silence till she said, “Yes; and how I used to
+laugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made me
+suffer for that since.”
+
+“Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found someone
+fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia.”
+
+“Do you still think you found somebody fairer?”
+
+“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced so nicely
+that a feather would turn them.”
+
+“But don't you really care whether I meet you or whether I don't?” she
+said slowly.
+
+“I care a little, but not enough to break my rest,” replied the young
+man languidly. “No, all that's past. I find there are two flowers where
+I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four, or any
+number as good as the first.... Mine is a curious fate. Who would have
+thought that all this could happen to me?”
+
+She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger
+seemed an equally possible issue, “Do you love me now?”
+
+“Who can say?”
+
+“Tell me; I will know it!”
+
+“I do, and I do not,” said he mischievously. “That is, I have my times
+and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you are too
+do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I don't
+know what, except--that you are not the whole world to me that you used
+to be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know and nice to meet,
+and I dare say as sweet as ever--almost.”
+
+Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in a voice
+of suspended mightiness, “I am for a walk, and this is my way.”
+
+“Well, I can do worse than follow you.”
+
+“You know you can't do otherwise, for all your moods and changes!” she
+answered defiantly. “Say what you will; try as you may; keep away from
+me all that you can--you will never forget me. You will love me all your
+life long. You would jump to marry me!”
+
+“So I would!” said Wildeve. “Such strange thoughts as I've had from time
+to time, Eustacia; and they come to me this moment. You hate the heath
+as much as ever; that I know.”
+
+“I do,” she murmured deeply. “'Tis my cross, my shame, and will be my
+death!”
+
+“I abhor it too,” said he. “How mournfully the wind blows round us now!”
+
+She did not answer. Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive. Compound
+utterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it was possible to
+view by ear the features of the neighbourhood. Acoustic pictures were
+returned from the darkened scenery; they could hear where the tracts of
+heather began and ended; where the furze was growing stalky and tall;
+where it had been recently cut; in what direction the fir-clump lay,
+and how near was the pit in which the hollies grew; for these differing
+features had their voices no less than their shapes and colours.
+
+“God, how lonely it is!” resumed Wildeve. “What are picturesque ravines
+and mists to us who see nothing else? Why should we stay here? Will you
+go with me to America? I have kindred in Wisconsin.”
+
+“That wants consideration.”
+
+“It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were a wild bird or a
+landscape-painter. Well?”
+
+“Give me time,” she softly said, taking his hand. “America is so far
+away. Are you going to walk with me a little way?”
+
+As Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from the base of the
+barrow, and Wildeve followed her, so that the reddleman could hear no
+more.
+
+He lifted the turves and arose. Their black figures sank and disappeared
+from against the sky. They were as two horns which the sluggish heath
+had put forth from its crown, like a mollusc, and had now again drawn
+in.
+
+The reddleman's walk across the vale, and over into the next where his
+cart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His
+spirit was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his mouth
+in that walk carried off upon them the accents of a commination.
+
+He entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. Without lighting
+his candle he sat down at once on the three-legged stool, and pondered
+on what he had seen and heard touching that still-loved one of his.
+He uttered a sound which was neither sigh nor sob, but was even more
+indicative than either of a troubled mind.
+
+“My Tamsie,” he whispered heavily. “What can be done? Yes, I will see
+that Eustacia Vye.”
+
+
+
+
+10--A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion
+
+
+The next morning, at the time when the height of the sun appeared very
+insignificant from any part of the heath as compared with the altitude
+of Rainbarrow, and when all the little hills in the lower levels were
+like an archipelago in a fog-formed Aegean, the reddleman came from
+the brambled nook which he had adopted as his quarters and ascended the
+slopes of Mistover Knap.
+
+Though these shaggy hills were apparently so solitary, several keen
+round eyes were always ready on such a wintry morning as this to
+converge upon a passer-by. Feathered species sojourned here in hiding
+which would have created wonder if found elsewhere. A bustard haunted
+the spot, and not many years before this five and twenty might have been
+seen in Egdon at one time. Marsh-harriers looked up from the valley by
+Wildeve's. A cream-coloured courser had used to visit this hill, a bird
+so rare that not more than a dozen have ever been seen in England; but
+a barbarian rested neither night nor day till he had shot the African
+truant, and after that event cream-coloured coursers thought fit to
+enter Egdon no more.
+
+A traveller who should walk and observe any of these visitants as Venn
+observed them now could feel himself to be in direct communication with
+regions unknown to man. Here in front of him was a wild mallard--just
+arrived from the home of the north wind. The creature brought within
+him an amplitude of Northern knowledge. Glacial catastrophes, snowstorm
+episodes, glittering auroral effects, Polaris in the zenith, Franklin
+underfoot--the category of his commonplaces was wonderful. But the bird,
+like many other philosophers, seemed as he looked at the reddleman to
+think that a present moment of comfortable reality was worth a decade of
+memories.
+
+Venn passed on through these towards the house of the isolated beauty
+who lived up among them and despised them. The day was Sunday; but as
+going to church, except to be married or buried, was exceptional at
+Egdon, this made little difference. He had determined upon the bold
+stroke of asking for an interview with Miss Vye--to attack her position
+as Thomasin's rival either by art or by storm, showing therein, somewhat
+too conspicuously, the want of gallantry characteristic of a certain
+astute sort of men, from clowns to kings. The great Frederick making war
+on the beautiful Archduchess, Napoleon refusing terms to the beautiful
+Queen of Prussia, were not more dead to difference of sex than the
+reddleman was, in his peculiar way, in planning the displacement of
+Eustacia.
+
+To call at the captain's cottage was always more or less an undertaking
+for the inferior inhabitants. Though occasionally chatty, his moods
+were erratic, and nobody could be certain how he would behave at
+any particular moment. Eustacia was reserved, and lived very much
+to herself. Except the daughter of one of the cotters, who was their
+servant, and a lad who worked in the garden and stable, scarcely anyone
+but themselves ever entered the house. They were the only genteel people
+of the district except the Yeobrights, and though far from rich, they
+did not feel that necessity for preserving a friendly face towards every
+man, bird, and beast which influenced their poorer neighbours.
+
+When the reddleman entered the garden the old man was looking through
+his glass at the stain of blue sea in the distant landscape, the little
+anchors on his buttons twinkling in the sun. He recognized Venn as
+his companion on the highway, but made no remark on that circumstance,
+merely saying, “Ah, reddleman--you here? Have a glass of grog?”
+
+Venn declined, on the plea of it being too early, and stated that
+his business was with Miss Vye. The captain surveyed him from cap to
+waistcoat and from waistcoat to leggings for a few moments, and finally
+asked him to go indoors.
+
+Miss Vye was not to be seen by anybody just then; and the reddleman
+waited in the window-bench of the kitchen, his hands hanging across his
+divergent knees, and his cap hanging from his hands.
+
+“I suppose the young lady is not up yet?” he presently said to the
+servant.
+
+“Not quite yet. Folks never call upon ladies at this time of day.”
+
+“Then I'll step outside,” said Venn. “If she is willing to see me, will
+she please send out word, and I'll come in.”
+
+The reddleman left the house and loitered on the hill adjoining. A
+considerable time elapsed, and no request for his presence was brought.
+He was beginning to think that his scheme had failed, when he beheld
+the form of Eustacia herself coming leisurely towards him. A sense of
+novelty in giving audience to that singular figure had been sufficient
+to draw her forth.
+
+She seemed to feel, after a bare look at Diggory Venn, that the man had
+come on a strange errand, and that he was not so mean as she had thought
+him; for her close approach did not cause him to writhe uneasily,
+or shift his feet, or show any of those little signs which escape an
+ingenuous rustic at the advent of the uncommon in womankind. On his
+inquiring if he might have a conversation with her she replied, “Yes,
+walk beside me,” and continued to move on.
+
+Before they had gone far it occurred to the perspicacious reddleman that
+he would have acted more wisely by appearing less unimpressionable, and
+he resolved to correct the error as soon as he could find opportunity.
+
+“I have made so bold, miss, as to step across and tell you some strange
+news which has come to my ears about that man.”
+
+“Ah! what man?”
+
+He jerked his elbow to the southeast--the direction of the Quiet Woman.
+
+Eustacia turned quickly to him. “Do you mean Mr. Wildeve?”
+
+“Yes, there is trouble in a household on account of him, and I have come
+to let you know of it, because I believe you might have power to drive
+it away.”
+
+“I? What is the trouble?”
+
+“It is quite a secret. It is that he may refuse to marry Thomasin
+Yeobright after all.”
+
+Eustacia, though set inwardly pulsing by his words, was equal to her
+part in such a drama as this. She replied coldly, “I do not wish to
+listen to this, and you must not expect me to interfere.”
+
+“But, miss, you will hear one word?”
+
+“I cannot. I am not interested in the marriage, and even if I were I
+could not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding.”
+
+“As the only lady on the heath I think you might,” said Venn with subtle
+indirectness. “This is how the case stands. Mr. Wildeve would marry
+Thomasin at once, and make all matters smooth, if so be there were not
+another woman in the case. This other woman is some person he has picked
+up with, and meets on the heath occasionally, I believe. He will never
+marry her, and yet through her he may never marry the woman who loves
+him dearly. Now, if you, miss, who have so much sway over us menfolk,
+were to insist that he should treat your young neighbour Tamsin with
+honourable kindness and give up the other woman, he would perhaps do it,
+and save her a good deal of misery.”
+
+“Ah, my life!” said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips so
+that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a similar
+scarlet fire. “You think too much of my influence over menfolk indeed,
+reddleman. If I had such a power as you imagine I would go straight and
+use it for the good of anybody who has been kind to me--which Thomasin
+Yeobright has not particularly, to my knowledge.”
+
+“Can it be that you really don't know of it--how much she had always
+thought of you?”
+
+“I have never heard a word of it. Although we live only two miles apart
+I have never been inside her aunt's house in my life.”
+
+The superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn that thus
+far he had utterly failed. He inwardly sighed and felt it necessary to
+unmask his second argument.
+
+“Well, leaving that out of the question, 'tis in your power, I assure
+you, Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good to another woman.”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve. It is law with all men who see
+'ee. They say, 'This well-favoured lady coming--what's her name? How
+handsome!' Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright,” the reddleman persisted,
+saying to himself, “God forgive a rascal for lying!” And she was
+handsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking so. There was a
+certain obscurity in Eustacia's beauty, and Venn's eye was not trained.
+In her winter dress, as now, she was like the tiger-beetle, which, when
+observed in dull situations, seems to be of the quietest neutral colour,
+but under a full illumination blazes with dazzling splendour.
+
+Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered
+her dignity thereby. “Many women are lovelier than Thomasin,” she said,
+“so not much attaches to that.”
+
+The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: “He is a man who notices
+the looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like withywind,
+if you only had the mind.”
+
+“Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do
+living up here away from him.”
+
+The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. “Miss Vye!” he said.
+
+“Why do you say that--as if you doubted me?” She spoke faintly, and her
+breathing was quick. “The idea of your speaking in that tone to me!”
+ she added, with a forced smile of hauteur. “What could have been in your
+mind to lead you to speak like that?”
+
+“Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don't know this man?--I
+know why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are ashamed.”
+
+“You are mistaken. What do you mean?”
+
+The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. “I was at the
+meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word,” he said. “The
+woman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself.”
+
+It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of
+Candaules' wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip would
+tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be kept
+down.
+
+“I am unwell,” she said hurriedly. “No--it is not that--I am not in a
+humour to hear you further. Leave me, please.”
+
+“I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you. What I would put
+before you is this. However it may come about--whether she is to blame,
+or you--her case is without doubt worse than yours. Your giving up Mr.
+Wildeve will be a real advantage to you, for how could you marry him?
+Now she cannot get off so easily--everybody will blame her if she loses
+him. Then I ask you--not because her right is best, but because her
+situation is worst--to give him up to her.”
+
+“No--I won't, I won't!” she said impetuously, quite forgetful of her
+previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling. “Nobody has ever
+been served so! It was going on well--I will not be beaten down--by an
+inferior woman like her. It is very well for you to come and plead for
+her, but is she not herself the cause of all her own trouble? Am I not
+to show favour to any person I may choose without asking permission of a
+parcel of cottagers? She has come between me and my inclination, and now
+that she finds herself rightly punished she gets you to plead for her!”
+
+“Indeed,” said Venn earnestly, “she knows nothing whatever about it. It
+is only I who ask you to give him up. It will be better for her and you
+both. People will say bad things if they find out that a lady secretly
+meets a man who has ill-used another woman.”
+
+“I have NOT injured her--he was mine before he was hers! He came
+back--because--because he liked me best!” she said wildly. “But I lose
+all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!”
+
+“I can keep secrets,” said Venn gently. “You need not fear. I am the
+only man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing
+more to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to him that
+you hated living here--that Egdon Heath was a jail to you.”
+
+“I did say so. There is a sort of beauty in the scenery, I know; but it
+is a jail to me. The man you mention does not save me from that feeling,
+though he lives here. I should have cared nothing for him had there been
+a better person near.”
+
+The reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from her his third
+attempt seemed promising. “As we have now opened our minds a bit, miss,”
+ he said, “I'll tell you what I have got to propose. Since I have taken
+to the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know.”
+
+She inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes rested in the
+misty vale beneath them.
+
+“And in my travels I go near Budmouth. Now Budmouth is a wonderful
+place--wonderful--a great salt sheening sea bending into the land like
+a bow--thousands of gentlepeople walking up and down--bands of music
+playing--officers by sea and officers by land walking among the
+rest--out of every ten folks you meet nine of 'em in love.”
+
+“I know it,” she said disdainfully. “I know Budmouth better than you.
+I was born there. My father came to be a military musician there from
+abroad. Ah, my soul, Budmouth! I wish I was there now.”
+
+The reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could blaze on
+occasion. “If you were, miss,” he replied, “in a week's time you would
+think no more of Wildeve than of one of those he'th-croppers that we see
+yond. Now, I could get you there.”
+
+“How?” said Eustacia, with intense curiosity in her heavy eyes.
+
+“My uncle has been for five and twenty years the trusty man of a rich
+widow-lady who has a beautiful house facing the sea. This lady has
+become old and lame, and she wants a young company-keeper to read and
+sing to her, but can't get one to her mind to save her life, though
+she've advertised in the papers, and tried half a dozen. She would jump
+to get you, and Uncle would make it all easy.”
+
+“I should have to work, perhaps?”
+
+“No, not real work--you'd have a little to do, such as reading and that.
+You would not be wanted till New Year's Day.”
+
+“I knew it meant work,” she said, drooping to languor again.
+
+“I confess there would be a trifle to do in the way of amusing her;
+but though idle people might call it work, working people would call
+it play. Think of the company and the life you'd lead, miss; the gaiety
+you'd see, and the gentleman you'd marry. My uncle is to inquire for a
+trustworthy young lady from the country, as she don't like town girls.”
+
+“It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won't go. O, if I could
+live in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do my own
+doings, I'd give the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman, that
+would I.”
+
+“Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance shall be yours,”
+ urged her companion.
+
+“Chance--'tis no chance,” she said proudly. “What can a poor man like
+you offer me, indeed?--I am going indoors. I have nothing more to say.
+Don't your horses want feeding, or your reddlebags want mending, or
+don't you want to find buyers for your goods, that you stay idling here
+like this?”
+
+Venn spoke not another word. With his hands behind him he turned away,
+that she might not see the hopeless disappointment in his face. The
+mental clearness and power he had found in this lonely girl had indeed
+filled his manner with misgiving even from the first few minutes of
+close quarters with her. Her youth and situation had led him to expect
+a simplicity quite at the beck of his method. But a system of inducement
+which might have carried weaker country lasses along with it had merely
+repelled Eustacia. As a rule, the word Budmouth meant fascination on
+Egdon. That Royal port and watering place, if truly mirrored in
+the minds of the heathfolk, must have combined, in a charming and
+indescribable manner a Carthaginian bustle of building with Tarentine
+luxuriousness and Baian health and beauty. Eustacia felt little less
+extravagantly about the place; but she would not sink her independence
+to get there.
+
+When Diggory Venn had gone quite away, Eustacia walked to the bank and
+looked down the wild and picturesque vale towards the sun, which was
+also in the direction of Wildeve's. The mist had now so far collapsed
+that the tips of the trees and bushes around his house could just
+be discerned, as if boring upwards through a vast white cobweb which
+cloaked them from the day. There was no doubt that her mind was inclined
+thitherward; indefinitely, fancifully--twining and untwining about
+him as the single object within her horizon on which dreams might
+crystallize. The man who had begun by being merely her amusement, and
+would never have been more than her hobby but for his skill in deserting
+her at the right moments, was now again her desire. Cessation in his
+love-making had revivified her love. Such feeling as Eustacia had idly
+given to Wildeve was dammed into a flood by Thomasin. She had used to
+tease Wildeve, but that was before another had favoured him. Often a
+drop of irony into an indifferent situation renders the whole piquant.
+
+“I will never give him up--never!” she said impetuously.
+
+The reddleman's hint that rumour might show her to disadvantage had
+no permanent terror for Eustacia. She was as unconcerned at that
+contingency as a goddess at a lack of linen. This did not originate in
+inherent shamelessness, but in her living too far from the world to feel
+the impact of public opinion. Zenobia in the desert could hardly have
+cared what was said about her at Rome. As far as social ethics were
+concerned Eustacia approached the savage state, though in emotion she
+was all the while an epicure. She had advanced to the secret recesses of
+sensuousness, yet had hardly crossed the threshold of conventionality.
+
+
+
+
+11--The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman
+
+
+The reddleman had left Eustacia's presence with desponding views on
+Thomasin's future happiness; but he was awakened to the fact that one
+other channel remained untried by seeing, as he followed the way to his
+van, the form of Mrs. Yeobright slowly walking towards the Quiet Woman.
+He went across to her; and could almost perceive in her anxious face
+that this journey of hers to Wildeve was undertaken with the same object
+as his own to Eustacia.
+
+She did not conceal the fact. “Then,” said the reddleman, “you may as
+well leave it alone, Mrs. Yeobright.”
+
+“I half think so myself,” she said. “But nothing else remains to be done
+besides pressing the question upon him.”
+
+“I should like to say a word first,” said Venn firmly. “Mr. Wildeve is
+not the only man who has asked Thomasin to marry him; and why should not
+another have a chance? Mrs. Yeobright, I should be glad to marry your
+niece and would have done it any time these last two years. There, now
+it is out, and I have never told anybody before but herself.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was not demonstrative, but her eyes involuntarily glanced
+towards his singular though shapely figure.
+
+“Looks are not everything,” said the reddleman, noticing the glance.
+“There's many a calling that don't bring in so much as mine, if it comes
+to money; and perhaps I am not so much worse off than Wildeve. There is
+nobody so poor as these professional fellows who have failed; and if you
+shouldn't like my redness--well, I am not red by birth, you know; I only
+took to this business for a freak; and I might turn my hand to something
+else in good time.”
+
+“I am much obliged to you for your interest in my niece; but I fear
+there would be objections. More than that, she is devoted to this man.”
+
+“True; or I shouldn't have done what I have this morning.”
+
+“Otherwise there would be no pain in the case, and you would not see me
+going to his house now. What was Thomasin's answer when you told her of
+your feelings?”
+
+“She wrote that you would object to me; and other things.”
+
+“She was in a measure right. You must not take this unkindly--I merely
+state it as a truth. You have been good to her, and we do not forget
+it. But as she was unwilling on her own account to be your wife, that
+settles the point without my wishes being concerned.”
+
+“Yes. But there is a difference between then and now, ma'am. She is
+distressed now, and I have thought that if you were to talk to her about
+me, and think favourably of me yourself, there might be a chance of
+winning her round, and getting her quite independent of this Wildeve's
+backward and forward play, and his not knowing whether he'll have her or
+no.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright shook her head. “Thomasin thinks, and I think with her,
+that she ought to be Wildeve's wife, if she means to appear before the
+world without a slur upon her name. If they marry soon, everybody will
+believe that an accident did really prevent the wedding. If not, it may
+cast a shade upon her character--at any rate make her ridiculous. In
+short, if it is anyhow possible they must marry now.”
+
+“I thought that till half an hour ago. But, after all, why should her
+going off with him to Anglebury for a few hours do her any harm? Anybody
+who knows how pure she is will feel any such thought to be quite
+unjust. I have been trying this morning to help on this marriage with
+Wildeve--yes, I, ma'am--in the belief that I ought to do it, because she
+was so wrapped up in him. But I much question if I was right, after all.
+However, nothing came of it. And now I offer myself.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright appeared disinclined to enter further into the question.
+“I fear I must go on,” she said. “I do not see that anything else can be
+done.”
+
+And she went on. But though this conversation did not divert Thomasin's
+aunt from her purposed interview with Wildeve, it made a considerable
+difference in her mode of conducting that interview. She thanked God for
+the weapon which the reddleman had put into her hands.
+
+Wildeve was at home when she reached the inn. He showed her silently
+into the parlour, and closed the door. Mrs. Yeobright began--
+
+“I have thought it my duty to call today. A new proposal has been made
+to me, which has rather astonished me. It will affect Thomasin greatly;
+and I have decided that it should at least be mentioned to you.”
+
+“Yes? What is it?” he said civilly.
+
+“It is, of course, in reference to her future. You may not be aware that
+another man has shown himself anxious to marry Thomasin. Now, though
+I have not encouraged him yet, I cannot conscientiously refuse him a
+chance any longer. I don't wish to be short with you; but I must be fair
+to him and to her.”
+
+“Who is the man?” said Wildeve with surprise.
+
+“One who has been in love with her longer than she has with you. He
+proposed to her two years ago. At that time she refused him.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“He has seen her lately, and has asked me for permission to pay his
+addresses to her. She may not refuse him twice.”
+
+“What is his name?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright declined to say. “He is a man Thomasin likes,” she added,
+“and one whose constancy she respects at least. It seems to me that what
+she refused then she would be glad to get now. She is much annoyed at
+her awkward position.”
+
+“She never once told me of this old lover.”
+
+“The gentlest women are not such fools as to show EVERY card.”
+
+“Well, if she wants him I suppose she must have him.”
+
+“It is easy enough to say that; but you don't see the difficulty. He
+wants her much more than she wants him; and before I can encourage
+anything of the sort I must have a clear understanding from you that
+you will not interfere to injure an arrangement which I promote in the
+belief that it is for the best. Suppose, when they are engaged, and
+everything is smoothly arranged for their marriage, that you should step
+between them and renew your suit? You might not win her back, but you
+might cause much unhappiness.”
+
+“Of course I should do no such thing,” said Wildeve “But they are not
+engaged yet. How do you know that Thomasin would accept him?”
+
+“That's a question I have carefully put to myself; and upon the whole
+the probabilities are in favour of her accepting him in time. I flatter
+myself that I have some influence over her. She is pliable, and I can be
+strong in my recommendations of him.”
+
+“And in your disparagement of me at the same time.”
+
+“Well, you may depend upon my not praising you,” she said drily. “And
+if this seems like manoeuvring, you must remember that her position is
+peculiar, and that she has been hardly used. I shall also be helped in
+making the match by her own desire to escape from the humiliation of her
+present state; and a woman's pride in these cases will lead her a very
+great way. A little managing may be required to bring her round; but
+I am equal to that, provided that you agree to the one thing
+indispensable; that is, to make a distinct declaration that she is to
+think no more of you as a possible husband. That will pique her into
+accepting him.”
+
+“I can hardly say that just now, Mrs. Yeobright. It is so sudden.”
+
+“And so my whole plan is interfered with! It is very inconvenient
+that you refuse to help my family even to the small extent of saying
+distinctly you will have nothing to do with us.”
+
+Wildeve reflected uncomfortably. “I confess I was not prepared for
+this,” he said. “Of course I'll give her up if you wish, if it is
+necessary. But I thought I might be her husband.”
+
+“We have heard that before.”
+
+“Now, Mrs. Yeobright, don't let us disagree. Give me a fair time. I
+don't want to stand in the way of any better chance she may have; only
+I wish you had let me know earlier. I will write to you or call in a day
+or two. Will that suffice?”
+
+“Yes,” she replied, “provided you promise not to communicate with
+Thomasin without my knowledge.”
+
+“I promise that,” he said. And the interview then terminated, Mrs.
+Yeobright returning homeward as she had come.
+
+By far the greatest effect of her simple strategy on that day was, as
+often happens, in a quarter quite outside her view when arranging it. In
+the first place, her visit sent Wildeve the same evening after dark to
+Eustacia's house at Mistover.
+
+At this hour the lonely dwelling was closely blinded and shuttered from
+the chill and darkness without. Wildeve's clandestine plan with her was
+to take a little gravel in his hand and hold it to the crevice at the
+top of the window shutter, which was on the outside, so that it should
+fall with a gentle rustle, resembling that of a mouse, between shutter
+and glass. This precaution in attracting her attention was to avoid
+arousing the suspicions of her grandfather.
+
+The soft words, “I hear; wait for me,” in Eustacia's voice from within
+told him that she was alone.
+
+He waited in his customary manner by walking round the enclosure and
+idling by the pool, for Wildeve was never asked into the house by his
+proud though condescending mistress. She showed no sign of coming out in
+a hurry. The time wore on, and he began to grow impatient. In the course
+of twenty minutes she appeared from round the corner, and advanced as if
+merely taking an airing.
+
+“You would not have kept me so long had you known what I come about,” he
+said with bitterness. “Still, you are worth waiting for.”
+
+“What has happened?” said Eustacia. “I did not know you were in trouble.
+I too am gloomy enough.”
+
+“I am not in trouble,” said he. “It is merely that affairs have come to
+a head, and I must take a clear course.”
+
+“What course is that?” she asked with attentive interest.
+
+“And can you forget so soon what I proposed to you the other night? Why,
+take you from this place, and carry you away with me abroad.”
+
+“I have not forgotten. But why have you come so unexpectedly to repeat
+the question, when you only promised to come next Saturday? I thought I
+was to have plenty of time to consider.”
+
+“Yes, but the situation is different now.”
+
+“Explain to me.”
+
+“I don't want to explain, for I may pain you.”
+
+“But I must know the reason of this hurry.”
+
+“It is simply my ardour, dear Eustacia. Everything is smooth now.”
+
+“Then why are you so ruffled?”
+
+“I am not aware of it. All is as it should be. Mrs. Yeobright--but she
+is nothing to us.”
+
+“Ah, I knew she had something to do with it! Come, I don't like
+reserve.”
+
+“No--she has nothing. She only says she wishes me to give up Thomasin
+because another man is anxious to marry her. The woman, now she no
+longer needs me, actually shows off!” Wildeve's vexation has escaped him
+in spite of himself.
+
+Eustacia was silent a long while. “You are in the awkward position of an
+official who is no longer wanted,” she said in a changed tone.
+
+“It seems so. But I have not yet seen Thomasin.”
+
+“And that irritates you. Don't deny it, Damon. You are actually nettled
+by this slight from an unexpected quarter.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“And you come to get me because you cannot get her. This is certainly a
+new position altogether. I am to be a stop-gap.”
+
+“Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day.”
+
+Eustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence. What curious
+feeling was this coming over her? Was it really possible that her
+interest in Wildeve had been so entirely the result of antagonism that
+the glory and the dream departed from the man with the first sound that
+he was no longer coveted by her rival? She was, then, secure of him at
+last. Thomasin no longer required him. What a humiliating victory!
+He loved her best, she thought; and yet--dared she to murmur such
+treacherous criticism ever so softly?--what was the man worth whom a
+woman inferior to herself did not value? The sentiment which lurks more
+or less in all animate nature--that of not desiring the undesired of
+others--was lively as a passion in the supersubtle, epicurean heart of
+Eustacia. Her social superiority over him, which hitherto had scarcely
+ever impressed her, became unpleasantly insistent, and for the first
+time she felt that she had stooped in loving him.
+
+“Well, darling, you agree?” said Wildeve.
+
+“If it could be London, or even Budmouth, instead of America,” she
+murmured languidly. “Well, I will think. It is too great a thing for me
+to decide offhand. I wish I hated the heath less--or loved you more.”
+
+“You can be painfully frank. You loved me a month ago warmly enough to
+go anywhere with me.”
+
+“And you loved Thomasin.”
+
+“Yes, perhaps that was where the reason lay,” he returned, with almost a
+sneer. “I don't hate her now.”
+
+“Exactly. The only thing is that you can no longer get her.”
+
+“Come--no taunts, Eustacia, or we shall quarrel. If you don't agree to
+go with me, and agree shortly, I shall go by myself.”
+
+“Or try Thomasin again. Damon, how strange it seems that you could have
+married her or me indifferently, and only have come to me because I
+am--cheapest! Yes, yes--it is true. There was a time when I should have
+exclaimed against a man of that sort, and been quite wild; but it is all
+past now.”
+
+“Will you go, dearest? Come secretly with me to Bristol, marry me, and
+turn our backs upon this dog-hole of England for ever? Say Yes.”
+
+“I want to get away from here at almost any cost,” she said with
+weariness, “but I don't like to go with you. Give me more time to
+decide.”
+
+“I have already,” said Wildeve. “Well, I give you one more week.”
+
+“A little longer, so that I may tell you decisively. I have to consider
+so many things. Fancy Thomasin being anxious to get rid of you! I cannot
+forget it.”
+
+“Never mind that. Say Monday week. I will be here precisely at this
+time.”
+
+“Let it be at Rainbarrow,” said she. “This is too near home; my
+grandfather may be walking out.”
+
+“Thank you, dear. On Monday week at this time I will be at the Barrow.
+Till then good-bye.”
+
+“Good-bye. No, no, you must not touch me now. Shaking hands is enough
+till I have made up my mind.”
+
+Eustacia watched his shadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed
+her hand to her forehead and breathed heavily; and then her rich,
+romantic lips parted under that homely impulse--a yawn. She was
+immediately angry at having betrayed even to herself the possible
+evanescence of her passion for him. She could not admit at once that she
+might have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his mediocrity now was
+to admit her own great folly heretofore. And the discovery that she was
+the owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog in the manger had
+something in it which at first made her ashamed.
+
+The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright's diplomacy was indeed remarkable,
+though not as yet of the kind she had anticipated. It had appreciably
+influenced Wildeve, but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her lover
+was no longer to her an exciting man whom many women strove for, and
+herself could only retain by striving with them. He was a superfluity.
+
+She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly
+grief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the latter
+days of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that the end of
+the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is one of
+the most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along the course
+between the beginning of a passion and its end.
+
+Her grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in pouring some
+gallons of newly arrived rum into the square bottles of his square
+cellaret. Whenever these home supplies were exhausted he would go to the
+Quiet Woman, and, standing with his back to the fire, grog in hand, tell
+remarkable stories of how he had lived seven years under the waterline
+of his ship, and other naval wonders, to the natives, who hoped too
+earnestly for a treat of ale from the teller to exhibit any doubts of
+his truth.
+
+He had been there this evening. “I suppose you have heard the Egdon
+news, Eustacia?” he said, without looking up from the bottles. “The
+men have been talking about it at the Woman as if it were of national
+importance.”
+
+“I have heard none,” she said.
+
+“Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming home next week to
+spend Christmas with his mother. He is a fine fellow by this time, it
+seems. I suppose you remember him?”
+
+“I never saw him in my life.”
+
+“Ah, true; he left before you came here. I well remember him as a
+promising boy.”
+
+“Where has he been living all these years?”
+
+“In that rookery of pomp and vanity, Paris, I believe.”
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO -- THE ARRIVAL
+
+
+
+
+1--Tidings of the Comer
+
+
+On the fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain
+ephemeral operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way, the
+majestic calm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those
+of a town, a village, or even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment
+of stagnation merely, a creeping of the flesh of somnolence. But here,
+away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which mere
+walking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imagine
+himself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted the
+attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep,
+and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at a
+safe distance.
+
+The performance was that of bringing together and building into a stack
+the furze faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the captain's
+use during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at the end of the
+dwelling, and the men engaged in building it were Humphrey and Sam, the
+old man looking on.
+
+It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o'clock; but the winter
+solstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun caused the
+hour to seem later than it actually was, there being little here to
+remind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience of the
+sky as a dial. In the course of many days and weeks sunrise had advanced
+its quarters from northeast to southeast, sunset had receded from
+northwest to southwest; but Egdon had hardly heeded the change.
+
+Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like a
+kitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping chimney-corner. The air was
+still, and while she lingered a moment here alone sounds of voices in
+conversation came to her ears directly down the chimney. She entered
+the recess, and, listening, looked up the old irregular shaft, with its
+cavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered about on its way to the
+square bit of sky at the top, from which the daylight struck down with a
+pallid glare upon the tatters of soot draping the flue as seaweed drapes
+a rocky fissure.
+
+She remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney, and the
+voices were those of the workers.
+
+Her grandfather joined in the conversation. “That lad ought never to
+have left home. His father's occupation would have suited him best, and
+the boy should have followed on. I don't believe in these new moves in
+families. My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should my son have
+been if I had had one.”
+
+“The place he's been living at is Paris,” said Humphrey, “and they tell
+me 'tis where the king's head was cut off years ago. My poor mother used
+to tell me about that business. 'Hummy,' she used to say, 'I was a young
+maid then, and as I was at home ironing Mother's caps one afternoon the
+parson came in and said, “They've cut the king's head off, Jane; and
+what 'twill be next God knows.”'”
+
+“A good many of us knew as well as He before long,” said the captain,
+chuckling. “I lived seven years under water on account of it in my
+boyhood--in that damned surgery of the Triumph, seeing men brought down
+to the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to Jericho.... And so the
+young man has settled in Paris. Manager to a diamond merchant, or some
+such thing, is he not?”
+
+“Yes, sir, that's it. 'Tis a blazing great business that he belongs to,
+so I've heard his mother say--like a king's palace, as far as diments
+go.”
+
+“I can well mind when he left home,” said Sam.
+
+“'Tis a good thing for the feller,” said Humphrey. “A sight of times
+better to be selling diments than nobbling about here.”
+
+“It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place.”
+
+“A good few indeed, my man,” replied the captain. “Yes, you may make
+away with a deal of money and be neither drunkard nor glutton.”
+
+“They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real perusing man, with
+the strangest notions about things. There, that's because he went to
+school early, such as the school was.”
+
+“Strange notions, has he?” said the old man. “Ah, there's too much of
+that sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Every gatepost
+and barn's door you come to is sure to have some bad word or other
+chalked upon it by the young rascals--a woman can hardly pass for shame
+sometimes. If they'd never been taught how to write they wouldn't have
+been able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers couldn't do it, and
+the country was all the better for it.”
+
+“Now, I should think, Cap'n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much in her
+head that comes from books as anybody about here?”
+
+“Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her head
+it would be better for her,” said the captain shortly; after which he
+walked away.
+
+“I say, Sam,” observed Humphrey when the old man was gone, “she and Clym
+Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair--hey? If they wouldn't
+I'll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for certain, and learned
+in print, and always thinking about high doctrine--there couldn't be a
+better couple if they were made o' purpose. Clym's family is as good as
+hers. His father was a farmer, that's true; but his mother was a sort
+of lady, as we know. Nothing would please me better than to see them two
+man and wife.”
+
+“They'd look very natty, arm-in-crook together, and their best clothes
+on, whether or no, if he's at all the well-favoured fellow he used to
+be.”
+
+“They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terrible much
+after so many years. If I knew for certain when he was coming I'd stroll
+out three or four miles to meet him and help carry anything for'n;
+though I suppose he's altered from the boy he was. They say he can talk
+French as fast as a maid can eat blackberries; and if so, depend upon it
+we who have stayed at home shall seem no more than scroff in his eyes.”
+
+“Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn't he?”
+
+“Yes; but how he's coming from Budmouth I don't know.”
+
+“That's a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such a
+nice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What a
+nunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren't married
+at all, after singing to 'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if
+I should like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by a
+man. It makes the family look small.”
+
+“Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health is
+suffering from it, I hear, for she will bide entirely indoors. We never
+see her out now, scampering over the furze with a face as red as a rose,
+as she used to do.”
+
+“I've heard she wouldn't have Wildeve now if he asked her.”
+
+“You have? 'Tis news to me.”
+
+While the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed thus Eustacia's
+face gradually bent to the hearth in a profound reverie, her toe
+unconsciously tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet.
+
+The subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting to her. A
+young and clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of all
+contrasting places in the world, Paris. It was like a man coming from
+heaven. More singular still, the heathmen had instinctively coupled her
+and this man together in their minds as a pair born for each other.
+
+That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visions enough
+to fill the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternations from mental
+vacuity do sometimes occur thus quietly. She could never have believed
+in the morning that her colourless inner world would before night become
+as animated as water under a microscope, and that without the arrival of
+a single visitor. The words of Sam and Humphrey on the harmony between
+the unknown and herself had on her mind the effect of the invading
+Bard's prelude in the Castle of Indolence, at which myriads of
+imprisoned shapes arose where had previously appeared the stillness of a
+void.
+
+Involved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time. When she became
+conscious of externals it was dusk. The furze-rick was finished; the men
+had gone home. Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she would take a
+walk at this her usual time; and she determined that her walk should be
+in the direction of Blooms-End, the birthplace of young Yeobright and
+the present home of his mother. She had no reason for walking elsewhere,
+and why should she not go that way? The scene of the daydream is
+sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen. To look at the palings before
+the Yeobrights' house had the dignity of a necessary performance.
+Strange that such a piece of idling should have seemed an important
+errand.
+
+She put on her bonnet, and, leaving the house, descended the hill on the
+side towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly along the valley for a
+distance of a mile and a half. This brought her to a spot in which the
+green bottom of the dale began to widen, the furze bushes to recede
+yet further from the path on each side, till they were diminished to
+an isolated one here and there by the increasing fertility of the soil.
+Beyond the irregular carpet of grass was a row of white palings, which
+marked the verge of the heath in this latitude. They showed upon the
+dusky scene that they bordered as distinctly as white lace on velvet.
+Behind the white palings was a little garden; behind the garden an old,
+irregular, thatched house, facing the heath, and commanding a full view
+of the valley. This was the obscure, removed spot to which was about
+to return a man whose latter life had been passed in the French
+capital--the centre and vortex of the fashionable world.
+
+
+
+
+2--The People at Blooms-End Make Ready
+
+
+All that afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia's
+ruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin had
+been persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of loyalty
+towards her cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account with an
+alacrity unusual in her during these most sorrowful days of her life. At
+the time that Eustacia was listening to the rick-makers' conversation
+on Clym's return, Thomasin was climbing into a loft over her aunt's
+fuelhouse, where the store-apples were kept, to search out the best and
+largest of them for the coming holiday-time.
+
+The loft was lighted by a semicircular hole, through which the pigeons
+crept to their lodgings in the same high quarters of the premises; and
+from this hole the sun shone in a bright yellow patch upon the figure of
+the maiden as she knelt and plunged her naked arms into the soft brown
+fern, which, from its abundance, was used on Egdon in packing away
+stores of all kinds. The pigeons were flying about her head with the
+greatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just visible above
+the floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of light, as she stood
+halfway up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was not climber
+enough to venture.
+
+“Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well as
+ribstones.”
+
+Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where more
+mellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking them out
+she stopped a moment.
+
+“Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?” she said, gazing
+abstractedly at the pigeon-hole, which admitted the sunlight so directly
+upon her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost seemed to
+shine through her.
+
+“If he could have been dear to you in another way,” said Mrs. Yeobright
+from the ladder, “this might have been a happy meeting.”
+
+“Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?”
+
+“Yes,” said her aunt, with some warmth. “To thoroughly fill the air with
+the past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and keep clear
+of it.”
+
+Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. “I am a warning to
+others, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are,” she said in a
+low voice. “What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them? 'Tis
+absurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me think that I do,
+by the way they behave towards me? Why don't people judge me by my acts?
+Now, look at me as I kneel here, picking up these apples--do I look
+like a lost woman?... I wish all good women were as good as I!” she added
+vehemently.
+
+“Strangers don't see you as I do,” said Mrs. Yeobright; “they judge from
+false report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to blame.”
+
+“How quickly a rash thing can be done!” replied the girl. Her lips were
+quivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that she could
+hardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued industriously
+searching to hide her weakness.
+
+“As soon as you have finished getting the apples,” her aunt said,
+descending the ladder, “come down, and we'll go for the holly. There is
+nobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear being
+stared at. We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in our
+preparations.”
+
+Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together they
+went through the white palings to the heath beyond. The open hills were
+airy and clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often appears
+on a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination independently
+toned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts of landscape streaming
+visibly across those further off; a stratum of ensaffroned light was
+imposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind these lay still remoter
+scenes wrapped in frigid grey.
+
+They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conical
+pit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general level
+of the ground. Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes, as
+she had done under happier circumstances on many similar occasions,
+and with a small chopper that they had brought she began to lop off the
+heavily berried boughs.
+
+“Don't scratch your face,” said her aunt, who stood at the edge of the
+pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green and
+scarlet masses of the tree. “Will you walk with me to meet him this
+evening?”
+
+“I should like to. Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him,” said
+Thomasin, tossing out a bough. “Not that that would matter much; I
+belong to one man; nothing can alter that. And that man I must marry,
+for my pride's sake.”
+
+“I am afraid--” began Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Ah, you think, 'That weak girl--how is she going to get a man to marry
+her when she chooses?' But let me tell you one thing, Aunt: Mr. Wildeve
+is not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman. He has
+an unfortunate manner, and doesn't try to make people like him if they
+don't wish to do it of their own accord.”
+
+“Thomasin,” said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her niece,
+“do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr. Wildeve?”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed its
+colour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him, and
+that you act a part to me.”
+
+“He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him.”
+
+“Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment agree to be his
+wife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?”
+
+Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed. “Aunt,”
+ she said presently, “I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer that
+question.”
+
+“Yes, you have.”
+
+“You may think what you choose. I have never implied to you by word or
+deed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will. And
+I shall marry him.”
+
+“Well, wait till he repeats his offer. I think he may do it, now that he
+knows--something I told him. I don't for a moment dispute that it is the
+most proper thing for you to marry him. Much as I have objected to him
+in bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure. It is the only
+way out of a false position, and a very galling one.”
+
+“What did you tell him?”
+
+“That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours.”
+
+“Aunt,” said Thomasin, with round eyes, “what DO you mean?”
+
+“Don't be alarmed; it was my duty. I can say no more about it now, but
+when it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I said it.”
+
+Thomasin was perforce content.
+
+“And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for the
+present?” she next asked.
+
+“I have given my word to. But what is the use of it? He must soon know
+what has happened. A mere look at your face will show him that something
+is wrong.”
+
+Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. “Now, hearken to
+me,” she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a force
+which was other than physical. “Tell him nothing. If he finds out that I
+am not worthy to be his cousin, let him. But, since he loved me once, we
+will not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon. The air is full of
+the story, I know; but gossips will not dare to speak of it to him for
+the first few days. His closeness to me is the very thing that will
+hinder the tale from reaching him early. If I am not made safe from
+sneers in a week or two I will tell him myself.”
+
+The earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented further objections.
+Her aunt simply said, “Very well. He should by rights have been told at
+the time that the wedding was going to be. He will never forgive you for
+your secrecy.”
+
+“Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished to spare him, and
+that I did not expect him home so soon. And you must not let me stand in
+the way of your Christmas party. Putting it off would only make matters
+worse.”
+
+“Of course I shall not. I do not wish to show myself beaten before all
+Egdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve. We have enough berries now,
+I think, and we had better take them home. By the time we have decked
+the house with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must think of starting
+to meet him.”
+
+Thomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair and dress the loose
+berries which had fallen thereon, and went down the hill with her aunt,
+each woman bearing half the gathered boughs. It was now nearly four
+o'clock, and the sunlight was leaving the vales. When the west grew red
+the two relatives came again from the house and plunged into the heath
+in a different direction from the first, towards a point in the distant
+highway along which the expected man was to return.
+
+
+
+
+3--How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream
+
+
+Eustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes in the
+direction of Mrs. Yeobright's house and premises. No light, sound, or
+movement was perceptible there. The evening was chilly; the spot was
+dark and lonely. She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and after
+lingering ten or fifteen minutes she turned again towards home.
+
+She had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front of her betokened
+the approach of persons in conversation along the same path. Soon their
+heads became visible against the sky. They were walking slowly; and
+though it was too dark for much discovery of character from aspect, the
+gait of them showed that they were not workers on the heath. Eustacia
+stepped a little out of the foot-track to let them pass. They were
+two women and a man; and the voices of the women were those of Mrs.
+Yeobright and Thomasin.
+
+They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared to discern her
+dusky form. There came to her ears in a masculine voice, “Good night!”
+
+She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round. She could not,
+for a moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had brought into her
+presence the soul of the house she had gone to inspect, the man without
+whom her inspection would not have been thought of.
+
+She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. Such was her
+intentness, however, that it seemed as if her ears were performing the
+functions of seeing as well as hearing. This extension of power can
+almost be believed in at such moments. The deaf Dr. Kitto was probably
+under the influence of a parallel fancy when he described his body as
+having become, by long endeavour, so sensitive to vibrations that he had
+gained the power of perceiving by it as by ears.
+
+She could follow every word that the ramblers uttered. They were talking
+no secrets. They were merely indulging in the ordinary vivacious chat of
+relatives who have long been parted in person though not in soul. But
+it was not to the words that Eustacia listened; she could not even
+have recalled, a few minutes later, what the words were. It was to the
+alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth of them--the voice that
+had wished her good night. Sometimes this throat uttered Yes, sometimes
+it uttered No; sometimes it made inquiries about a time worn denizen
+of the place. Once it surprised her notions by remarking upon the
+friendliness and geniality written in the faces of the hills around.
+
+The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear. Thus
+much had been granted her; and all besides withheld. No event could have
+been more exciting. During the greater part of the afternoon she had
+been entrancing herself by imagining the fascination which must attend
+a man come direct from beautiful Paris--laden with its atmosphere,
+familiar with its charms. And this man had greeted her.
+
+With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of the women
+wasted away from her memory; but the accents of the other stayed on.
+Was there anything in the voice of Mrs. Yeobright's son--for Clym
+it was--startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive. All
+emotional things were possible to the speaker of that “good night.”
+ Eustacia's imagination supplied the rest--except the solution to one
+riddle. What COULD the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and
+geniality in these shaggy hills?
+
+On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly charged
+woman's head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but the changes,
+though actual, are minute. Eustacia's features went through a rhythmical
+succession of them. She glowed; remembering the mendacity of the
+imagination, she flagged; then she freshened; then she fired; then she
+cooled again. It was a cycle of aspects, produced by a cycle of visions.
+
+Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited. Her grandfather was
+enjoying himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing the
+red-hot surface of the turves, so that their lurid glare irradiated the
+chimney-corner with the hues of a furnace.
+
+“Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?” she said,
+coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth. “I wish we
+were. They seem to be very nice people.”
+
+“Be hanged if I know why,” said the captain. “I liked the old man well
+enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never have
+cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure.”
+
+“Why shouldn't I?”
+
+“Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in the
+kitchen, drink mead and elder-wine, and sand the floor to keep it clean.
+A sensible way of life; but how would you like it?”
+
+“I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman? A curate's daughter, was
+she not?”
+
+“Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose
+she has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once
+accidentally offended her, and I have never seen her since.”
+
+That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she
+hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from
+Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable
+one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was
+certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's situation before. It had
+as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many fluctuations as
+the northern lights, as much colour as a parterre in June, and was as
+crowded with figures as a coronation. To Queen Scheherazade the dream
+might have seemed not far removed from commonplace; and to a girl just
+returned from all the courts of Europe it might have seemed not more
+than interesting. But amid the circumstances of Eustacia's life it was
+as wonderful as a dream could be.
+
+There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation scenes a
+less extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared behind the
+general brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music, and
+her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her through
+the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being closed.
+The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came into her ear
+from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman in Paradise.
+Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers, dived into one
+of the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere into an iridescent
+hollow, arched with rainbows. “It must be here,” said the voice by her
+side, and blushingly looking up she saw him removing his casque to kiss
+her. At that moment there was a cracking noise, and his figure fell into
+fragments like a pack of cards.
+
+She cried aloud. “O that I had seen his face!”
+
+Eustacia awoke. The cracking had been that of the window shutter
+downstairs, which the maid-servant was opening to let in the day, now
+slowly increasing to Nature's meagre allowance at this sickly time of
+the year. “O that I had seen his face!” she said again. “'Twas meant for
+Mr. Yeobright!”
+
+When she became cooler she perceived that many of the phases of the
+dream had naturally arisen out of the images and fancies of the day
+before. But this detracted little from its interest, which lay in the
+excellent fuel it provided for newly kindled fervour. She was at the
+modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called
+“having a fancy for.” It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic
+passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest
+will.
+
+The perfervid woman was by this time half in love with a vision. The
+fantastic nature of her passion, which lowered her as an intellect,
+raised her as a soul. If she had had a little more self-control she
+would have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and so
+have killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might have
+gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights' premises at Blooms-End at any
+maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did neither of
+these things. She acted as the most exemplary might have acted, being
+so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day upon the Egdon
+hills, and kept her eyes employed.
+
+The first occasion passed, and he did not come that way.
+
+She promenaded a second time, and was again the sole wanderer there.
+
+The third time there was a dense fog; she looked around, but without
+much hope. Even if he had been walking within twenty yards of her she
+could not have seen him.
+
+At the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain in torrents, and
+she turned back.
+
+The fifth sally was in the afternoon; it was fine, and she remained out
+long, walking to the very top of the valley in which Blooms-End lay. She
+saw the white paling about half a mile off; but he did not appear. It
+was almost with heart-sickness that she came home and with a sense of
+shame at her weakness. She resolved to look for the man from Paris no
+more.
+
+But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had Eustacia
+formed this resolve than the opportunity came which, while sought, had
+been entirely withholden.
+
+
+
+
+4--Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure
+
+
+In the evening of this last day of expectation, which was the
+twenty-third of December, Eustacia was at home alone. She had passed
+the recent hour in lamenting over a rumour newly come to her ears--that
+Yeobright's visit to his mother was to be of short duration, and would
+end some time the next week. “Naturally,” she said to herself. A man
+in the full swing of his activities in a gay city could not afford to
+linger long on Egdon Heath. That she would behold face to face the owner
+of the awakening voice within the limits of such a holiday was most
+unlikely, unless she were to haunt the environs of his mother's house
+like a robin, to do which was difficult and unseemly.
+
+The customary expedient of provincial girls and men in such
+circumstances is churchgoing. In an ordinary village or country town
+one can safely calculate that, either on Christmas day or the Sunday
+contiguous, any native home for the holidays, who has not through age or
+ennui lost the appetite for seeing and being seen, will turn up in some
+pew or other, shining with hope, self-consciousness, and new clothes.
+Thus the congregation on Christmas morning is mostly a Tussaud
+collection of celebrities who have been born in the neighbourhood.
+Hither the mistress, left neglected at home all the year, can steal and
+observe the development of the returned lover who has forgotten her, and
+think as she watches him over her prayer book that he may throb with
+a renewed fidelity when novelties have lost their charm. And hither
+a comparatively recent settler like Eustacia may betake herself to
+scrutinize the person of a native son who left home before her advent
+upon the scene, and consider if the friendship of his parents be worth
+cultivating during his next absence in order to secure a knowledge of
+him on his next return.
+
+But these tender schemes were not feasible among the scattered
+inhabitants of Egdon Heath. In name they were parishioners, but
+virtually they belonged to no parish at all. People who came to these
+few isolated houses to keep Christmas with their friends remained
+in their friends' chimney-corners drinking mead and other comforting
+liquors till they left again for good and all. Rain, snow, ice, mud
+everywhere around, they did not care to trudge two or three miles to
+sit wet-footed and splashed to the nape of their necks among those
+who, though in some measure neighbours, lived close to the church, and
+entered it clean and dry. Eustacia knew it was ten to one that Clym
+Yeobright would go to no church at all during his few days of leave, and
+that it would be a waste of labour for her to go driving the pony and
+gig over a bad road in hope to see him there.
+
+It was dusk, and she was sitting by the fire in the dining-room or
+hall, which they occupied at this time of the year in preference to the
+parlour, because of its large hearth, constructed for turf-fires, a
+fuel the captain was partial to in the winter season. The only visible
+articles in the room were those on the window-sill, which showed their
+shapes against the low sky, the middle article being the old hourglass,
+and the other two a pair of ancient British urns which had been dug
+from a barrow near, and were used as flowerpots for two razor-leaved
+cactuses. Somebody knocked at the door. The servant was out; so was her
+grandfather. The person, after waiting a minute, came in and tapped at
+the door of the room.
+
+“Who's there?” said Eustacia.
+
+“Please, Cap'n Vye, will you let us----”
+
+Eustacia arose and went to the door. “I cannot allow you to come in so
+boldly. You should have waited.”
+
+“The cap'n said I might come in without any fuss,” was answered in a
+lad's pleasant voice.
+
+“Oh, did he?” said Eustacia more gently. “What do you want, Charley?”
+
+“Please will your grandfather lend us his fuelhouse to try over our
+parts in, tonight at seven o'clock?”
+
+“What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?”
+
+“Yes, miss. The cap'n used to let the old mummers practise here.”
+
+“I know it. Yes, you may use the fuelhouse if you like,” said Eustacia
+languidly.
+
+The choice of Captain Vye's fuelhouse as the scene of rehearsal was
+dictated by the fact that his dwelling was nearly in the centre of the
+heath. The fuelhouse was as roomy as a barn, and was a most desirable
+place for such a purpose. The lads who formed the company of players
+lived at different scattered points around, and by meeting in this spot
+the distances to be traversed by all the comers would be about equally
+proportioned.
+
+For mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. The mummers
+themselves were not afflicted with any such feeling for their art,
+though at the same time they were not enthusiastic. A traditional
+pastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking
+feature than in this, that while in the revival all is excitement and
+fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity and absence of
+stir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done so perfunctorily
+should be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other unwilling prophets, the
+agents seem moved by an inner compulsion to say and do their allotted
+parts whether they will or no. This unweeting manner of performance is
+the true ring by which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized survival
+may be known from a spurious reproduction.
+
+The piece was the well-known play of Saint George, and all who were
+behind the scenes assisted in the preparations, including the women of
+each household. Without the co-operation of sisters and sweethearts the
+dresses were likely to be a failure; but on the other hand, this class
+of assistance was not without its drawbacks. The girls could never be
+brought to respect tradition in designing and decorating the armour;
+they insisted on attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet in any
+situation pleasing to their taste. Gorget, gusset, basinet, cuirass,
+gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine eyes were
+practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of fluttering colour.
+
+It might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom, had a
+sweetheart, and that Jim, who fought on the side of the Moslem, had
+one likewise. During the making of the costumes it would come to the
+knowledge of Joe's sweetheart that Jim's was putting brilliant silk
+scallops at the bottom of her lover's surcoat, in addition to the
+ribbons of the visor, the bars of which, being invariably formed of
+coloured strips about half an inch wide hanging before the face, were
+mostly of that material. Joe's sweetheart straight-way placed brilliant
+silk on the scallops of the hem in question, and, going a little
+further, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim's, not to be
+outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere.
+
+The result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier, of the Christian
+army, was distinguished by no peculiarity of accoutrement from the
+Turkish Knight; and what was worse, on a casual view Saint George
+himself might be mistaken for his deadly enemy, the Saracen. The guisers
+themselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of persons, could
+not afford to offend those by whose assistance they so largely profited,
+and the innovations were allowed to stand.
+
+There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity. The
+Leech or Doctor preserved his character intact--his darker habiliments,
+peculiar hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his arm, could never
+be mistaken. And the same might be said of the conventional figure of
+Father Christmas, with his gigantic club, an older man, who accompanied
+the band as general protector in long night journeys from parish to
+parish, and was bearer of the purse.
+
+Seven o'clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short
+time Eustacia could hear voices in the fuelhouse. To dissipate in some
+trifling measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life she
+went to the “linhay” or lean-to shed, which formed the root-store of
+their dwelling and abutted on the fuelhouse. Here was a small rough hole
+in the mud wall, originally made for pigeons, through which the interior
+of the next shed could be viewed. A light came from it now; and Eustacia
+stepped upon a stool to look in upon the scene.
+
+On a ledge in the fuelhouse stood three tall rushlights and by the
+light of them seven or eight lads were marching about, haranguing, and
+confusing each other, in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play.
+Humphrey and Sam, the furze- and turf-cutters, were there looking on, so
+also was Timothy Fairway, who leant against the wall and prompted
+the boys from memory, interspersing among the set words remarks and
+anecdotes of the superior days when he and others were the Egdon
+mummers-elect that these lads were now.
+
+“Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be,” he said. “Not that
+such mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the Saracen should
+strut a bit more, and John needn't holler his inside out. Beyond that
+perhaps you'll do. Have you got all your clothes ready?”
+
+“We shall by Monday.”
+
+“Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright's.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Yeobright's. What makes her want to see ye? I should think a
+middle-aged woman was tired of mumming.”
+
+“She's got up a bit of a party, because 'tis the first Christmas that
+her son Clym has been home for a long time.”
+
+“To be sure, to be sure--her party! I am going myself. I almost forgot
+it, upon my life.”
+
+Eustacia's face flagged. There was to be a party at the Yeobrights';
+she, naturally, had nothing to do with it. She was a stranger to all
+such local gatherings, and had always held them as scarcely appertaining
+to her sphere. But had she been going, what an opportunity would have
+been afforded her of seeing the man whose influence was penetrating her
+like summer sun! To increase that influence was coveted excitement; to
+cast it off might be to regain serenity; to leave it as it stood was
+tantalizing.
+
+The lads and men prepared to leave the premises, and Eustacia returned
+to her fireside. She was immersed in thought, but not for long. In a
+few minutes the lad Charley, who had come to ask permission to use the
+place, returned with the key to the kitchen. Eustacia heard him, and
+opening the door into the passage said, “Charley, come here.”
+
+The lad was surprised. He entered the front room not without blushing;
+for he, like many, had felt the power of this girl's face and form.
+
+She pointed to a seat by the fire, and entered the other side of the
+chimney-corner herself. It could be seen in her face that whatever
+motive she might have had in asking the youth indoors would soon appear.
+
+“Which part do you play, Charley--the Turkish Knight, do you not?”
+ inquired the beauty, looking across the smoke of the fire to him on the
+other side.
+
+“Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight,” he replied diffidently.
+
+“Is yours a long part?”
+
+“Nine speeches, about.”
+
+“Can you repeat them to me? If so I should like to hear them.”
+
+The lad smiled into the glowing turf and began--
+
+     “Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
+     Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,”
+
+continuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the concluding
+catastrophe of his fall by the hand of Saint George.
+
+Eustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. When the lad
+ended she began, precisely in the same words, and ranted on without
+hitch or divergence till she too reached the end. It was the same thing,
+yet how different. Like in form, it had the added softness and finish
+of a Raffaelle after Perugino, which, while faithfully reproducing the
+original subject, entirely distances the original art.
+
+Charley's eyes rounded with surprise. “Well, you be a clever lady!” he
+said, in admiration. “I've been three weeks learning mine.”
+
+“I have heard it before,” she quietly observed. “Now, would you do
+anything to please me, Charley?”
+
+“I'd do a good deal, miss.”
+
+“Would you let me play your part for one night?”
+
+“Oh, miss! But your woman's gown--you couldn't.”
+
+“I can get boy's clothes--at least all that would be wanted besides the
+mumming dress. What should I have to give you to lend me your things,
+to let me take your place for an hour or two on Monday night, and on no
+account to say a word about who or what I am? You would, of course, have
+to excuse yourself from playing that night, and to say that somebody--a
+cousin of Miss Vye's--would act for you. The other mummers have never
+spoken to me in their lives so that it would be safe enough; and if it
+were not, I should not mind. Now, what must I give you to agree to this?
+Half a crown?”
+
+The youth shook his head
+
+“Five shillings?”
+
+He shook his head again. “Money won't do it,” he said, brushing the iron
+head of the firedog with the hollow of his hand.
+
+“What will, then, Charley?” said Eustacia in a disappointed tone.
+
+“You know what you forbade me at the Maypoling, miss,” murmured the lad,
+without looking at her, and still stroking the firedog's head.
+
+“Yes,” said Eustacia, with a little more hauteur. “You wanted to join
+hands with me in the ring, if I recollect?”
+
+“Half an hour of that, and I'll agree, miss.”
+
+Eustacia regarded the youth steadfastly. He was three years younger
+than herself, but apparently not backward for his age. “Half an hour of
+what?” she said, though she guessed what.
+
+“Holding your hand in mine.”
+
+She was silent. “Make it a quarter of an hour,” she said
+
+“Yes, Miss Eustacia--I will, if I may kiss it too. A quarter of an hour.
+And I'll swear to do the best I can to let you take my place without
+anybody knowing. Don't you think somebody might know your tongue, miss?”
+
+“It is possible. But I will put a pebble in my mouth to make is less
+likely. Very well; you shall be allowed to have my hand as soon as you
+bring the dress and your sword and staff. I don't want you any longer
+now.”
+
+Charley departed, and Eustacia felt more and more interest in life.
+Here was something to do: here was some one to see, and a charmingly
+adventurous way to see him. “Ah,” she said to herself, “want of an
+object to live for--that's all is the matter with me!”
+
+Eustacia's manner was as a rule of a slumberous sort, her passions being
+of the massive rather than the vivacious kind. But when aroused she
+would make a dash which, just for the time, was not unlike the move of a
+naturally lively person.
+
+On the question of recognition she was somewhat indifferent. By the
+acting lads themselves she was not likely to be known. With the guests
+who might be assembled she was hardly so secure. Yet detection, after
+all, would be no such dreadful thing. The fact only could be detected,
+her true motive never. It would be instantly set down as the passing
+freak of a girl whose ways were already considered singular. That she
+was doing for an earnest reason what would most naturally be done in
+jest was at any rate a safe secret.
+
+
+The next evening Eustacia stood punctually at the fuelhouse door,
+waiting for the dusk which was to bring Charley with the trappings.
+Her grandfather was at home tonight, and she would be unable to ask her
+confederate indoors.
+
+He appeared on the dark ridge of heathland, like a fly on a Negro,
+bearing the articles with him, and came up breathless with his walk.
+
+“Here are the things,” he whispered, placing them upon the threshold.
+“And now, Miss Eustacia--”
+
+“The payment. It is quite ready. I am as good as my word.”
+
+She leant against the door-post, and gave him her hand. Charley took it
+in both his own with a tenderness beyond description, unless it was like
+that of a child holding a captured sparrow.
+
+“Why, there's a glove on it!” he said in a deprecating way.
+
+“I have been walking,” she observed.
+
+“But, miss!”
+
+“Well--it is hardly fair.” She pulled off the glove, and gave him her
+bare hand.
+
+They stood together minute after minute, without further speech, each
+looking at the blackening scene, and each thinking his and her own
+thoughts.
+
+“I think I won't use it all up tonight,” said Charley devotedly, when
+six or eight minutes had been passed by him caressing her hand. “May I
+have the other few minutes another time?”
+
+“As you like,” said she without the least emotion. “But it must be over
+in a week. Now, there is only one thing I want you to do--to wait while
+I put on the dress, and then to see if I do my part properly. But let me
+look first indoors.”
+
+She vanished for a minute or two, and went in. Her grandfather was
+safely asleep in his chair. “Now, then,” she said, on returning, “walk
+down the garden a little way, and when I am ready I'll call you.”
+
+Charley walked and waited, and presently heard a soft whistle. He
+returned to the fuelhouse door.
+
+“Did you whistle, Miss Vye?”
+
+“Yes; come in,” reached him in Eustacia's voice from a back quarter.
+“I must not strike a light till the door is shut, or it may be seen
+shining. Push your hat into the hole through to the wash-house, if you
+can feel your way across.”
+
+Charley did as commanded, and she struck the light revealing herself
+to be changed in sex, brilliant in colours, and armed from top to toe.
+Perhaps she quailed a little under Charley's vigorous gaze, but whether
+any shyness at her male attire appeared upon her countenance could not
+be seen by reason of the strips of ribbon which used to cover the face
+in mumming costumes, representing the barred visor of the mediaeval
+helmet.
+
+“It fits pretty well,” she said, looking down at the white overalls,
+“except that the tunic, or whatever you call it, is long in the sleeve.
+The bottom of the overalls I can turn up inside. Now pay attention.”
+
+Eustacia then proceeded in her delivery, striking the sword against the
+staff or lance at the minatory phrases, in the orthodox mumming
+manner, and strutting up and down. Charley seasoned his admiration with
+criticism of the gentlest kind, for the touch of Eustacia's hand yet
+remained with him.
+
+“And now for your excuse to the others,” she said. “Where do you meet
+before you go to Mrs. Yeobright's?”
+
+“We thought of meeting here, miss, if you have nothing to say against
+it. At eight o'clock, so as to get there by nine.”
+
+“Yes. Well, you of course must not appear. I will march in about five
+minutes late, ready-dressed, and tell them that you can't come. I have
+decided that the best plan will be for you to be sent somewhere by me,
+to make a real thing of the excuse. Our two heath-croppers are in the
+habit of straying into the meads, and tomorrow evening you can go and
+see if they are gone there. I'll manage the rest. Now you may leave me.”
+
+“Yes, miss. But I think I'll have one minute more of what I am owed, if
+you don't mind.”
+
+Eustacia gave him her hand as before.
+
+“One minute,” she said, and counted on till she reached seven or eight
+minutes. Hand and person she then withdrew to a distance of several
+feet, and recovered some of her old dignity. The contract completed, she
+raised between them a barrier impenetrable as a wall.
+
+“There, 'tis all gone; and I didn't mean quite all,” he said, with a
+sigh.
+
+“You had good measure,” said she, turning away.
+
+“Yes, miss. Well, 'tis over, and now I'll get home-along.”
+
+
+
+
+5--Through the Moonlight
+
+
+The next evening the mummers were assembled in the same spot, awaiting
+the entrance of the Turkish Knight.
+
+“Twenty minutes after eight by the Quiet Woman, and Charley not come.”
+
+“Ten minutes past by Blooms-End.”
+
+“It wants ten minutes to, by Grandfer Cantle's watch.”
+
+“And 'tis five minutes past by the captain's clock.”
+
+On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any moment
+was a number of varying doctrines professed by the different hamlets,
+some of them having originally grown up from a common root, and then
+become divided by secession, some having been alien from the beginning.
+West Egdon believed in Blooms-End time, East Egdon in the time of the
+Quiet Woman Inn. Grandfer Cantle's watch had numbered many followers in
+years gone by, but since he had grown older faiths were shaken. Thus,
+the mummers having gathered hither from scattered points each came with
+his own tenets on early and late; and they waited a little longer as a
+compromise.
+
+Eustacia had watched the assemblage through the hole; and seeing that
+now was the proper moment to enter, she went from the “linhay” and
+boldly pulled the bobbin of the fuelhouse door. Her grandfather was safe
+at the Quiet Woman.
+
+“Here's Charley at last! How late you be, Charley.”
+
+“'Tis not Charley,” said the Turkish Knight from within his visor. “'Tis
+a cousin of Miss Vye's, come to take Charley's place from curiosity. He
+was obliged to go and look for the heath-croppers that have got into the
+meads, and I agreed to take his place, as he knew he couldn't come back
+here again tonight. I know the part as well as he.”
+
+Her graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general won
+the mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if the
+newcomer were perfect in his part.
+
+“It don't matter--if you be not too young,” said Saint George.
+Eustacia's voice had sounded somewhat more juvenile and fluty than
+Charley's.
+
+“I know every word of it, I tell you,” said Eustacia decisively. Dash
+being all that was required to carry her triumphantly through, she
+adopted as much as was necessary. “Go ahead, lads, with the try-over.
+I'll challenge any of you to find a mistake in me.”
+
+The play was hastily rehearsed, whereupon the other mummers were
+delighted with the new knight. They extinguished the candles at
+half-past eight, and set out upon the heath in the direction of Mrs.
+Yeobright's house at Bloom's-End.
+
+There was a slight hoarfrost that night, and the moon, though not
+more than half full, threw a spirited and enticing brightness upon the
+fantastic figures of the mumming band, whose plumes and ribbons rustled
+in their walk like autumn leaves. Their path was not over Rainbarrow
+now, but down a valley which left that ancient elevation a little to
+the east. The bottom of the vale was green to a width of ten yards or
+thereabouts, and the shining facets of frost upon the blades of grass
+seemed to move on with the shadows of those they surrounded. The masses
+of furze and heath to the right and left were dark as ever; a mere
+half-moon was powerless to silver such sable features as theirs.
+
+Half-an-hour of walking and talking brought them to the spot in the
+valley where the grass riband widened and led down to the front of the
+house. At sight of the place Eustacia who had felt a few passing doubts
+during her walk with the youths, again was glad that the adventure had
+been undertaken. She had come out to see a man who might possibly have
+the power to deliver her soul from a most deadly oppression. What was
+Wildeve? Interesting, but inadequate. Perhaps she would see a sufficient
+hero tonight.
+
+As they drew nearer to the front of the house the mummers became aware
+that music and dancing were briskly flourishing within. Every now
+and then a long low note from the serpent, which was the chief wind
+instrument played at these times, advanced further into the heath than
+the thin treble part, and reached their ears alone; and next a more
+than usual loud tread from a dancer would come the same way. With nearer
+approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together, and were found
+to be the salient points of the tune called “Nancy's Fancy.”
+
+He was there, of course. Who was she that he danced with? Perhaps some
+unknown woman, far beneath herself in culture, was by the most subtle
+of lures sealing his fate this very instant. To dance with a man is to
+concentrate a twelvemonth's regulation fire upon him in the fragment of
+an hour. To pass to courtship without acquaintance, to pass to marriage
+without courtship, is a skipping of terms reserved for those alone
+who tread this royal road. She would see how his heart lay by keen
+observation of them all.
+
+The enterprising lady followed the mumming company through the gate
+in the white paling, and stood before the open porch. The house was
+encrusted with heavy thatchings, which dropped between the upper
+windows; the front, upon which the moonbeams directly played, had
+originally been white; but a huge pyracanth now darkened the greater
+portion.
+
+It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately
+within the surface of the door, no apartment intervening. The brushing
+of skirts and elbows, sometimes the bumping of shoulders, could be heard
+against the very panels. Eustacia, though living within two miles of
+the place, had never seen the interior of this quaint old habitation.
+Between Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never existed much
+acquaintance, the former having come as a stranger and purchased the
+long-empty house at Mistover Knap not long before the death of Mrs.
+Yeobright's husband; and with that event and the departure of her son
+such friendship as had grown up became quite broken off.
+
+“Is there no passage inside the door, then?” asked Eustacia as they
+stood within the porch.
+
+“No,” said the lad who played the Saracen. “The door opens right upon
+the front sitting-room, where the spree's going on.”
+
+“So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance.”
+
+“That's it. Here we must bide till they have done, for they always bolt
+the back door after dark.”
+
+“They won't be much longer,” said Father Christmas.
+
+This assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event. Again the
+instruments ended the tune; again they recommenced with as much fire and
+pathos as if it were the first strain. The air was now that one without
+any particular beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps, among all the
+dances which throng an inspired fiddler's fancy, best conveys the
+idea of the interminable--the celebrated “Devil's Dream.” The fury of
+personal movement that was kindled by the fury of the notes could be
+approximately imagined by these outsiders under the moon, from the
+occasional kicks of toes and heels against the door, whenever the whirl
+round had been of more than customary velocity.
+
+The first five minutes of listening was interesting enough to the
+mummers. The five minutes extended to ten minutes, and these to a
+quarter of an hour; but no signs of ceasing were audible in the lively
+“Dream.” The bumping against the door, the laughter, the stamping, were
+all as vigorous as ever, and the pleasure in being outside lessened
+considerably.
+
+“Why does Mrs. Yeobright give parties of this sort?” Eustacia asked, a
+little surprised to hear merriment so pronounced.
+
+“It is not one of her bettermost parlour-parties. She's asked the plain
+neighbours and workpeople without drawing any lines, just to give 'em a
+good supper and such like. Her son and she wait upon the folks.”
+
+“I see,” said Eustacia.
+
+“'Tis the last strain, I think,” said Saint George, with his ear to the
+panel. “A young man and woman have just swung into this corner, and he's
+saying to her, 'Ah, the pity; 'tis over for us this time, my own.'”
+
+“Thank God,” said the Turkish Knight, stamping, and taking from the wall
+the conventional lance that each of the mummers carried. Her boots being
+thinner than those of the young men, the hoar had damped her feet and
+made them cold.
+
+“Upon my song 'tis another ten minutes for us,” said the Valiant
+Soldier, looking through the keyhole as the tune modulated into another
+without stopping. “Grandfer Cantle is standing in this corner, waiting
+his turn.”
+
+“'Twon't be long; 'tis a six-handed reel,” said the Doctor.
+
+“Why not go in, dancing or no? They sent for us,” said the Saracen.
+
+“Certainly not,” said Eustacia authoritatively, as she paced smartly up
+and down from door to gate to warm herself. “We should burst into the
+middle of them and stop the dance, and that would be unmannerly.”
+
+“He thinks himself somebody because he has had a bit more schooling than
+we,” said the Doctor.
+
+“You may go to the deuce!” said Eustacia.
+
+There was a whispered conversation between three or four of them, and
+one turned to her.
+
+“Will you tell us one thing?” he said, not without gentleness. “Be you
+Miss Vye? We think you must be.”
+
+“You may think what you like,” said Eustacia slowly. “But honourable
+lads will not tell tales upon a lady.”
+
+“We'll say nothing, miss. That's upon our honour.”
+
+“Thank you,” she replied.
+
+At this moment the fiddles finished off with a screech, and the
+serpent emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the
+comparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken
+their seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his
+head inside the door.
+
+“Ah, the mummers, the mummers!” cried several guests at once. “Clear a
+space for the mummers.”
+
+Humpbacked Father Christmas then made a complete entry, swinging his
+huge club, and in a general way clearing the stage for the actors
+proper, while he informed the company in smart verse that he was come,
+welcome or welcome not; concluding his speech with
+
+          “Make room, make room, my gallant boys,
+            And give us space to rhyme;
+           We've come to show Saint George's play,
+             Upon this Christmas time.”
+
+The guests were now arranging themselves at one end of the room, the
+fiddler was mending a string, the serpent-player was emptying his
+mouthpiece, and the play began. First of those outside the Valiant
+Soldier entered, in the interest of Saint George--
+
+     “Here come I, the Valiant Soldier;
+            Slasher is my name”;
+
+and so on. This speech concluded with a challenge to the infidel, at the
+end of which it was Eustacia's duty to enter as the Turkish Knight.
+She, with the rest who were not yet on, had hitherto remained in the
+moonlight which streamed under the porch. With no apparent effort or
+backwardness she came in, beginning--
+
+     “Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
+     Who learnt in Turkish land to fight;
+     I'll fight this man with courage bold:
+     If his blood's hot I'll make it cold!”
+
+During her declamation Eustacia held her head erect, and spoke as
+roughly as she could, feeling pretty secure from observation. But the
+concentration upon her part necessary to prevent discovery, the newness
+of the scene, the shine of the candles, and the confusing effect upon
+her vision of the ribboned visor which hid her features, left her
+absolutely unable to perceive who were present as spectators. On the
+further side of a table bearing candles she could faintly discern faces,
+and that was all.
+
+Meanwhile Jim Starks as the Valiant Soldier had come forward, and, with
+a glare upon the Turk, replied--
+
+     “If, then, thou art that Turkish Knight,
+     Draw out thy sword, and let us fight!”
+
+And fight they did; the issue of the combat being that the Valiant
+Soldier was slain by a preternaturally inadequate thrust from Eustacia,
+Jim, in his ardour for genuine histrionic art, coming down like a log
+upon the stone floor with force enough to dislocate his shoulder. Then,
+after more words from the Turkish Knight, rather too faintly delivered,
+and statements that he'd fight Saint George and all his crew, Saint
+George himself magnificently entered with the well-known flourish--
+
+          “Here come I, Saint George, the valiant man,
+           With naked sword and spear in hand,
+     Who fought the dragon and brought him to the slaughter,
+     And by this won fair Sabra, the King of Egypt's
+     daughter;
+         What mortal man would dare to stand
+         Before me with my sword in hand?”
+
+This was the lad who had first recognized Eustacia; and when she now, as
+the Turk, replied with suitable defiance, and at once began the combat,
+the young fellow took especial care to use his sword as gently as
+possible. Being wounded, the Knight fell upon one knee, according to the
+direction. The Doctor now entered, restored the Knight by giving him
+a draught from the bottle which he carried, and the fight was again
+resumed, the Turk sinking by degrees until quite overcome--dying as hard
+in this venerable drama as he is said to do at the present day.
+
+This gradual sinking to the earth was, in fact, one reason why Eustacia
+had thought that the part of the Turkish Knight, though not the
+shortest, would suit her best. A direct fall from upright to horizontal,
+which was the end of the other fighting characters, was not an elegant
+or decorous part for a girl. But it was easy to die like a Turk, by a
+dogged decline.
+
+Eustacia was now among the number of the slain, though not on the
+floor, for she had managed to sink into a sloping position against
+the clock-case, so that her head was well elevated. The play proceeded
+between Saint George, the Saracen, the Doctor, and Father Christmas;
+and Eustacia, having no more to do, for the first time found leisure to
+observe the scene round, and to search for the form that had drawn her
+hither.
+
+
+
+
+6--The Two Stand Face to Face
+
+
+The room had been arranged with a view to the dancing, the large oak
+table having been moved back till it stood as a breastwork to the
+fireplace. At each end, behind, and in the chimney-corner were grouped
+the guests, many of them being warm-faced and panting, among whom
+Eustacia cursorily recognized some well-to-do persons from beyond the
+heath. Thomasin, as she had expected, was not visible, and Eustacia
+recollected that a light had shone from an upper window when they were
+outside--the window, probably, of Thomasin's room. A nose, chin, hands,
+knees, and toes projected from the seat within the chimney opening,
+which members she found to unite in the person of Grandfer Cantle, Mrs.
+Yeobright's occasional assistant in the garden, and therefore one of the
+invited. The smoke went up from an Etna of peat in front of him, played
+round the notches of the chimney-crook, struck against the salt-box, and
+got lost among the flitches.
+
+Another part of the room soon riveted her gaze. At the other side of the
+chimney stood the settle, which is the necessary supplement to a fire so
+open that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up the smoke. It
+is, to the hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces, what the east
+belt of trees is to the exposed country estate, or the north wall to
+the garden. Outside the settle candles gutter, locks of hair wave, young
+women shiver, and old men sneeze. Inside is Paradise. Not a symptom of a
+draught disturbs the air; the sitters' backs are as warm as their faces,
+and songs and old tales are drawn from the occupants by the comfortable
+heat, like fruit from melon plants in a frame.
+
+It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that Eustacia was
+concerned. A face showed itself with marked distinctness against the
+dark-tanned wood of the upper part. The owner, who was leaning against
+the settle's outer end, was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as he was called
+here; she knew it could be nobody else. The spectacle constituted an
+area of two feet in Rembrandt's intensest manner. A strange power in the
+lounger's appearance lay in the fact that, though his whole figure was
+visible, the observer's eye was only aware of his face.
+
+To one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man, though a
+youth might hardly have seen any necessity for the term of immaturity.
+But it was really one of those faces which convey less the idea of
+so many years as its age than of so much experience as its store. The
+number of their years may have adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel,
+and the rest of the antediluvians, but the age of a modern man is to be
+measured by the intensity of his history.
+
+The face was well shaped, even excellently. But the mind within
+was beginning to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon to trace its
+idiosyncrasies as they developed themselves. The beauty here visible
+would in no long time be ruthlessly over-run by its parasite, thought,
+which might just as well have fed upon a plainer exterior where there
+was nothing it could harm. Had Heaven preserved Yeobright from a wearing
+habit of meditation, people would have said, “A handsome man.” Had
+his brain unfolded under sharper contours they would have said, “A
+thoughtful man.” But an inner strenuousness was preying upon an outer
+symmetry, and they rated his look as singular.
+
+Hence people who began by beholding him ended by perusing him.
+His countenance was overlaid with legible meanings. Without being
+thought-worn he yet had certain marks derived from a perception of his
+surroundings, such as are not unfrequently found on men at the end of
+the four or five years of endeavour which follow the close of placid
+pupilage. He already showed that thought is a disease of flesh, and
+indirectly bore evidence that ideal physical beauty is incompatible
+with emotional development and a full recognition of the coil of things.
+Mental luminousness must be fed with the oil of life, even though there
+is already a physical need for it; and the pitiful sight of two demands
+on one supply was just showing itself here.
+
+When standing before certain men the philosopher regrets that thinkers
+are but perishable tissue, the artist that perishable tissue has to
+think. Thus to deplore, each from his point of view, the mutually
+destructive interdependence of spirit and flesh would have been
+instinctive with these in critically observing Yeobright.
+
+As for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against
+depression from without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested
+isolation, but it revealed something more. As is usual with bright
+natures, the deity that lies ignominiously chained within an ephemeral
+human carcase shone out of him like a ray.
+
+The effect upon Eustacia was palpable. The extraordinary pitch of
+excitement that she had reached beforehand would, indeed, have caused
+her to be influenced by the most commonplace man. She was troubled at
+Yeobright's presence.
+
+The remainder of the play ended--the Saracen's head was cut off, and
+Saint George stood as victor. Nobody commented, any more than they would
+have commented on the fact of mushrooms coming in autumn or snowdrops
+in spring. They took the piece as phlegmatically as did the actors
+themselves. It was a phase of cheerfulness which was, as a matter of
+course, to be passed through every Christmas; and there was no more to
+be said.
+
+They sang the plaintive chant which follows the play, during which all
+the dead men rise to their feet in a silent and awful manner, like the
+ghosts of Napoleon's soldiers in the Midnight Review. Afterwards the
+door opened, and Fairway appeared on the threshold, accompanied by
+Christian and another. They had been waiting outside for the conclusion
+of the play, as the players had waited for the conclusion of the dance.
+
+“Come in, come in,” said Mrs. Yeobright; and Clym went forward to
+welcome them. “How is it you are so late? Grandfer Cantle has been here
+ever so long, and we thought you'd have come with him, as you live so
+near one another.”
+
+“Well, I should have come earlier,” Mr. Fairway said and paused to
+look along the beam of the ceiling for a nail to hang his hat on; but,
+finding his accustomed one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all
+the nails in the walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at
+last relieved himself of the hat by ticklishly balancing it between the
+candle-box and the head of the clock-case. “I should have come earlier,
+ma'am,” he resumed, with a more composed air, “but I know what parties
+be, and how there's none too much room in folks' houses at such times,
+so I thought I wouldn't come till you'd got settled a bit.”
+
+“And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright,” said Christian earnestly, “but
+Father there was so eager that he had no manners at all, and left home
+almost afore 'twas dark. I told him 'twas barely decent in a' old man to
+come so oversoon; but words be wind.”
+
+“Klk! I wasn't going to bide waiting about, till half the game was over!
+I'm as light as a kite when anything's going on!” crowed Grandfer Cantle
+from the chimneyseat.
+
+Fairway had meanwhile concluded a critical gaze at Yeobright. “Now,
+you may not believe it,” he said to the rest of the room, “but I should
+never have knowed this gentleman if I had met him anywhere off his own
+he'th--he's altered so much.”
+
+“You too have altered, and for the better, I think Timothy,” said
+Yeobright, surveying the firm figure of Fairway.
+
+“Master Yeobright, look me over too. I have altered for the better,
+haven't I, hey?” said Grandfer Cantle, rising and placing himself
+something above half a foot from Clym's eye, to induce the most
+searching criticism.
+
+“To be sure we will,” said Fairway, taking the candle and moving it over
+the surface of the Grandfer's countenance, the subject of his scrutiny
+irradiating himself with light and pleasant smiles, and giving himself
+jerks of juvenility.
+
+“You haven't changed much,” said Yeobright.
+
+“If there's any difference, Grandfer is younger,” appended Fairway
+decisively.
+
+“And yet not my own doing, and I feel no pride in it,” said the pleased
+ancient. “But I can't be cured of my vagaries; them I plead guilty to.
+Yes, Master Cantle always was that, as we know. But I am nothing by the
+side of you, Mister Clym.”
+
+“Nor any o' us,” said Humphrey, in a low rich tone of admiration, not
+intended to reach anybody's ears.
+
+“Really, there would have been nobody here who could have stood as
+decent second to him, or even third, if I hadn't been a soldier in the
+Bang-up Locals (as we was called for our smartness),” said Grandfer
+Cantle. “And even as 'tis we all look a little scammish beside him. But
+in the year four 'twas said there wasn't a finer figure in the whole
+South Wessex than I, as I looked when dashing past the shop-winders with
+the rest of our company on the day we ran out o' Budmouth because it was
+thoughted that Boney had landed round the point. There was I, straight
+as a young poplar, wi' my firelock, and my bagnet, and my spatterdashes,
+and my stock sawing my jaws off, and my accoutrements sheening like
+the seven stars! Yes, neighbours, I was a pretty sight in my soldiering
+days. You ought to have seen me in four!”
+
+“'Tis his mother's side where Master Clym's figure comes from, bless
+ye,” said Timothy. “I know'd her brothers well. Longer coffins were
+never made in the whole country of South Wessex, and 'tis said that poor
+George's knees were crumpled up a little e'en as 'twas.”
+
+“Coffins, where?” inquired Christian, drawing nearer. “Have the ghost of
+one appeared to anybody, Master Fairway?”
+
+“No, no. Don't let your mind so mislead your ears, Christian; and be a
+man,” said Timothy reproachfully.
+
+“I will.” said Christian. “But now I think o't my shadder last night
+seemed just the shape of a coffin. What is it a sign of when your
+shade's like a coffin, neighbours? It can't be nothing to be afeared of,
+I suppose?”
+
+“Afeared, no!” said the Grandfer. “Faith, I was never afeard of nothing
+except Boney, or I shouldn't ha' been the soldier I was. Yes, 'tis a
+thousand pities you didn't see me in four!”
+
+By this time the mummers were preparing to leave; but Mrs. Yeobright
+stopped them by asking them to sit down and have a little supper. To
+this invitation Father Christmas, in the name of them all, readily
+agreed.
+
+Eustacia was happy in the opportunity of staying a little longer.
+The cold and frosty night without was doubly frigid to her. But the
+lingering was not without its difficulties. Mrs. Yeobright, for want
+of room in the larger apartment, placed a bench for the mummers halfway
+through the pantry door, which opened from the sitting-room. Here they
+seated themselves in a row, the door being left open--thus they were
+still virtually in the same apartment. Mrs. Yeobright now murmured a few
+words to her son, who crossed the room to the pantry door, striking his
+head against the mistletoe as he passed, and brought the mummers beef
+and bread, cake pastry, mead, and elder-wine, the waiting being done by
+him and his mother, that the little maid-servant might sit as guest. The
+mummers doffed their helmets, and began to eat and drink.
+
+“But you will surely have some?” said Clym to the Turkish Knight, as he
+stood before that warrior, tray in hand. She had refused, and still sat
+covered, only the sparkle of her eyes being visible between the ribbons
+which covered her face.
+
+“None, thank you,” replied Eustacia.
+
+“He's quite a youngster,” said the Saracen apologetically, “and you
+must excuse him. He's not one of the old set, but have jined us because
+t'other couldn't come.”
+
+“But he will take something?” persisted Yeobright. “Try a glass of mead
+or elder-wine.”
+
+“Yes, you had better try that,” said the Saracen. “It will keep the cold
+out going home-along.”
+
+Though Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face she could
+drink easily enough beneath her disguise. The elder-wine was accordingly
+accepted, and the glass vanished inside the ribbons.
+
+At moments during this performance Eustacia was half in doubt about
+the security of her position; yet it had a fearful joy. A series of
+attentions paid to her, and yet not to her but to some imaginary person,
+by the first man she had ever been inclined to adore, complicated
+her emotions indescribably. She had loved him partly because he was
+exceptional in this scene, partly because she had determined to love
+him, chiefly because she was in desperate need of loving somebody
+after wearying of Wildeve. Believing that she must love him in spite of
+herself, she had been influenced after the fashion of the second Lord
+Lyttleton and other persons, who have dreamed that they were to die on a
+certain day, and by stress of a morbid imagination have actually brought
+about that event. Once let a maiden admit the possibility of her being
+stricken with love for someone at a certain hour and place, and the
+thing is as good as done.
+
+Did anything at this moment suggest to Yeobright the sex of the creature
+whom that fantastic guise inclosed, how extended was her scope both in
+feeling and in making others feel, and how far her compass transcended
+that of her companions in the band? When the disguised Queen of Love
+appeared before Aeneas a preternatural perfume accompanied her presence
+and betrayed her quality. If such a mysterious emanation ever was
+projected by the emotions of an earthly woman upon their object, it must
+have signified Eustacia's presence to Yeobright now. He looked at her
+wistfully, then seemed to fall into a reverie, as if he were forgetting
+what he observed. The momentary situation ended, he passed on, and
+Eustacia sipped her wine without knowing what she drank. The man for
+whom she had pre-determined to nourish a passion went into the small
+room, and across it to the further extremity.
+
+The mummers, as has been stated, were seated on a bench, one end of
+which extended into the small apartment, or pantry, for want of space
+in the outer room. Eustacia, partly from shyness, had chosen the midmost
+seat, which thus commanded a view of the interior of the pantry as well
+as the room containing the guests. When Clym passed down the pantry her
+eyes followed him in the gloom which prevailed there. At the remote
+end was a door which, just as he was about to open it for himself, was
+opened by somebody within; and light streamed forth.
+
+The person was Thomasin, with a candle, looking anxious, pale, and
+interesting. Yeobright appeared glad to see her, and pressed her hand.
+“That's right, Tamsie,” he said heartily, as though recalled to himself
+by the sight of her, “you have decided to come down. I am glad of it.”
+
+“Hush--no, no,” she said quickly. “I only came to speak to you.”
+
+“But why not join us?”
+
+“I cannot. At least I would rather not. I am not well enough, and we
+shall have plenty of time together now you are going to be home a good
+long holiday.”
+
+“It isn't nearly so pleasant without you. Are you really ill?”
+
+“Just a little, my old cousin--here,” she said, playfully sweeping her
+hand across her heart.
+
+“Ah, Mother should have asked somebody else to be present tonight,
+perhaps?”
+
+“O no, indeed. I merely stepped down, Clym, to ask you--” Here he
+followed her through the doorway into the private room beyond, and,
+the door closing, Eustacia and the mummer who sat next to her, the only
+other witness of the performance, saw and heard no more.
+
+The heat flew to Eustacia's head and cheeks. She instantly guessed that
+Clym, having been home only these two or three days, had not as yet
+been made acquainted with Thomasin's painful situation with regard to
+Wildeve; and seeing her living there just as she had been living before
+he left home, he naturally suspected nothing. Eustacia felt a wild
+jealousy of Thomasin on the instant. Though Thomasin might possibly have
+tender sentiments towards another man as yet, how long could they be
+expected to last when she was shut up here with this interesting and
+travelled cousin of hers? There was no knowing what affection might not
+soon break out between the two, so constantly in each other's society,
+and not a distracting object near. Clym's boyish love for her might have
+languished, but it might easily be revived again.
+
+Eustacia was nettled by her own contrivances. What a sheer waste of
+herself to be dressed thus while another was shining to advantage! Had
+she known the full effect of the encounter she would have moved heaven
+and earth to get here in a natural manner. The power of her face all
+lost, the charm of her emotions all disguised, the fascinations of her
+coquetry denied existence, nothing but a voice left to her; she had a
+sense of the doom of Echo. “Nobody here respects me,” she said. She had
+overlooked the fact that, in coming as a boy among other boys, she
+would be treated as a boy. The slight, though of her own causing, and
+self-explanatory, she was unable to dismiss as unwittingly shown, so
+sensitive had the situation made her.
+
+Women have done much for themselves in histrionic dress. To look far
+below those who, like a certain fair personator of Polly Peachum early
+in the last century, and another of Lydia Languish early in this, (1)
+have won not only love but ducal coronets into the bargain, whole shoals
+of them have reached to the initial satisfaction of getting love almost
+whence they would. But the Turkish Knight was denied even the chance
+of achieving this by the fluttering ribbons which she dared not brush
+aside.
+
+     (1) Written in 1877.
+
+Yeobright returned to the room without his cousin. When within two or
+three feet of Eustacia he stopped, as if again arrested by a thought.
+He was gazing at her. She looked another way, disconcerted, and wondered
+how long this purgatory was to last. After lingering a few seconds he
+passed on again.
+
+To court their own discomfiture by love is a common instinct with
+certain perfervid women. Conflicting sensations of love, fear, and shame
+reduced Eustacia to a state of the utmost uneasiness. To escape was her
+great and immediate desire. The other mummers appeared to be in no
+hurry to leave; and murmuring to the lad who sat next to her that she
+preferred waiting for them outside the house, she moved to the door as
+imperceptibly as possible, opened it, and slipped out.
+
+The calm, lone scene reassured her. She went forward to the palings and
+leant over them, looking at the moon. She had stood thus but a little
+time when the door again opened. Expecting to see the remainder of the
+band Eustacia turned; but no--Clym Yeobright came out as softly as she
+had done, and closed the door behind him.
+
+He advanced and stood beside her. “I have an odd opinion,” he said, “and
+should like to ask you a question. Are you a woman--or am I wrong?”
+
+“I am a woman.”
+
+His eyes lingered on her with great interest. “Do girls often play as
+mummers now? They never used to.”
+
+“They don't now.”
+
+“Why did you?”
+
+“To get excitement and shake off depression,” she said in low tones.
+
+“What depressed you?”
+
+“Life.”
+
+“That's a cause of depression a good many have to put up with.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+A long silence. “And do you find excitement?” asked Clym at last.
+
+“At this moment, perhaps.”
+
+“Then you are vexed at being discovered?”
+
+“Yes; though I thought I might be.”
+
+“I would gladly have asked you to our party had I known you wished to
+come. Have I ever been acquainted with you in my youth?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Won't you come in again, and stay as long as you like?”
+
+“No. I wish not to be further recognized.”
+
+“Well, you are safe with me.” After remaining in thought a minute he
+added gently, “I will not intrude upon you longer. It is a strange way
+of meeting, and I will not ask why I find a cultivated woman playing
+such a part as this.”
+
+She did not volunteer the reason which he seemed to hope for, and he
+wished her good night, going thence round to the back of the house,
+where he walked up and down by himself for some time before re-
+entering.
+
+Eustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for her companions
+after this. She flung back the ribbons from her face, opened the
+gate, and at once struck into the heath. She did not hasten along. Her
+grandfather was in bed at this hour, for she so frequently walked upon
+the hills on moonlight nights that he took no notice of her comings and
+goings, and, enjoying himself in his own way, left her to do likewise.
+A more important subject than that of getting indoors now engrossed her.
+Yeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would infallibly discover her
+name. What then? She first felt a sort of exultation at the way in
+which the adventure had terminated, even though at moments between
+her exultations she was abashed and blushful. Then this consideration
+recurred to chill her: What was the use of her exploit? She was at
+present a total stranger to the Yeobright family. The unreasonable
+nimbus of romance with which she had encircled that man might be her
+misery. How could she allow herself to become so infatuated with a
+stranger? And to fill the cup of her sorrow there would be Thomasin,
+living day after day in inflammable proximity to him; for she had just
+learnt that, contrary to her first belief, he was going to stay at home
+some considerable time.
+
+She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she
+turned and faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood above
+the hills, and the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was charged with
+silence and frost. The scene reminded Eustacia of a circumstance which
+till that moment she had totally forgotten. She had promised to meet
+Wildeve by the Barrow this very night at eight, to give a final answer
+to his pleading for an elopement.
+
+She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come to
+the spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.
+
+“Well, so much the better--it did not hurt him,” she said serenely.
+Wildeve had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked
+glass, and she could say such things as that with the greatest facility.
+
+She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin's winning manner towards her
+cousin arose again upon Eustacia's mind.
+
+“O that she had been married to Damon before this!” she said. “And
+she would if it hadn't been for me! If I had only known--if I had only
+known!”
+
+Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and,
+sighing that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder,
+entered the shadow of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the
+outhouse, rolled them up, and went indoors to her chamber.
+
+
+
+
+7--A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
+
+
+The old captain's prevailing indifference to his granddaughter's
+movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so
+happened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why
+she had walked out so late.
+
+“Only in search of events, Grandfather,” she said, looking out of the
+window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much force
+behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.
+
+“Search of events--one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at
+one-and-twenty.”
+
+“It is lonely here.”
+
+“So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be
+taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been home
+when I returned from the Woman.”
+
+“I won't conceal what I did. I wanted an adventure, and I went with the
+mummers. I played the part of the Turkish Knight.”
+
+“No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn't expect it of you, Eustacia.”
+
+“It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last. Now I
+have told you--and remember it is a secret.”
+
+“Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did--ha! ha! Dammy, how 'twould
+have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl.
+You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you don't
+bother me; but no figuring in breeches again.”
+
+“You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa.”
+
+Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia's moral training never exceeding
+in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became profitable
+to good works, would be a result not dear at the price. But her thoughts
+soon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a passionate and
+indescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not even a name, she
+went forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around her, restless as
+Ahasuerus the Jew. She was about half a mile from her residence when
+she beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a little way in
+advance--dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight and she guessed it to
+signify Diggory Venn.
+
+When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle during
+the last month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people replied,
+“On Egdon Heath.” Day after day the answer was the same. Now, since
+Egdon was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather than
+with sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most of the latter were
+to be found lay some to the north, some to the west of Egdon, his
+reason for camping about there like Israel in Zin was not apparent. The
+position was central and occasionally desirable. But the sale of reddle
+was not Diggory's primary object in remaining on the heath, particularly
+at so late a period of the year, when most travellers of his class had
+gone into winter quarters.
+
+Eustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at their last
+meeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright as one ready
+and anxious to take his place as Thomasin's betrothed. His figure
+was perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eye bright, his
+intelligence keen, and his position one which he could readily better if
+he chose. But in spite of possibilities it was not likely that Thomasin
+would accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she had a cousin like
+Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time not absolutely
+indifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor Mrs. Yeobright,
+in her anxiety for her niece's future, had mentioned this lover to
+stimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the side of the
+Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt's desire.
+
+“Good morning, miss,” said the reddleman, taking off his cap of
+hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of
+their last meeting.
+
+“Good morning, reddleman,” she said, hardly troubling to lift her
+heavily shaded eyes to his. “I did not know you were so near. Is your
+van here too?”
+
+Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of
+purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to
+form a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter
+in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their
+leaves.
+
+The roof and chimney of Venn's caravan showed behind the tracery and
+tangles of the brake.
+
+“You remain near this part?” she asked with more interest.
+
+“Yes, I have business here.”
+
+“Not altogether the selling of reddle?”
+
+“It has nothing to do with that.”
+
+“It has to do with Miss Yeobright?”
+
+Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said
+frankly, “Yes, miss; it is on account of her.”
+
+“On account of your approaching marriage with her?”
+
+Venn flushed through his stain. “Don't make sport of me, Miss Vye,” he
+said.
+
+“It isn't true?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere pis aller in Mrs.
+Yeobright's mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his
+promotion to that lowly standing. “It was a mere notion of mine,” she
+said quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech, when,
+looking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure
+serpentining upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top
+where she stood. Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back
+was at present towards them. She glanced quickly round; to escape that
+man there was only one way. Turning to Venn, she said, “Would you allow
+me to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp for sitting
+on.”
+
+“Certainly, miss; I'll make a place for you.”
+
+She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling
+into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the
+door.
+
+“That is the best I can do for you,” he said, stepping down and retiring
+to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he walked up
+and down.
+
+Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from
+view on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of
+other feet than the reddleman's, a not very friendly “Good day”
+ uttered by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the
+foot-fall of one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her
+neck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders;
+and she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why. It was the
+sickening feeling which, if the changed heart has any generosity at all
+in its composition, accompanies the sudden sight of a once-loved one who
+is beloved no more.
+
+When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near.
+“That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss,” he said slowly, and expressed
+by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting
+unseen.
+
+“Yes, I saw him coming up the hill,” replied Eustacia. “Why should
+you tell me that?” It was a bold question, considering the reddleman's
+knowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner had power to
+repress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.
+
+“I am glad to hear that you can ask it,” said the reddleman bluntly.
+“And, now I think of it, it agrees with what I saw last night.”
+
+“Ah--what was that?” Eustacia wished to leave him, but wished to know.
+
+“Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting for a lady who
+didn't come.”
+
+“You waited too, it seems?”
+
+“Yes, I always do. I was glad to see him disappointed. He will be there
+again tonight.”
+
+“To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady, so
+far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin's marriage with Mr.
+Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it.”
+
+Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it
+clearly; that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from
+expectation, but it is usually withheld in complicated cases of two
+removes and upwards. “Indeed, miss,” he replied.
+
+“How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again
+tonight?” she asked.
+
+“I heard him say to himself that he would. He's in a regular temper.”
+
+Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting
+her deep dark eyes anxiously to his, “I wish I knew what to do. I don't
+want to be uncivil to him; but I don't wish to see him again; and I have
+some few little things to return to him.”
+
+“If you choose to send 'em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that you
+wish to say no more to him, I'll take it for you quite privately. That
+would be the most straightforward way of letting him know your mind.”
+
+“Very well,” said Eustacia. “Come towards my house, and I will bring it
+out to you.”
+
+She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the
+shaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her trail.
+She saw from a distance that the captain was on the bank sweeping the
+horizon with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he stood she
+entered the house alone.
+
+In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in
+placing them in his hand, “Why are you so ready to take these for me?”
+
+“Can you ask that?”
+
+“I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as
+anxious as ever to help on her marriage?”
+
+Venn was a little moved. “I would sooner have married her myself,” he
+said in a low voice. “But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy
+without him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man
+ought.”
+
+Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What
+a strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of
+selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion,
+and sometimes its only one! The reddleman's disinterestedness was so
+well deserving of respect that it overshot respect by being barely
+comprehended; and she almost thought it absurd.
+
+“Then we are both of one mind at last,” she said.
+
+“Yes,” replied Venn gloomily. “But if you would tell me, miss, why you
+take such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden and
+strange.”
+
+Eustacia appeared at a loss. “I cannot tell you that, reddleman,” she
+said coldly.
+
+Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia, went
+away.
+
+Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended the
+long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from
+the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia's emissary.
+He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young inn-keeper and
+ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of Ithuriel's spear.
+
+“The meeting is always at eight o'clock, at this place,” said Venn, “and
+here we are--we three.”
+
+“We three?” said Wildeve, looking quickly round.
+
+“Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she.” He held up the letter and
+parcel.
+
+Wildeve took them wonderingly. “I don't quite see what this means,” he
+said. “How do you come here? There must be some mistake.”
+
+“It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter.
+Lanterns for one.” The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of
+tallow-candle which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.
+
+“Who are you?” said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-light an obscure
+rubicundity of person in his companion. “You are the reddleman I saw on
+the hill this morning--why, you are the man who----”
+
+“Please read the letter.”
+
+“If you had come from the other one I shouldn't have been surprised,”
+ murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face grew
+serious.
+
+
+TO MR. WILDEVE.
+
+After some thought I have decided once and for all that we must hold
+no further communication. The more I consider the matter the more I am
+convinced that there must be an end to our acquaintance. Had you been
+uniformly faithful to me throughout these two years you might now have
+some ground for accusing me of heartlessness; but if you calmly consider
+what I bore during the period of your desertion, and how I passively put
+up with your courtship of another without once interfering, you will, I
+think, own that I have a right to consult my own feelings when you come
+back to me again. That these are not what they were towards you may,
+perhaps, be a fault in me, but it is one which you can scarcely reproach
+me for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin.
+
+The little articles you gave me in the early part of our friendship are
+returned by the bearer of this letter. They should rightly have been
+sent back when I first heard of your engagement to her.
+
+EUSTACIA.
+
+
+
+By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which he
+had read the first half of the letter intensified to mortification. “I
+am made a great fool of, one way and another,” he said pettishly. “Do
+you know what is in this letter?”
+
+The reddleman hummed a tune.
+
+“Can't you answer me?” asked Wildeve warmly.
+
+“Ru-um-tum-tum,” sang the reddleman.
+
+Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn's feet, till he allowed
+his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory's form, as illuminated by the
+candle, to his head and face. “Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I deserve it,
+considering how I have played with them both,” he said at last, as much
+to himself as to Venn. “But of all the odd things that ever I knew, the
+oddest is that you should so run counter to your own interests as to
+bring this to me.”
+
+“My interests?”
+
+“Certainly. 'Twas your interest not to do anything which would send me
+courting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you--or something like it.
+Mrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. 'Tisn't true, then?”
+
+“Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn't believe it. When did she
+say so?”
+
+Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.
+
+“I don't believe it now,” cried Venn.
+
+“Ru-um-tum-tum,” sang Wildeve.
+
+“O Lord--how we can imitate!” said Venn contemptuously. “I'll have this
+out. I'll go straight to her.”
+
+Diggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve's eye passing over his
+form in withering derision, as if he were no more than a heath-cropper.
+When the reddleman's figure could no longer be seen, Wildeve himself
+descended and plunged into the rayless hollow of the vale.
+
+To lose the two women--he who had been the well-beloved of both--was too
+ironical an issue to be endured. He could only decently save himself
+by Thomasin; and once he became her husband, Eustacia's repentance, he
+thought, would set in for a long and bitter term. It was no wonder that
+Wildeve, ignorant of the new man at the back of the scene, should have
+supposed Eustacia to be playing a part. To believe that the letter was
+not the result of some momentary pique, to infer that she really gave
+him up to Thomasin, would have required previous knowledge of her
+transfiguration by that man's influence. Who was to know that she had
+grown generous in the greediness of a new passion, that in coveting one
+cousin she was dealing liberally with another, that in her eagerness to
+appropriate she gave way?
+
+Full of this resolve to marry in haste, and wring the heart of the proud
+girl, Wildeve went his way.
+
+Meanwhile Diggory Venn had returned to his van, where he stood looking
+thoughtfully into the stove. A new vista was opened up to him. But,
+however promising Mrs. Yeobright's views of him might be as a candidate
+for her niece's hand, one condition was indispensable to the favour of
+Thomasin herself, and that was a renunciation of his present wild mode
+of life. In this he saw little difficulty.
+
+He could not afford to wait till the next day before seeing Thomasin and
+detailing his plan. He speedily plunged himself into toilet operations,
+pulled a suit of cloth clothes from a box, and in about twenty minutes
+stood before the van-lantern as a reddleman in nothing but his face, the
+vermilion shades of which were not to be removed in a day. Closing the
+door and fastening it with a padlock, Venn set off towards Blooms-End.
+
+He had reached the white palings and laid his hand upon the gate when
+the door of the house opened, and quickly closed again. A female form
+had glided in. At the same time a man, who had seemingly been standing
+with the woman in the porch, came forward from the house till he was
+face to face with Venn. It was Wildeve again.
+
+“Man alive, you've been quick at it,” said Diggory sarcastically.
+
+“And you slow, as you will find,” said Wildeve. “And,” lowering his
+voice, “you may as well go back again now. I've claimed her, and got
+her. Good night, reddleman!” Thereupon Wildeve walked away.
+
+Venn's heart sank within him, though it had not risen unduly high.
+He stood leaning over the palings in an indecisive mood for nearly a
+quarter of an hour. Then he went up the garden path, knocked, and asked
+for Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+Instead of requesting him to enter she came to the porch. A discourse
+was carried on between them in low measured tones for the space of ten
+minutes or more. At the end of the time Mrs. Yeobright went in, and Venn
+sadly retraced his steps into the heath. When he had again regained his
+van he lit the lantern, and with an apathetic face at once began to pull
+off his best clothes, till in the course of a few minutes he reappeared
+as the confirmed and irretrievable reddleman that he had seemed before.
+
+
+
+
+8--Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart
+
+
+On that evening the interior of Blooms-End, though cosy and comfortable,
+had been rather silent. Clym Yeobright was not at home. Since the
+Christmas party he had gone on a few days' visit to a friend about ten
+miles off.
+
+The shadowy form seen by Venn to part from Wildeve in the porch, and
+quickly withdraw into the house, was Thomasin's. On entering she threw
+down a cloak which had been carelessly wrapped round her, and came
+forward to the light, where Mrs. Yeobright sat at her work-table,
+drawn up within the settle, so that part of it projected into the
+chimney-corner.
+
+“I don't like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin,” said her aunt
+quietly, without looking up from her work.
+
+“I have only been just outside the door.”
+
+“Well?” inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change in the tone of
+Thomasin's voice, and observing her. Thomasin's cheek was flushed to a
+pitch far beyond that which it had reached before her troubles, and her
+eyes glittered.
+
+“It was HE who knocked,” she said.
+
+“I thought as much.”
+
+“He wishes the marriage to be at once.”
+
+“Indeed! What--is he anxious?” Mrs. Yeobright directed a searching look
+upon her niece. “Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?”
+
+“He did not wish to. You are not friends with him, he says. He would
+like the wedding to be the day after tomorrow, quite privately; at the
+church of his parish--not at ours.”
+
+“Oh! And what did you say?”
+
+“I agreed to it,” Thomasin answered firmly. “I am a practical woman
+now. I don't believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any
+circumstances since--since Clym's letter.”
+
+A letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright's work-basket, and at Thomasin's
+words her aunt reopened it, and silently read for the tenth time that
+day:--
+
+
+
+What is the meaning of this silly story that people are circulating
+about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve? I should call such a scandal humiliating
+if there was the least chance of its being true. How could such a gross
+falsehood have arisen? It is said that one should go abroad to hear news
+of home, and I appear to have done it. Of course I contradict the
+tale everywhere; but it is very vexing, and I wonder how it could have
+originated. It is too ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could so
+mortify us as to get jilted on the wedding day. What has she done?
+
+
+
+“Yes,” Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter. “If you
+think you can marry him, do so. And since Mr. Wildeve wishes it to be
+unceremonious, let it be that too. I can do nothing. It is all in your
+own hands now. My power over your welfare came to an end when you
+left this house to go with him to Anglebury.” She continued, half in
+bitterness, “I may almost ask, why do you consult me in the matter at
+all? If you had gone and married him without saying a word to me, I
+could hardly have been angry--simply because, poor girl, you can't do a
+better thing.”
+
+“Don't say that and dishearten me.”
+
+“You are right--I will not.”
+
+“I do not plead for him, Aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a
+blind woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don't
+now. But I know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for the
+best.”
+
+“And so do I, and we will both continue to,” said Mrs. Yeobright, rising
+and kissing her. “Then the wedding, if it comes off, will be on the
+morning of the very day Clym comes home?”
+
+“Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. After that you
+can look him in the face, and so can I. Our concealments will matter
+nothing.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent, and presently said,
+“Do you wish me to give you away? I am willing to undertake that, you
+know, if you wish, as I was last time. After once forbidding the banns I
+think I can do no less.”
+
+“I don't think I will ask you to come,” said Thomasin reluctantly, but
+with decision. “It would be unpleasant, I am almost sure. Better let
+there be only strangers present, and none of my relations at all. I
+would rather have it so. I do not wish to do anything which may touch
+your credit, and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were
+there, after what has passed. I am only your niece, and there is no
+necessity why you should concern yourself more about me.”
+
+“Well, he has beaten us,” her aunt said. “It really seems as if he had
+been playing with you in this way in revenge for my humbling him as I
+did by standing up against him at first.”
+
+“O no, Aunt,” murmured Thomasin.
+
+They said no more on the subject then. Diggory Venn's knock came soon
+after; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from her interview with him in
+the porch, carelessly observed, “Another lover has come to ask for you.”
+
+“No?”
+
+“Yes, that queer young man Venn.”
+
+“Asks to pay his addresses to me?”
+
+“Yes; and I told him he was too late.”
+
+Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. “Poor Diggory!” she
+said, and then aroused herself to other things.
+
+The next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation, both
+the women being anxious to immerse themselves in these to escape the
+emotional aspect of the situation. Some wearing apparel and other
+articles were collected anew for Thomasin, and remarks on domestic
+details were frequently made, so as to obscure any inner misgivings
+about her future as Wildeve's wife.
+
+The appointed morning came. The arrangement with Wildeve was that he
+should meet her at the church to guard against any unpleasant curiosity
+which might have affected them had they been seen walking off together
+in the usual country way.
+
+Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride was
+dressing. The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of Thomasin's
+hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided according to a
+calendar system--the more important the day the more numerous the
+strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she braided it in threes;
+on ordinary Sundays in fours; at Maypolings, gipsyings, and the like,
+she braided it in fives. Years ago she had said that when she married
+she would braid it in sevens. She had braided it in sevens today.
+
+“I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all,” she
+said. “It is my wedding day, even though there may be something sad
+about the time. I mean,” she added, anxious to correct any wrong
+impression, “not sad in itself, but in its having had great
+disappointment and trouble before it.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh. “I
+almost wish Clym had been at home,” she said. “Of course you chose the
+time because of his absence.”
+
+“Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him
+all; but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry out
+the plan to its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was clear.”
+
+“You are a practical little woman,” said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling. “I
+wish you and he--no, I don't wish anything. There, it is nine o'clock,”
+ she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging downstairs.
+
+“I told Damon I would leave at nine,” said Thomasin, hastening out of
+the room.
+
+Her aunt followed. When Thomasin was going up the little walk from the
+door to the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright looked reluctantly at her, and
+said, “It is a shame to let you go alone.”
+
+“It is necessary,” said Thomasin.
+
+“At any rate,” added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, “I shall
+call upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. If Clym has
+returned by that time he will perhaps come too. I wish to show Mr.
+Wildeve that I bear him no ill-will. Let the past be forgotten. Well,
+God bless you! There, I don't believe in old superstitions, but I'll
+do it.” She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl, who
+turned, smiled, and went on again.
+
+A few steps further, and she looked back. “Did you call me, Aunt?” she
+tremulously inquired. “Good-bye!”
+
+Moved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon Mrs. Yeobright's
+worn, wet face, she ran back, when her aunt came forward, and they met
+again. “O--Tamsie,” said the elder, weeping, “I don't like to let you
+go.”
+
+“I--I am--” Thomasin began, giving way likewise. But, quelling her
+grief, she said “Good-bye!” again and went on.
+
+Then Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way between the
+scratching furze-bushes, and diminishing far up the valley--a pale-blue
+spot in a vast field of neutral brown, solitary and undefended except by
+the power of her own hope.
+
+But the worst feature in the case was one which did not appear in the
+landscape; it was the man.
+
+The hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had been so
+timed as to enable her to escape the awkwardness of meeting her cousin
+Clym, who was returning the same morning. To own to the partial truth
+of what he had heard would be distressing as long as the humiliating
+position resulting from the event was unimproved. It was only after a
+second and successful journey to the altar that she could lift up her
+head and prove the failure of the first attempt a pure accident.
+
+She had not been gone from Blooms-End more than half an hour when
+Yeobright came by the meads from the other direction and entered the
+house.
+
+“I had an early breakfast,” he said to his mother after greeting her.
+“Now I could eat a little more.”
+
+They sat down to the repeated meal, and he went on in a low, anxious
+voice, apparently imagining that Thomasin had not yet come downstairs,
+“What's this I have heard about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?”
+
+“It is true in many points,” said Mrs. Yeobright quietly; “but it is all
+right now, I hope.” She looked at the clock.
+
+“True?”
+
+“Thomasin is gone to him today.”
+
+Clym pushed away his breakfast. “Then there is a scandal of some sort,
+and that's what's the matter with Thomasin. Was it this that made her
+ill?”
+
+“Yes. Not a scandal--a misfortune. I will tell you all about it, Clym.
+You must not be angry, but you must listen, and you'll find that what we
+have done has been done for the best.”
+
+She then told him the circumstances. All that he had known of the affair
+before he returned from Paris was that there had existed an
+attachment between Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first
+discountenanced, but had since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin,
+looked upon in a little more favourable light. When she, therefore,
+proceeded to explain all he was greatly surprised and troubled.
+
+“And she determined that the wedding should be over before you came
+back,” said Mrs. Yeobright, “that there might be no chance of her
+meeting you, and having a very painful time of it. That's why she has
+gone to him; they have arranged to be married this morning.”
+
+“But I can't understand it,” said Yeobright, rising. “'Tis so unlike
+her. I can see why you did not write to me after her unfortunate return
+home. But why didn't you let me know when the wedding was going to
+be--the first time?”
+
+“Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be
+obstinate; and when I found that you were nothing in her mind I vowed
+that she should be nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my
+niece after all; I told her she might marry, but that I should take no
+interest in it, and should not bother you about it either.”
+
+“It wouldn't have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong.”
+
+“I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might
+throw up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because of
+it, so I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time in a
+proper manner, I should have told you at once.”
+
+“Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!”
+
+“Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time. It
+may, considering he's the same man.”
+
+“Yes, and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose Wildeve
+is really a bad fellow?”
+
+“Then he won't come, and she'll come home again.”
+
+“You should have looked more into it.”
+
+“It is useless to say that,” his mother answered with an impatient look
+of sorrow. “You don't know how bad it has been here with us all these
+weeks, Clym. You don't know what a mortification anything of that sort
+is to a woman. You don't know the sleepless nights we've had in this
+house, and the almost bitter words that have passed between us since
+that Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven such weeks again.
+Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have been ashamed to look
+anybody in the face; and now you blame me for letting her do the only
+thing that can be done to set that trouble straight.”
+
+“No,” he said slowly. “Upon the whole I don't blame you. But just
+consider how sudden it seems to me. Here was I, knowing nothing; and
+then I am told all at once that Tamsie is gone to be married. Well,
+I suppose there was nothing better to do. Do you know, Mother,” he
+continued after a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his own
+past history, “I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart? Yes, I did. How
+odd boys are! And when I came home and saw her this time she seemed so
+much more affectionate than usual, that I was quite reminded of those
+days, particularly on the night of the party, when she was unwell. We
+had the party just the same--was not that rather cruel to her?”
+
+“It made no difference. I had arranged to give one, and it was not worth
+while to make more gloom than necessary. To begin by shutting ourselves
+up and telling you of Tamsin's misfortunes would have been a poor sort
+of welcome.”
+
+Clym remained thinking. “I almost wish you had not had that party,” he
+said; “and for other reasons. But I will tell you in a day or two. We
+must think of Tamsin now.”
+
+They lapsed into silence. “I'll tell you what,” said Yeobright again,
+in a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. “I don't think it
+kind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and neither of us there
+to keep up her spirits or care a bit about her. She hasn't disgraced
+herself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad enough that the
+wedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our keeping away
+from it in addition. Upon my soul, 'tis almost a shame. I'll go.”
+
+“It is over by this time,” said his mother with a sigh; “unless they
+were late, or he--”
+
+“Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don't quite like
+your keeping me in ignorance, Mother, after all. Really, I half hope he
+has failed to meet her!”
+
+“And ruined her character?”
+
+“Nonsense--that wouldn't ruin Thomasin.”
+
+He took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked
+rather unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long
+left alone. A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his company
+came Diggory Venn.
+
+“I find there isn't time for me to get there,” said Clym.
+
+“Is she married?” Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman a
+face in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was apparent.
+
+Venn bowed. “She is, ma'am.”
+
+“How strange it sounds,” murmured Clym.
+
+“And he didn't disappoint her this time?” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“He did not. And there is now no slight on her name. I was hastening
+ath'art to tell you at once, as I saw you were not there.”
+
+“How came you to be there? How did you know it?” she asked.
+
+“I have been in that neighbourhood for some time, and I saw them go in,”
+ said the reddleman. “Wildeve came up to the door, punctual as the clock.
+I didn't expect it of him.” He did not add, as he might have added, that
+how he came to be in that neighbourhood was not by accident; that,
+since Wildeve's resumption of his right to Thomasin, Venn, with the
+thoroughness which was part of his character, had determined to see the
+end of the episode.
+
+“Who was there?” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Nobody hardly. I stood right out of the way, and she did not see me.”
+ The reddleman spoke huskily, and looked into the garden.
+
+“Who gave her away?”
+
+“Miss Vye.”
+
+“How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered an honour, I
+suppose?”
+
+“Who's Miss Vye?” said Clym.
+
+“Captain Vye's granddaughter, of Mistover Knap.”
+
+“A proud girl from Budmouth,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “One not much to my
+liking. People say she's a witch, but of course that's absurd.”
+
+The reddleman kept to himself his acquaintance with that fair personage,
+and also that Eustacia was there because he went to fetch her, in
+accordance with a promise he had given as soon as he learnt that the
+marriage was to take place. He merely said, in continuation of the
+story----
+
+“I was sitting on the churchyard wall when they came up, one from one
+way, the other from the other; and Miss Vye was walking thereabouts,
+looking at the headstones. As soon as they had gone in I went to the
+door, feeling I should like to see it, as I knew her so well. I pulled
+off my boots because they were so noisy, and went up into the gallery. I
+saw then that the parson and clerk were already there.”
+
+“How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it, if she was only on a
+walk that way?”
+
+“Because there was nobody else. She had gone into the church just before
+me, not into the gallery. The parson looked round before beginning, and
+as she was the only one near he beckoned to her, and she went up to the
+rails. After that, when it came to signing the book, she pushed up her
+veil and signed; and Tamsin seemed to thank her for her kindness.” The
+reddleman told the tale thoughtfully for there lingered upon his vision
+the changing colour of Wildeve, when Eustacia lifted the thick veil
+which had concealed her from recognition and looked calmly into his
+face. “And then,” said Diggory sadly, “I came away, for her history as
+Tamsin Yeobright was over.”
+
+“I offered to go,” said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. “But she said it was
+not necessary.”
+
+“Well, it is no matter,” said the reddleman. “The thing is done at last
+as it was meant to be at first, and God send her happiness. Now I'll
+wish you good morning.”
+
+He placed his cap on his head and went out.
+
+From that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright's door, the reddleman was
+seen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months. He
+vanished entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had been
+standing was as vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a sign
+remained to show that he had been there, excepting a few straws, and a
+little redness on the turf, which was washed away by the next storm of
+rain.
+
+The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far as it
+went, was deficient in one significant particular, which had escaped him
+through his being at some distance back in the church. When Thomasin
+was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung towards
+Eustacia a glance that said plainly, “I have punished you now.” She had
+replied in a low tone--and he little thought how truly--“You mistake; it
+gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today.”
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE -- THE FASCINATION
+
+
+
+
+1--“My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is”
+
+
+In Clym Yeobright's face could be dimly seen the typical countenance
+of the future. Should there be a classic period to art hereafter, its
+Pheidias may produce such faces. The view of life as a thing to be put
+up with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense in early
+civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the constitution
+of the advanced races that its facial expression will become accepted
+as a new artistic departure. People already feel that a man who lives
+without disturbing a curve of feature, or setting a mark of mental
+concern anywhere upon himself, is too far removed from modern
+perceptiveness to be a modern type. Physically beautiful men--the glory
+of the race when it was young--are almost an anachronism now; and we may
+wonder whether, at some time or other, physically beautiful women may
+not be an anachronism likewise.
+
+The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries has
+permanently displaced the Hellenic idea of life, or whatever it may
+be called. What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what their
+Aeschylus imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashioned
+revelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as we
+uncover the defects of natural laws, and see the quandary that man is in
+by their operation.
+
+The lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based upon this new
+recognition will probably be akin to those of Yeobright. The observer's
+eye was arrested, not by his face as a picture, but by his face as a
+page; not by what it was, but by what it recorded. His features were
+attractive in the light of symbols, as sounds intrinsically common
+become attractive in language, and as shapes intrinsically simple become
+interesting in writing.
+
+He had been a lad of whom something was expected. Beyond this all had
+been chaos. That he would be successful in an original way, or that he
+would go to the dogs in an original way, seemed equally probable. The
+only absolute certainty about him was that he would not stand still in
+the circumstances amid which he was born.
+
+Hence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighbouring yeomen,
+the listener said, “Ah, Clym Yeobright--what is he doing now?” When the
+instinctive question about a person is, What is he doing? it is
+felt that he will be found to be, like most of us, doing nothing in
+particular. There is an indefinite sense that he must be invading some
+region of singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that he is doing
+well. The secret faith is that he is making a mess of it. Half a dozen
+comfortable market-men, who were habitual callers at the Quiet Woman
+as they passed by in their carts, were partial to the topic. In fact,
+though they were not Egdon men, they could hardly avoid it while they
+sucked their long clay tubes and regarded the heath through the window.
+Clym had been so inwoven with the heath in his boyhood that hardly
+anybody could look upon it without thinking of him. So the subject
+recurred: if he were making a fortune and a name, so much the better
+for him; if he were making a tragical figure in the world, so much the
+better for a narrative.
+
+The fact was that Yeobright's fame had spread to an awkward extent
+before he left home. “It is bad when your fame outruns your means,” said
+the Spanish Jesuit Gracian. At the age of six he had asked a Scripture
+riddle: “Who was the first man known to wear breeches?” and applause
+had resounded from the very verge of the heath. At seven he painted the
+Battle of Waterloo with tiger-lily pollen and black-currant juice, in
+the absence of water-colours. By the time he reached twelve he had in
+this manner been heard of as artist and scholar for at least two miles
+round. An individual whose fame spreads three or four thousand yards in
+the time taken by the fame of others similarly situated to travel six or
+eight hundred, must of necessity have something in him. Possibly Clym's
+fame, like Homer's, owed something to the accidents of his situation;
+nevertheless famous he was.
+
+He grew up and was helped out in life. That waggery of fate which
+started Clive as a writing clerk, Gay as a linen-draper, Keats as a
+surgeon, and a thousand others in a thousand other odd ways, banished
+the wild and ascetic heath lad to a trade whose sole concern was with
+the especial symbols of self-indulgence and vainglory.
+
+The details of this choice of a business for him it is not necessary
+to give. At the death of his father a neighbouring gentleman had kindly
+undertaken to give the boy a start, and this assumed the form of sending
+him to Budmouth. Yeobright did not wish to go there, but it was the only
+feasible opening. Thence he went to London; and thence, shortly after,
+to Paris, where he had remained till now.
+
+Something being expected of him, he had not been at home many days
+before a great curiosity as to why he stayed on so long began to arise
+in the heath. The natural term of a holiday had passed, yet he still
+remained. On the Sunday morning following the week of Thomasin's
+marriage a discussion on this subject was in progress at a hair-cutting
+before Fairway's house. Here the local barbering was always done at
+this hour on this day, to be followed by the great Sunday wash of the
+inhabitants at noon, which in its turn was followed by the great Sunday
+dressing an hour later. On Egdon Heath Sunday proper did not begin till
+dinner-time, and even then it was a somewhat battered specimen of the
+day.
+
+These Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway; the victim
+sitting on a chopping-block in front of the house, without a coat, and
+the neighbours gossiping around, idly observing the locks of hair as
+they rose upon the wind after the snip, and flew away out of sight to
+the four quarters of the heavens. Summer and winter the scene was the
+same, unless the wind were more than usually blusterous, when the stool
+was shifted a few feet round the corner. To complain of cold in sitting
+out of doors, hatless and coatless, while Fairway told true stories
+between the cuts of the scissors, would have been to pronounce yourself
+no man at once. To flinch, exclaim, or move a muscle of the face at
+the small stabs under the ear received from those instruments, or at
+scarifications of the neck by the comb, would have been thought a gross
+breach of good manners, considering that Fairway did it all for nothing.
+A bleeding about the poll on Sunday afternoons was amply accounted for
+by the explanation. “I have had my hair cut, you know.”
+
+The conversation on Yeobright had been started by a distant view of the
+young man rambling leisurely across the heath before them.
+
+“A man who is doing well elsewhere wouldn't bide here two or three weeks
+for nothing,” said Fairway. “He's got some project in 's head--depend
+upon that.”
+
+“Well, 'a can't keep a diment shop here,” said Sam.
+
+“I don't see why he should have had them two heavy boxes home if he had
+not been going to bide; and what there is for him to do here the Lord in
+heaven knows.”
+
+Before many more surmises could be indulged in Yeobright had come near;
+and seeing the hair-cutting group he turned aside to join them. Marching
+up, and looking critically at their faces for a moment, he said, without
+introduction, “Now, folks, let me guess what you have been talking
+about.”
+
+“Ay, sure, if you will,” said Sam.
+
+“About me.”
+
+“Now, it is a thing I shouldn't have dreamed of doing, otherwise,” said
+Fairway in a tone of integrity; “but since you have named it, Master
+Yeobright, I'll own that we was talking about 'ee. We were wondering
+what could keep you home here mollyhorning about when you have made such
+a world-wide name for yourself in the nick-nack trade--now, that's the
+truth o't.”
+
+“I'll tell you,” said Yeobright with unexpected earnestness. “I am
+not sorry to have the opportunity. I've come home because, all things
+considered, I can be a trifle less useless here than anywhere else. But
+I have only lately found this out. When I first got away from home I
+thought this place was not worth troubling about. I thought our life
+here was contemptible. To oil your boots instead of blacking them, to
+dust your coat with a switch instead of a brush--was there ever anything
+more ridiculous? I said.”
+
+“So 'tis; so 'tis!”
+
+“No, no--you are wrong; it isn't.”
+
+“Beg your pardon, we thought that was your meaning?”
+
+“Well, as my views changed my course became very depressing. I found
+that I was trying to be like people who had hardly anything in common
+with myself. I was endeavouring to put off one sort of life for another
+sort of life, which was not better than the life I had known before. It
+was simply different.”
+
+“True; a sight different,” said Fairway.
+
+“Yes, Paris must be a taking place,” said Humphrey. “Grand shop-winders,
+trumpets, and drums; and here be we out of doors in all winds and
+weathers--”
+
+“But you mistake me,” pleaded Clym. “All this was very depressing. But
+not so depressing as something I next perceived--that my business was
+the idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a man could
+be put to. That decided me--I would give it up and try to follow some
+rational occupation among the people I knew best, and to whom I could
+be of most use. I have come home; and this is how I mean to carry out
+my plan. I shall keep a school as near to Egdon as possible, so as to be
+able to walk over here and have a night-school in my mother's house.
+But I must study a little at first, to get properly qualified. Now,
+neighbours, I must go.”
+
+And Clym resumed his walk across the heath.
+
+“He'll never carry it out in the world,” said Fairway. “In a few weeks
+he'll learn to see things otherwise.”
+
+“'Tis good-hearted of the young man,” said another. “But, for my part, I
+think he had better mind his business.”
+
+
+
+
+2--The New Course Causes Disappointment
+
+
+Yeobright loved his kind. He had a conviction that the want of most men
+was knowledge of a sort which brings wisdom rather than affluence. He
+wished to raise the class at the expense of individuals rather than
+individuals at the expense of the class. What was more, he was ready at
+once to be the first unit sacrificed.
+
+In passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life the intermediate
+stages are usually two at least, frequently many more; and one of those
+stages is almost sure to be worldly advanced. We can hardly imagine
+bucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims without imagining
+social aims as the transitional phase. Yeobright's local peculiarity was
+that in striving at high thinking he still cleaved to plain living--nay,
+wild and meagre living in many respects, and brotherliness with clowns.
+
+He was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than repentance
+for his text. Mentally he was in a provincial future, that is, he was in
+many points abreast with the central town thinkers of his date. Much of
+this development he may have owed to his studious life in Paris, where
+he had become acquainted with ethical systems popular at the time.
+
+In consequence of this relatively advanced position, Yeobright might
+have been called unfortunate. The rural world was not ripe for him. A
+man should be only partially before his time--to be completely to the
+vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip's warlike son been
+intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilization without
+bloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed, but
+nobody would have heard of an Alexander.
+
+In the interests of renown the forwardness should lie chiefly in the
+capacity to handle things. Successful propagandists have succeeded
+because the doctrine they bring into form is that which their listeners
+have for some time felt without being able to shape. A man who advocates
+aesthetic effort and deprecates social effort is only likely to be
+understood by a class to which social effort has become a stale matter.
+To argue upon the possibility of culture before luxury to the bucolic
+world may be to argue truly, but it is an attempt to disturb a sequence
+to which humanity has been long accustomed. Yeobright preaching to
+the Egdon eremites that they might rise to a serene comprehensiveness
+without going through the process of enriching themselves was not unlike
+arguing to ancient Chaldeans that in ascending from earth to the pure
+empyrean it was not necessary to pass first into the intervening heaven
+of ether.
+
+Was Yeobright's mind well-proportioned? No. A well proportioned mind is
+one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that
+it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a
+heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it
+will never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest,
+or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.
+It produces the poetry of Rogers, the paintings of West, the statecraft
+of North, the spiritual guidance of Tomline; enabling its possessors to
+find their way to wealth, to wind up well, to step with dignity off the
+stage, to die comfortably in their beds, and to get the decent monument
+which, in many cases, they deserve. It never would have allowed
+Yeobright to do such a ridiculous thing as throw up his business to
+benefit his fellow-creatures.
+
+He walked along towards home without attending to paths. If anyone knew
+the heath well it was Clym. He was permeated with its scenes, with its
+substance, and with its odours. He might be said to be its product. His
+eyes had first opened thereon; with its appearance all the first images
+of his memory were mingled, his estimate of life had been coloured by
+it: his toys had been the flint knives and arrow-heads which he found
+there, wondering why stones should “grow” to such odd shapes; his
+flowers, the purple bells and yellow furze: his animal kingdom, the
+snakes and croppers; his society, its human haunters. Take all the
+varying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the heath, and translate
+them into loves, and you have the heart of Clym. He gazed upon the wide
+prospect as he walked, and was glad.
+
+To many persons this Egdon was a place which had slipped out of its
+century generations ago, to intrude as an uncouth object into this.
+It was an obsolete thing, and few cared to study it. How could this
+be otherwise in the days of square fields, plashed hedges, and meadows
+watered on a plan so rectangular that on a fine day they looked like
+silver gridirons? The farmer, in his ride, who could smile at artificial
+grasses, look with solicitude at the coming corn, and sigh with sadness
+at the fly-eaten turnips, bestowed upon the distant upland of heath
+nothing better than a frown. But as for Yeobright, when he looked
+from the heights on his way he could not help indulging in a barbarous
+satisfaction at observing that, in some of the attempts at reclamation
+from the waste, tillage, after holding on for a year or two, had receded
+again in despair, the ferns and furze-tufts stubbornly reasserting
+themselves.
+
+He descended into the valley, and soon reached his home at Blooms-End.
+His mother was snipping dead leaves from the window-plants. She looked
+up at him as if she did not understand the meaning of his long stay with
+her; her face had worn that look for several days. He could perceive
+that the curiosity which had been shown by the hair-cutting group
+amounted in his mother to concern. But she had asked no question with
+her lips, even when the arrival of his trunk suggested that he was not
+going to leave her soon. Her silence besought an explanation of him more
+loudly than words.
+
+“I am not going back to Paris again, Mother,” he said. “At least, in my
+old capacity. I have given up the business.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned in pained surprise. “I thought something was
+amiss, because of the boxes. I wonder you did not tell me sooner.”
+
+“I ought to have done it. But I have been in doubt whether you would be
+pleased with my plan. I was not quite clear on a few points myself. I am
+going to take an entirely new course.”
+
+“I am astonished, Clym. How can you want to do better than you've been
+doing?”
+
+“Very easily. But I shall not do better in the way you mean; I suppose
+it will be called doing worse. But I hate that business of mine, and I
+want to do some worthy thing before I die. As a schoolmaster I think
+to do it--a school-master to the poor and ignorant, to teach them what
+nobody else will.”
+
+“After all the trouble that has been taken to give you a start, and when
+there is nothing to do but to keep straight on towards affluence, you
+say you will be a poor man's schoolmaster. Your fancies will be your
+ruin, Clym.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke calmly, but the force of feeling behind the words
+was but too apparent to one who knew her as well as her son did. He did
+not answer. There was in his face that hopelessness of being understood
+which comes when the objector is constitutionally beyond the reach of
+a logic that, even under favouring conditions, is almost too coarse a
+vehicle for the subtlety of the argument.
+
+No more was said on the subject till the end of dinner. His mother then
+began, as if there had been no interval since the morning. “It disturbs
+me, Clym, to find that you have come home with such thoughts as those. I
+hadn't the least idea that you meant to go backward in the world by your
+own free choice. Of course, I have always supposed you were going to
+push straight on, as other men do--all who deserve the name--when they
+have been put in a good way of doing well.”
+
+“I cannot help it,” said Clym, in a troubled tone. “Mother, I hate
+the flashy business. Talk about men who deserve the name, can any man
+deserving the name waste his time in that effeminate way, when he sees
+half the world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle to and teach
+them how to breast the misery they are born to? I get up every morning
+and see the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain, as St. Paul
+says, and yet there am I, trafficking in glittering splendours with
+wealthy women and titled libertines, and pandering to the meanest
+vanities--I, who have health and strength enough for anything. I have
+been troubled in my mind about it all the year, and the end is that I
+cannot do it any more.”
+
+“Why can't you do it as well as others?”
+
+“I don't know, except that there are many things other people care for
+which I don't; and that's partly why I think I ought to do this. For one
+thing, my body does not require much of me. I cannot enjoy delicacies;
+good things are wasted upon me. Well, I ought to turn that defect to
+advantage, and by being able to do without what other people require I
+can spend what such things cost upon anybody else.”
+
+Now, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very instincts from the
+woman before him, could not fail to awaken a reciprocity in her through
+her feelings, if not by arguments, disguise it as she might for his
+good. She spoke with less assurance. “And yet you might have been a
+wealthy man if you had only persevered. Manager to that large diamond
+establishment--what better can a man wish for? What a post of trust
+and respect! I suppose you will be like your father; like him, you are
+getting weary of doing well.”
+
+“No,” said her son, “I am not weary of that, though I am weary of what
+you mean by it. Mother, what is doing well?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be content with ready
+definitions, and, like the “What is wisdom?” of Plato's Socrates, and
+the “What is truth?” of Pontius Pilate, Yeobright's burning question
+received no answer.
+
+The silence was broken by the clash of the garden gate, a tap at the
+door, and its opening. Christian Cantle appeared in the room in his
+Sunday clothes.
+
+It was the custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story before
+absolutely entering the house, so as to be well in for the body of the
+narrative by the time visitor and visited stood face to face. Christian
+had been saying to them while the door was leaving its latch, “To think
+that I, who go from home but once in a while, and hardly then, should
+have been there this morning!”
+
+“'Tis news you have brought us, then, Christian?” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Ay, sure, about a witch, and ye must overlook my time o' day; for, says
+I, 'I must go and tell 'em, though they won't have half done dinner.' I
+assure ye it made me shake like a driven leaf. Do ye think any harm will
+come o't?”
+
+“Well--what?”
+
+“This morning at church we was all standing up, and the pa'son said,
+'Let us pray.' 'Well,' thinks I, 'one may as well kneel as stand'; so
+down I went; and, more than that, all the rest were as willing to oblige
+the man as I. We hadn't been hard at it for more than a minute when a
+most terrible screech sounded through church, as if somebody had just
+gied up their heart's blood. All the folk jumped up and then we found
+that Susan Nunsuch had pricked Miss Vye with a long stocking-needle, as
+she had threatened to do as soon as ever she could get the young lady to
+church, where she don't come very often. She've waited for this chance
+for weeks, so as to draw her blood and put an end to the bewitching of
+Susan's children that has been carried on so long. Sue followed her into
+church, sat next to her, and as soon as she could find a chance in went
+the stocking-needle into my lady's arm.”
+
+“Good heaven, how horrid!” said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“Sue pricked her that deep that the maid fainted away; and as I was
+afeard there might be some tumult among us, I got behind the bass viol
+and didn't see no more. But they carried her out into the air, 'tis
+said; but when they looked round for Sue she was gone. What a scream
+that girl gied, poor thing! There were the pa'son in his surplice
+holding up his hand and saying, 'Sit down, my good people, sit down!'
+But the deuce a bit would they sit down. O, and what d'ye think I
+found out, Mrs. Yeobright? The pa'son wears a suit of clothes under his
+surplice!--I could see his black sleeves when he held up his arm.”
+
+“'Tis a cruel thing,” said Yeobright.
+
+“Yes,” said his mother.
+
+“The nation ought to look into it,” said Christian. “Here's Humphrey
+coming, I think.”
+
+In came Humphrey. “Well, have ye heard the news? But I see you have.
+'Tis a very strange thing that whenever one of Egdon folk goes to church
+some rum job or other is sure to be doing. The last time one of us was
+there was when neighbour Fairway went in the fall; and that was the day
+you forbad the banns, Mrs. Yeobright.”
+
+“Has this cruelly treated girl been able to walk home?” said Clym.
+
+“They say she got better, and went home very well. And now I've told it
+I must be moving homeward myself.”
+
+“And I,” said Humphrey. “Truly now we shall see if there's anything in
+what folks say about her.”
+
+When they were gone into the heath again Yeobright said quietly to his
+mother, “Do you think I have turned teacher too soon?”
+
+“It is right that there should be schoolmasters, and missionaries, and
+all such men,” she replied. “But it is right, too, that I should try to
+lift you out of this life into something richer, and that you should not
+come back again, and be as if I had not tried at all.”
+
+
+Later in the day Sam, the turf-cutter, entered. “I've come a-borrowing,
+Mrs. Yeobright. I suppose you have heard what's been happening to the
+beauty on the hill?”
+
+“Yes, Sam: half a dozen have been telling us.”
+
+“Beauty?” said Clym.
+
+“Yes, tolerably well-favoured,” Sam replied. “Lord! all the country owns
+that 'tis one of the strangest things in the world that such a woman
+should have come to live up there.”
+
+“Dark or fair?”
+
+“Now, though I've seen her twenty times, that's a thing I cannot call to
+mind.”
+
+“Darker than Tamsin,” murmured Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+“A woman who seems to care for nothing at all, as you may say.”
+
+“She is melancholy, then?” inquired Clym.
+
+“She mopes about by herself, and don't mix in with the people.”
+
+“Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?”
+
+“Not to my knowledge.”
+
+“Doesn't join in with the lads in their games, to get some sort of
+excitement in this lonely place?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Mumming, for instance?”
+
+“No. Her notions be different. I should rather say her thoughts were far
+away from here, with lords and ladies she'll never know, and mansions
+she'll never see again.”
+
+Observing that Clym appeared singularly interested Mrs. Yeobright said
+rather uneasily to Sam, “You see more in her than most of us do. Miss
+Vye is to my mind too idle to be charming. I have never heard that
+she is of any use to herself or to other people. Good girls don't get
+treated as witches even on Egdon.”
+
+“Nonsense--that proves nothing either way,” said Yeobright.
+
+“Well, of course I don't understand such niceties,” said Sam,
+withdrawing from a possibly unpleasant argument; “and what she is we
+must wait for time to tell us. The business that I have really called
+about is this, to borrow the longest and strongest rope you have. The
+captain's bucket has dropped into the well, and they are in want of
+water; and as all the chaps are at home today we think we can get it out
+for him. We have three cart-ropes already, but they won't reach to the
+bottom.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright told him that he might have whatever ropes he could find
+in the outhouse, and Sam went out to search. When he passed by the door
+Clym joined him, and accompanied him to the gate.
+
+“Is this young witch-lady going to stay long at Mistover?” he asked.
+
+“I should say so.”
+
+“What a cruel shame to ill-use her, She must have suffered greatly--more
+in mind than in body.”
+
+“'Twas a graceless trick--such a handsome girl, too. You ought to see
+her, Mr. Yeobright, being a young man come from far, and with a little
+more to show for your years than most of us.”
+
+“Do you think she would like to teach children?” said Clym.
+
+Sam shook his head. “Quite a different sort of body from that, I
+reckon.”
+
+“O, it was merely something which occurred to me. It would of course be
+necessary to see her and talk it over--not an easy thing, by the way,
+for my family and hers are not very friendly.”
+
+“I'll tell you how you mid see her, Mr. Yeobright,” said Sam. “We are
+going to grapple for the bucket at six o'clock tonight at her house, and
+you could lend a hand. There's five or six coming, but the well is deep,
+and another might be useful, if you don't mind appearing in that shape.
+She's sure to be walking round.”
+
+“I'll think of it,” said Yeobright; and they parted.
+
+He thought of it a good deal; but nothing more was said about Eustacia
+inside the house at that time. Whether this romantic martyr to
+superstition and the melancholy mummer he had conversed with under the
+full moon were one and the same person remained as yet a problem.
+
+
+
+
+3--The First Act in a Timeworn Drama
+
+
+The afternoon was fine, and Yeobright walked on the heath for an hour
+with his mother. When they reached the lofty ridge which divided the
+valley of Blooms-End from the adjoining valley they stood still and
+looked round. The Quiet Woman Inn was visible on the low margin of the
+heath in one direction, and afar on the other hand rose Mistover Knap.
+
+“You mean to call on Thomasin?” he inquired.
+
+“Yes. But you need not come this time,” said his mother.
+
+“In that case I'll branch off here, Mother. I am going to Mistover.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned to him inquiringly.
+
+“I am going to help them get the bucket out of the captain's well,” he
+continued. “As it is so very deep I may be useful. And I should like
+to see this Miss Vye--not so much for her good looks as for another
+reason.”
+
+“Must you go?” his mother asked.
+
+“I thought to.”
+
+And they parted. “There is no help for it,” murmured Clym's mother
+gloomily as he withdrew. “They are sure to see each other. I wish Sam
+would carry his news to other houses than mine.”
+
+Clym's retreating figure got smaller and smaller as it rose and
+fell over the hillocks on his way. “He is tender-hearted,” said Mrs.
+Yeobright to herself while she watched him; “otherwise it would matter
+little. How he's going on!”
+
+He was, indeed, walking with a will over the furze, as straight as a
+line, as if his life depended upon it. His mother drew a long breath,
+and, abandoning the visit to Thomasin, turned back. The evening films
+began to make nebulous pictures of the valleys, but the high lands still
+were raked by the declining rays of the winter sun, which glanced on
+Clym as he walked forward, eyed by every rabbit and field-fare around, a
+long shadow advancing in front of him.
+
+On drawing near to the furze-covered bank and ditch which fortified
+the captain's dwelling he could hear voices within, signifying that
+operations had been already begun. At the side-entrance gate he stopped
+and looked over.
+
+Half a dozen able-bodied men were standing in a line from the
+well-mouth, holding a rope which passed over the well-roller into the
+depths below. Fairway, with a piece of smaller rope round his body, made
+fast to one of the standards, to guard against accidents, was leaning
+over the opening, his right hand clasping the vertical rope that
+descended into the well.
+
+“Now, silence, folks,” said Fairway.
+
+The talking ceased, and Fairway gave a circular motion to the rope,
+as if he were stirring batter. At the end of a minute a dull splashing
+reverberated from the bottom of the well; the helical twist he had
+imparted to the rope had reached the grapnel below.
+
+“Haul!” said Fairway; and the men who held the rope began to gather it
+over the wheel.
+
+“I think we've got sommat,” said one of the haulers-in.
+
+“Then pull steady,” said Fairway.
+
+They gathered up more and more, till a regular dripping into the well
+could be heard below. It grew smarter with the increasing height of the
+bucket, and presently a hundred and fifty feet of rope had been pulled
+in.
+
+Fairway then lit a lantern, tied it to another cord, and began lowering
+it into the well beside the first: Clym came forward and looked down.
+Strange humid leaves, which knew nothing of the seasons of the year,
+and quaint-natured mosses were revealed on the wellside as the lantern
+descended; till its rays fell upon a confused mass of rope and bucket
+dangling in the dank, dark air.
+
+“We've only got en by the edge of the hoop--steady, for God's sake!”
+ said Fairway.
+
+They pulled with the greatest gentleness, till the wet bucket appeared
+about two yards below them, like a dead friend come to earth again.
+Three or four hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz
+went the wheel, the two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating of
+a falling body was heard, receding down the sides of the well, and a
+thunderous uproar arose at the bottom. The bucket was gone again.
+
+“Damn the bucket!” said Fairway.
+
+“Lower again,” said Sam.
+
+“I'm as stiff as a ram's horn stooping so long,” said Fairway, standing
+up and stretching himself till his joints creaked.
+
+“Rest a few minutes, Timothy,” said Yeobright. “I'll take your place.”
+
+The grapnel was again lowered. Its smart impact upon the distant water
+reached their ears like a kiss, whereupon Yeobright knelt down, and
+leaning over the well began dragging the grapnel round and round as
+Fairway had done.
+
+“Tie a rope round him--it is dangerous!” cried a soft and anxious voice
+somewhere above them.
+
+Everybody turned. The speaker was a woman, gazing down upon the group
+from an upper window, whose panes blazed in the ruddy glare from the
+west. Her lips were parted and she appeared for the moment to forget
+where she was.
+
+The rope was accordingly tied round his waist, and the work proceeded.
+At the next haul the weight was not heavy, and it was discovered that
+they had only secured a coil of the rope detached from the bucket. The
+tangled mass was thrown into the background. Humphrey took Yeobright's
+place, and the grapnel was lowered again.
+
+Yeobright retired to the heap of recovered rope in a meditative mood. Of
+the identity between the lady's voice and that of the melancholy
+mummer he had not a moment's doubt. “How thoughtful of her!” he said to
+himself.
+
+Eustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect of her
+exclamation upon the group below, was no longer to be seen at the
+window, though Yeobright scanned it wistfully. While he stood there the
+men at the well succeeded in getting up the bucket without a mishap. One
+of them went to inquire for the captain, to learn what orders he wished
+to give for mending the well-tackle. The captain proved to be away from
+home, and Eustacia appeared at the door and came out. She had lapsed
+into an easy and dignified calm, far removed from the intensity of life
+in her words of solicitude for Clym's safety.
+
+“Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?” she inquired.
+
+“No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. And as we can
+do no more now we'll leave off, and come again tomorrow morning.”
+
+“No water,” she murmured, turning away.
+
+“I can send you up some from Blooms-End,” said Clym, coming forward and
+raising his hat as the men retired.
+
+Yeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant, as if each
+had in mind those few moments during which a certain moonlight scene was
+common to both. With the glance the calm fixity of her features sublimed
+itself to an expression of refinement and warmth; it was like garish
+noon rising to the dignity of sunset in a couple of seconds.
+
+“Thank you; it will hardly be necessary,” she replied.
+
+“But if you have no water?”
+
+“Well, it is what I call no water,” she said, blushing, and lifting
+her long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them were a work requiring
+consideration. “But my grandfather calls it water enough. I'll show you
+what I mean.”
+
+She moved away a few yards, and Clym followed. When she reached the
+corner of the enclosure, where the steps were formed for mounting the
+boundary bank, she sprang up with a lightness which seemed strange after
+her listless movement towards the well. It incidentally showed that her
+apparent languor did not arise from lack of force.
+
+Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the top
+of the bank. “Ashes?” he said.
+
+“Yes,” said Eustacia. “We had a little bonfire here last Fifth of
+November, and those are the marks of it.”
+
+On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.
+
+“That's the only kind of water we have,” she continued, tossing a stone
+into the pool, which lay on the outside of the bank like the white of
+an eye without its pupil. The stone fell with a flounce, but no Wildeve
+appeared on the other side, as on a previous occasion there. “My
+grandfather says he lived for more than twenty years at sea on water
+twice as bad as that,” she went on, “and considers it quite good enough
+for us here on an emergency.”
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities in the water of these
+pools at this time of the year. It has only just rained into them.”
+
+She shook her head. “I am managing to exist in a wilderness, but I
+cannot drink from a pond,” she said.
+
+Clym looked towards the well, which was now deserted, the men having
+gone home. “It is a long way to send for spring-water,” he said, after a
+silence. “But since you don't like this in the pond, I'll try to get you
+some myself.” He went back to the well. “Yes, I think I could do it by
+tying on this pail.”
+
+“But, since I would not trouble the men to get it, I cannot in
+conscience let you.”
+
+“I don't mind the trouble at all.”
+
+He made fast the pail to the long coil of rope, put it over the wheel,
+and allowed it to descend by letting the rope slip through his hands.
+Before it had gone far, however, he checked it.
+
+“I must make fast the end first, or we may lose the whole,” he said to
+Eustacia, who had drawn near. “Could you hold this a moment, while I do
+it--or shall I call your servant?”
+
+“I can hold it,” said Eustacia; and he placed the rope in her hands,
+going then to search for the end.
+
+“I suppose I may let it slip down?” she inquired.
+
+“I would advise you not to let it go far,” said Clym. “It will get much
+heavier, you will find.”
+
+However, Eustacia had begun to pay out. While he was tying she cried, “I
+cannot stop it!”
+
+Clym ran to her side, and found he could only check the rope by twisting
+the loose part round the upright post, when it stopped with a jerk. “Has
+it hurt you?”
+
+“Yes,” she replied.
+
+“Very much?”
+
+“No; I think not.” She opened her hands. One of them was bleeding; the
+rope had dragged off the skin. Eustacia wrapped it in her handkerchief.
+
+“You should have let go,” said Yeobright. “Why didn't you?”
+
+“You said I was to hold on.... This is the second time I have been
+wounded today.”
+
+“Ah, yes; I have heard of it. I blush for my native Egdon. Was it a
+serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?”
+
+There was such an abundance of sympathy in Clym's tone that Eustacia
+slowly drew up her sleeve and disclosed her round white arm. A bright
+red spot appeared on its smooth surface, like a ruby on Parian marble.
+
+“There it is,” she said, putting her finger against the spot.
+
+“It was dastardly of the woman,” said Clym. “Will not Captain Vye get
+her punished?”
+
+“He is gone from home on that very business. I did not know that I had
+such a magic reputation.”
+
+“And you fainted?” said Clym, looking at the scarlet little puncture as
+if he would like to kiss it and make it well.
+
+“Yes, it frightened me. I had not been to church for a long time. And
+now I shall not go again for ever so long--perhaps never. I cannot face
+their eyes after this. Don't you think it dreadfully humiliating? I
+wished I was dead for hours after, but I don't mind now.”
+
+“I have come to clean away these cobwebs,” said Yeobright. “Would you
+like to help me--by high-class teaching? We might benefit them much.”
+
+“I don't quite feel anxious to. I have not much love for my
+fellow-creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them.”
+
+“Still I think that if you were to hear my scheme you might take an
+interest in it. There is no use in hating people--if you hate anything,
+you should hate what produced them.”
+
+“Do you mean Nature? I hate her already. But I shall be glad to hear
+your scheme at any time.”
+
+The situation had now worked itself out, and the next natural thing was
+for them to part. Clym knew this well enough, and Eustacia made a move
+of conclusion; yet he looked at her as if he had one word more to say.
+Perhaps if he had not lived in Paris it would never have been uttered.
+
+“We have met before,” he said, regarding her with rather more interest
+than was necessary.
+
+“I do not own it,” said Eustacia, with a repressed, still look.
+
+“But I may think what I like.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You are lonely here.”
+
+“I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season. The heath is a
+cruel taskmaster to me.”
+
+“Can you say so?” he asked. “To my mind it is most exhilarating, and
+strengthening, and soothing. I would rather live on these hills than
+anywhere else in the world.”
+
+“It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn to draw.”
+
+“And there is a very curious druidical stone just out there.” He threw a
+pebble in the direction signified. “Do you often go to see it?”
+
+“I was not even aware there existed any such curious druidical stone. I
+am aware that there are boulevards in Paris.”
+
+Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground. “That means much,” he said.
+
+“It does indeed,” said Eustacia.
+
+“I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle. Five years of a
+great city would be a perfect cure for that.”
+
+“Heaven send me such a cure! Now, Mr. Yeobright, I will go indoors and
+plaster my wounded hand.”
+
+They separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade. She
+seemed full of many things. Her past was a blank, her life had begun.
+The effect upon Clym of this meeting he did not fully discover till some
+time after. During his walk home his most intelligible sensation was
+that his scheme had somehow become glorified. A beautiful woman had been
+intertwined with it.
+
+On reaching the house he went up to the room which was to be made his
+study, and occupied himself during the evening in unpacking his books
+from the boxes and arranging them on shelves. From another box he drew
+a lamp and a can of oil. He trimmed the lamp, arranged his table, and
+said, “Now, I am ready to begin.”
+
+He rose early the next morning, read two hours before breakfast by the
+light of his lamp--read all the morning, all the afternoon. Just when
+the sun was going down his eyes felt weary, and he leant back in his
+chair.
+
+His room overlooked the front of the premises and the valley of the
+heath beyond. The lowest beams of the winter sun threw the shadow of the
+house over the palings, across the grass margin of the heath, and far
+up the vale, where the chimney outlines and those of the surrounding
+tree-tops stretched forth in long dark prongs. Having been seated at
+work all day, he decided to take a turn upon the hills before it got
+dark; and, going out forthwith, he struck across the heath towards
+Mistover.
+
+It was an hour and a half later when he again appeared at the garden
+gate. The shutters of the house were closed, and Christian Cantle, who
+had been wheeling manure about the garden all day, had gone home. On
+entering he found that his mother, after waiting a long time for him,
+had finished her meal.
+
+“Where have you been, Clym?” she immediately said. “Why didn't you tell
+me that you were going away at this time?”
+
+“I have been on the heath.”
+
+“You'll meet Eustacia Vye if you go up there.”
+
+Clym paused a minute. “Yes, I met her this evening,” he said, as though
+it were spoken under the sheer necessity of preserving honesty.
+
+“I wondered if you had.”
+
+“It was no appointment.”
+
+“No; such meetings never are.”
+
+“But you are not angry, Mother?”
+
+“I can hardly say that I am not. Angry? No. But when I consider the
+usual nature of the drag which causes men of promise to disappoint the
+world I feel uneasy.”
+
+“You deserve credit for the feeling, Mother. But I can assure you that
+you need not be disturbed by it on my account.”
+
+“When I think of you and your new crotchets,” said Mrs. Yeobright,
+with some emphasis, “I naturally don't feel so comfortable as I did a
+twelvemonth ago. It is incredible to me that a man accustomed to the
+attractive women of Paris and elsewhere should be so easily worked upon
+by a girl in a heath. You could just as well have walked another way.”
+
+“I had been studying all day.”
+
+“Well, yes,” she added more hopefully, “I have been thinking that you
+might get on as a schoolmaster, and rise that way, since you really are
+determined to hate the course you were pursuing.”
+
+Yeobright was unwilling to disturb this idea, though his scheme was far
+enough removed from one wherein the education of youth should be made
+a mere channel of social ascent. He had no desires of that sort. He had
+reached the stage in a young man's life when the grimness of the general
+human situation first becomes clear; and the realization of this causes
+ambition to halt awhile. In France it is not uncustomary to commit
+suicide at this stage; in England we do much better, or much worse, as
+the case may be.
+
+The love between the young man and his mother was strangely invisible
+now. Of love it may be said, the less earthly the less demonstrative. In
+its absolutely indestructible form it reaches a profundity in which all
+exhibition of itself is painful. It was so with these. Had conversations
+between them been overheard, people would have said, “How cold they are
+to each other!”
+
+His theory and his wishes about devoting his future to teaching had made
+an impression on Mrs. Yeobright. Indeed, how could it be otherwise
+when he was a part of her--when their discourses were as if carried on
+between the right and the left hands of the same body? He had despaired
+of reaching her by argument; and it was almost as a discovery to him
+that he could reach her by a magnetism which was as superior to words as
+words are to yells.
+
+Strangely enough he began to feel now that it would not be so hard
+to persuade her who was his best friend that comparative poverty was
+essentially the higher course for him, as to reconcile to his feelings
+the act of persuading her. From every provident point of view his mother
+was so undoubtedly right, that he was not without a sickness of heart in
+finding he could shake her.
+
+She had a singular insight into life, considering that she had never
+mixed with it. There are instances of persons who, without clear ideas
+of the things they criticize have yet had clear ideas of the relations
+of those things. Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe
+visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind,
+gave excellent lectures on colour, and taught others the theory of ideas
+which they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted ones
+are mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and
+estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.
+
+What was the great world to Mrs. Yeobright? A multitude whose tendencies
+could be perceived, though not its essences. Communities were seen by
+her as from a distance; she saw them as we see the throngs which cover
+the canvases of Sallaert, Van Alsloot, and others of that school--vast
+masses of beings, jostling, zigzagging, and processioning in definite
+directions, but whose features are indistinguishable by the very
+comprehensiveness of the view.
+
+One could see that, as far as it had gone, her life was very complete on
+its reflective side. The philosophy of her nature, and its limitation by
+circumstances, was almost written in her movements. They had a majestic
+foundation, though they were far from being majestic; and they had a
+ground-work of assurance, but they were not assured. As her once elastic
+walk had become deadened by time, so had her natural pride of life been
+hindered in its blooming by her necessities.
+
+The next slight touch in the shaping of Clym's destiny occurred a few
+days after. A barrow was opened on the heath, and Yeobright attended the
+operation, remaining away from his study during several hours. In the
+afternoon Christian returned from a journey in the same direction, and
+Mrs. Yeobright questioned him.
+
+“They have dug a hole, and they have found things like flowerpots upside
+down, Mis'ess Yeobright; and inside these be real charnel bones. They
+have carried 'em off to men's houses; but I shouldn't like to sleep
+where they will bide. Dead folks have been known to come and claim their
+own. Mr. Yeobright had got one pot of the bones, and was going to bring
+'em home--real skellington bones--but 'twas ordered otherwise. You'll be
+relieved to hear that he gave away his pot and all, on second thoughts;
+and a blessed thing for ye, Mis'ess Yeobright, considering the wind o'
+nights.”
+
+“Gave it away?”
+
+“Yes. To Miss Vye. She has a cannibal taste for such churchyard
+furniture seemingly.”
+
+“Miss Vye was there too?”
+
+“Ay, 'a b'lieve she was.”
+
+When Clym came home, which was shortly after, his mother said, in a
+curious tone, “The urn you had meant for me you gave away.”
+
+Yeobright made no reply; the current of her feeling was too pronounced
+to admit it.
+
+The early weeks of the year passed on. Yeobright certainly studied at
+home, but he also walked much abroad, and the direction of his walk was
+always towards some point of a line between Mistover and Rainbarrow.
+
+The month of March arrived, and the heath showed its first signs of
+awakening from winter trance. The awakening was almost feline in its
+stealthiness. The pool outside the bank by Eustacia's dwelling, which
+seemed as dead and desolate as ever to an observer who moved and made
+noises in his observation, would gradually disclose a state of great
+animation when silently watched awhile. A timid animal world had come to
+life for the season. Little tadpoles and efts began to bubble up through
+the water, and to race along beneath it; toads made noises like very
+young ducks, and advanced to the margin in twos and threes; overhead,
+bumblebees flew hither and thither in the thickening light, their drone
+coming and going like the sound of a gong.
+
+On an evening such as this Yeobright descended into the Blooms-End
+valley from beside that very pool, where he had been standing with
+another person quite silently and quite long enough to hear all this
+puny stir of resurrection in nature; yet he had not heard it. His walk
+was rapid as he came down, and he went with a springy trend. Before
+entering upon his mother's premises he stopped and breathed. The light
+which shone forth on him from the window revealed that his face was
+flushed and his eye bright. What it did not show was something which
+lingered upon his lips like a seal set there. The abiding presence of
+this impress was so real that he hardly dared to enter the house, for it
+seemed as if his mother might say, “What red spot is that glowing upon
+your mouth so vividly?”
+
+But he entered soon after. The tea was ready, and he sat down opposite
+his mother. She did not speak many words; and as for him, something
+had been just done and some words had been just said on the hill which
+prevented him from beginning a desultory chat. His mother's taciturnity
+was not without ominousness, but he appeared not to care. He knew why
+she said so little, but he could not remove the cause of her bearing
+towards him. These half-silent sittings were far from uncommon with them
+now. At last Yeobright made a beginning of what was intended to strike
+at the whole root of the matter.
+
+“Five days have we sat like this at meals with scarcely a word. What's
+the use of it, Mother?”
+
+“None,” said she, in a heart-swollen tone. “But there is only too good a
+reason.”
+
+“Not when you know all. I have been wanting to speak about this, and I
+am glad the subject is begun. The reason, of course, is Eustacia Vye.
+Well, I confess I have seen her lately, and have seen her a good many
+times.”
+
+“Yes, yes; and I know what that amounts to. It troubles me, Clym. You
+are wasting your life here; and it is solely on account of her. If
+it had not been for that woman you would never have entertained this
+teaching scheme at all.”
+
+Clym looked hard at his mother. “You know that is not it,” he said.
+
+“Well, I know you had decided to attempt it before you saw her; but
+that would have ended in intentions. It was very well to talk of, but
+ridiculous to put in practice. I fully expected that in the course of a
+month or two you would have seen the folly of such self-sacrifice, and
+would have been by this time back again to Paris in some business or
+other. I can understand objections to the diamond trade--I really was
+thinking that it might be inadequate to the life of a man like you even
+though it might have made you a millionaire. But now I see how mistaken
+you are about this girl I doubt if you could be correct about other
+things.”
+
+“How am I mistaken in her?”
+
+“She is lazy and dissatisfied. But that is not all of it. Supposing her
+to be as good a woman as any you can find, which she certainly is not,
+why do you wish to connect yourself with anybody at present?”
+
+“Well, there are practical reasons,” Clym began, and then almost broke
+off under an overpowering sense of the weight of argument which could
+be brought against his statement. “If I take a school an educated woman
+would be invaluable as a help to me.”
+
+“What! you really mean to marry her?”
+
+“It would be premature to state that plainly. But consider what obvious
+advantages there would be in doing it. She----”
+
+“Don't suppose she has any money. She hasn't a farthing.”
+
+“She is excellently educated, and would make a good matron in a
+boarding-school. I candidly own that I have modified my views a little,
+in deference to you; and it should satisfy you. I no longer adhere to
+my intention of giving with my own mouth rudimentary education to the
+lowest class. I can do better. I can establish a good private school
+for farmers' sons, and without stopping the school I can manage to
+pass examinations. By this means, and by the assistance of a wife like
+her----”
+
+“Oh, Clym!”
+
+“I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools
+in the county.”
+
+Yeobright had enunciated the word “her” with a fervour which, in
+conversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a maternal
+heart within the four seas could in such circumstances, have helped
+being irritated at that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new woman.
+
+“You are blinded, Clym,” she said warmly. “It was a bad day for you when
+you first set eyes on her. And your scheme is merely a castle in the
+air built on purpose to justify this folly which has seized you, and to
+salve your conscience on the irrational situation you are in.”
+
+“Mother, that's not true,” he firmly answered.
+
+“Can you maintain that I sit and tell untruths, when all I wish to do
+is to save you from sorrow? For shame, Clym! But it is all through that
+woman--a hussy!”
+
+Clym reddened like fire and rose. He placed his hand upon his mother's
+shoulder and said, in a tone which hung strangely between entreaty and
+command, “I won't hear it. I may be led to answer you in a way which we
+shall both regret.”
+
+His mother parted her lips to begin some other vehement truth, but on
+looking at him she saw that in his face which led her to leave the
+words unsaid. Yeobright walked once or twice across the room, and then
+suddenly went out of the house. It was eleven o'clock when he came in,
+though he had not been further than the precincts of the garden. His
+mother was gone to bed. A light was left burning on the table, and
+supper was spread. Without stopping for any food he secured the doors
+and went upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+4--An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness
+
+
+The next day was gloomy enough at Blooms-End. Yeobright remained in
+his study, sitting over the open books; but the work of those hours was
+miserably scant. Determined that there should be nothing in his conduct
+towards his mother resembling sullenness, he had occasionally spoken to
+her on passing matters, and would take no notice of the brevity of her
+replies. With the same resolve to keep up a show of conversation he
+said, about seven o'clock in the evening, “There's an eclipse of the
+moon tonight. I am going out to see it.” And, putting on his overcoat,
+he left her.
+
+The low moon was not as yet visible from the front of the house, and
+Yeobright climbed out of the valley until he stood in the full flood
+of her light. But even now he walked on, and his steps were in the
+direction of Rainbarrow.
+
+In half an hour he stood at the top. The sky was clear from verge to
+verge, and the moon flung her rays over the whole heath, but without
+sensibly lighting it, except where paths and water-courses had laid bare
+the white flints and glistening quartz sand, which made streaks upon the
+general shade. After standing awhile he stooped and felt the heather. It
+was dry, and he flung himself down upon the barrow, his face towards the
+moon, which depicted a small image of herself in each of his eyes.
+
+He had often come up here without stating his purpose to his mother;
+but this was the first time that he had been ostensibly frank as to
+his purpose while really concealing it. It was a moral situation which,
+three months earlier, he could hardly have credited of himself. In
+returning to labour in this sequestered spot he had anticipated an
+escape from the chafing of social necessities; yet behold they were
+here also. More than ever he longed to be in some world where personal
+ambition was not the only recognized form of progress--such, perhaps, as
+might have been the case at some time or other in the silvery globe then
+shining upon him. His eye travelled over the length and breadth of that
+distant country--over the Bay of Rainbows, the sombre Sea of Crises,
+the Ocean of Storms, the Lake of Dreams, the vast Walled Plains, and
+the wondrous Ring Mountains--till he almost felt himself to be voyaging
+bodily through its wild scenes, standing on its hollow hills, traversing
+its deserts, descending its vales and old sea bottoms, or mounting to
+the edges of its craters.
+
+While he watched the far-removed landscape a tawny stain grew into being
+on the lower verge--the eclipse had begun. This marked a preconcerted
+moment--for the remote celestial phenomenon had been pressed into
+sublunary service as a lover's signal. Yeobright's mind flew back to
+earth at the sight; he arose, shook himself and listened. Minute after
+minute passed by, perhaps ten minutes passed, and the shadow on the moon
+perceptibly widened. He heard a rustling on his left hand, a cloaked
+figure with an upturned face appeared at the base of the Barrow, and
+Clym descended. In a moment the figure was in his arms, and his lips
+upon hers.
+
+“My Eustacia!”
+
+“Clym, dearest!”
+
+Such a situation had less than three months brought forth.
+
+They remained long without a single utterance, for no language could
+reach the level of their condition--words were as the rusty implements
+of a by-gone barbarous epoch, and only to be occasionally tolerated.
+
+“I began to wonder why you did not come,” said Yeobright, when she had
+withdrawn a little from his embrace.
+
+“You said ten minutes after the first mark of shade on the edge of the
+moon, and that's what it is now.”
+
+“Well, let us only think that here we are.”
+
+Then, holding each other's hand, they were again silent, and the shadow
+on the moon's disc grew a little larger.
+
+“Has it seemed long since you last saw me?” she asked.
+
+“It has seemed sad.”
+
+“And not long? That's because you occupy yourself, and so blind yourself
+to my absence. To me, who can do nothing, it has been like living under
+stagnant water.”
+
+“I would rather bear tediousness, dear, than have time made short by
+such means as have shortened mine.”
+
+“In what way is that? You have been thinking you wished you did not love
+me.”
+
+“How can a man wish that, and yet love on? No, Eustacia.”
+
+“Men can, women cannot.”
+
+“Well, whatever I may have thought, one thing is certain--I do love
+you--past all compass and description. I love you to oppressiveness--I,
+who have never before felt more than a pleasant passing fancy for any
+woman I have ever seen. Let me look right into your moonlit face and
+dwell on every line and curve in it! Only a few hairbreadths make the
+difference between this face and faces I have seen many times before I
+knew you; yet what a difference--the difference between everything and
+nothing at all. One touch on that mouth again! there, and there, and
+there. Your eyes seem heavy, Eustacia.”
+
+“No, it is my general way of looking. I think it arises from my feeling
+sometimes an agonizing pity for myself that I ever was born.”
+
+“You don't feel it now?”
+
+“No. Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. Nothing can
+ensure the continuance of love. It will evaporate like a spirit, and so
+I feel full of fears.”
+
+“You need not.”
+
+“Ah, you don't know. You have seen more than I, and have been into
+cities and among people that I have only heard of, and have lived more
+years than I; but yet I am older at this than you. I loved another man
+once, and now I love you.”
+
+“In God's mercy don't talk so, Eustacia!”
+
+“But I do not think I shall be the one who wearies first. It will, I
+fear, end in this way: your mother will find out that you meet me, and
+she will influence you against me!”
+
+“That can never be. She knows of these meetings already.”
+
+“And she speaks against me?”
+
+“I will not say.”
+
+“There, go away! Obey her. I shall ruin you. It is foolish of you
+to meet me like this. Kiss me, and go away forever. Forever--do you
+hear?--forever!”
+
+“Not I.”
+
+“It is your only chance. Many a man's love has been a curse to him.”
+
+“You are desperate, full of fancies, and wilful; and you misunderstand.
+I have an additional reason for seeing you tonight besides love of you.
+For though, unlike you, I feel our affection may be eternal. I feel with
+you in this, that our present mode of existence cannot last.”
+
+“Oh! 'tis your mother. Yes, that's it! I knew it.”
+
+“Never mind what it is. Believe this, I cannot let myself lose you. I
+must have you always with me. This very evening I do not like to let
+you go. There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest--you must be my
+wife.”
+
+She started--then endeavoured to say calmly, “Cynics say that cures the
+anxiety by curing the love.”
+
+“But you must answer me. Shall I claim you some day--I don't mean at
+once?”
+
+“I must think,” Eustacia murmured. “At present speak of Paris to me. Is
+there any place like it on earth?”
+
+“It is very beautiful. But will you be mine?”
+
+“I will be nobody else's in the world--does that satisfy you?”
+
+“Yes, for the present.”
+
+“Now tell me of the Tuileries, and the Louvre,” she continued evasively.
+
+“I hate talking of Paris! Well, I remember one sunny room in the
+Louvre which would make a fitting place for you to live in--the Galerie
+d'Apollon. Its windows are mainly east; and in the early morning,
+when the sun is bright, the whole apartment is in a perfect blaze of
+splendour. The rays bristle and dart from the encrustations of gilding
+to the magnificent inlaid coffers, from the coffers to the gold and
+silver plate, from the plate to the jewels and precious stones, from
+these to the enamels, till there is a perfect network of light which
+quite dazzles the eye. But now, about our marriage----”
+
+“And Versailles--the King's Gallery is some such gorgeous room, is it
+not?”
+
+“Yes. But what's the use of talking of gorgeous rooms? By the way, the
+Little Trianon would suit us beautifully to live in, and you might
+walk in the gardens in the moonlight and think you were in some English
+shrubbery; it is laid out in English fashion.”
+
+“I should hate to think that!”
+
+“Then you could keep to the lawn in front of the Grand Palace. All about
+there you would doubtless feel in a world of historical romance.”
+
+He went on, since it was all new to her, and described Fontainebleau,
+St. Cloud, the Bois, and many other familiar haunts of the Parisians;
+till she said--
+
+“When used you to go to these places?”
+
+“On Sundays.”
+
+“Ah, yes. I dislike English Sundays. How I should chime in with their
+manners over there! Dear Clym, you'll go back again?”
+
+Clym shook his head, and looked at the eclipse.
+
+“If you'll go back again I'll--be something,” she said tenderly, putting
+her head near his breast. “If you'll agree I'll give my promise, without
+making you wait a minute longer.”
+
+“How extraordinary that you and my mother should be of one mind about
+this!” said Yeobright. “I have vowed not to go back, Eustacia. It is not
+the place I dislike; it is the occupation.”
+
+“But you can go in some other capacity.”
+
+“No. Besides, it would interfere with my scheme. Don't press that,
+Eustacia. Will you marry me?”
+
+“I cannot tell.”
+
+“Now--never mind Paris; it is no better than other spots. Promise,
+sweet!”
+
+“You will never adhere to your education plan, I am quite sure; and then
+it will be all right for me; and so I promise to be yours for ever and
+ever.”
+
+Clym brought her face towards his by a gentle pressure of the hand, and
+kissed her.
+
+“Ah! but you don't know what you have got in me,” she said. “Sometimes I
+think there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make a good
+homespun wife. Well, let it go--see how our time is slipping, slipping,
+slipping!” She pointed towards the half-eclipsed moon.
+
+“You are too mournful.”
+
+“No. Only I dread to think of anything beyond the present. What is, we
+know. We are together now, and it is unknown how long we shall be so;
+the unknown always fills my mind with terrible possibilities, even
+when I may reasonably expect it to be cheerful.... Clym, the eclipsed
+moonlight shines upon your face with a strange foreign colour, and shows
+its shape as if it were cut out in gold. That means that you should be
+doing better things than this.”
+
+“You are ambitious, Eustacia--no, not exactly ambitious, luxurious. I
+ought to be of the same vein, to make you happy, I suppose. And yet, far
+from that, I could live and die in a hermitage here, with proper work to
+do.”
+
+There was that in his tone which implied distrust of his position as
+a solicitous lover, a doubt if he were acting fairly towards one whose
+tastes touched his own only at rare and infrequent points. She saw his
+meaning, and whispered, in a low, full accent of eager assurance “Don't
+mistake me, Clym--though I should like Paris, I love you for yourself
+alone. To be your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to me; but I
+would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be yours at all.
+It is gain to me either way, and very great gain. There's my too candid
+confession.”
+
+“Spoken like a woman. And now I must soon leave you. I'll walk with you
+towards your house.”
+
+“But must you go home yet?” she asked. “Yes, the sand has nearly slipped
+away, I see, and the eclipse is creeping on more and more. Don't go yet!
+Stop till the hour has run itself out; then I will not press you any
+more. You will go home and sleep well; I keep sighing in my sleep! Do
+you ever dream of me?”
+
+“I cannot recollect a clear dream of you.”
+
+“I see your face in every scene of my dreams, and hear your voice in
+every sound. I wish I did not. It is too much what I feel. They say
+such love never lasts. But it must! And yet once, I remember, I saw an
+officer of the Hussars ride down the street at Budmouth, and though he
+was a total stranger and never spoke to me, I loved him till I thought
+I should really die of love--but I didn't die, and at last I left off
+caring for him. How terrible it would be if a time should come when I
+could not love you, my Clym!”
+
+“Please don't say such reckless things. When we see such a time at hand
+we will say, 'I have outlived my faith and purpose,' and die. There, the
+hour has expired--now let us walk on.”
+
+Hand in hand they went along the path towards Mistover. When they were
+near the house he said, “It is too late for me to see your grandfather
+tonight. Do you think he will object to it?”
+
+“I will speak to him. I am so accustomed to be my own mistress that it
+did not occur to me that we should have to ask him.”
+
+Then they lingeringly separated, and Clym descended towards Blooms-End.
+
+And as he walked further and further from the charmed atmosphere of his
+Olympian girl his face grew sad with a new sort of sadness. A perception
+of the dilemma in which his love had placed him came back in full force.
+In spite of Eustacia's apparent willingness to wait through the period
+of an unpromising engagement, till he should be established in his new
+pursuit, he could not but perceive at moments that she loved him rather
+as a visitant from a gay world to which she rightly belonged than as
+a man with a purpose opposed to that recent past of his which so
+interested her. It meant that, though she made no conditions as to his
+return to the French capital, this was what she secretly longed for in
+the event of marriage; and it robbed him of many an otherwise pleasant
+hour. Along with that came the widening breach between himself and his
+mother. Whenever any little occurrence had brought into more prominence
+than usual the disappointment that he was causing her it had sent him on
+lone and moody walks; or he was kept awake a great part of the night
+by the turmoil of spirit which such a recognition created. If Mrs.
+Yeobright could only have been led to see what a sound and worthy
+purpose this purpose of his was and how little it was being affected by
+his devotions to Eustacia, how differently would she regard him!
+
+Thus as his sight grew accustomed to the first blinding halo kindled
+about him by love and beauty, Yeobright began to perceive what a
+strait he was in. Sometimes he wished that he had never known Eustacia,
+immediately to retract the wish as brutal. Three antagonistic growths
+had to be kept alive: his mother's trust in him, his plan for becoming a
+teacher, and Eustacia's happiness. His fervid nature could not afford
+to relinquish one of these, though two of the three were as many as
+he could hope to preserve. Though his love was as chaste as that of
+Petrarch for his Laura, it had made fetters of what previously was
+only a difficulty. A position which was not too simple when he stood
+whole-hearted had become indescribably complicated by the addition of
+Eustacia. Just when his mother was beginning to tolerate one scheme
+he had introduced another still bitterer than the first, and the
+combination was more than she could bear.
+
+
+
+
+5--Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
+
+
+When Yeobright was not with Eustacia he was sitting slavishly over his
+books; when he was not reading he was meeting her. These meetings were
+carried on with the greatest secrecy.
+
+One afternoon his mother came home from a morning visit to Thomasin. He
+could see from a disturbance in the lines of her face that something had
+happened.
+
+“I have been told an incomprehensible thing,” she said mournfully. “The
+captain has let out at the Woman that you and Eustacia Vye are engaged
+to be married.”
+
+“We are,” said Yeobright. “But it may not be yet for a very long time.”
+
+“I should hardly think it WOULD be yet for a very long time! You will
+take her to Paris, I suppose?” She spoke with weary hopelessness.
+
+“I am not going back to Paris.”
+
+“What will you do with a wife, then?”
+
+“Keep a school in Budmouth, as I have told you.”
+
+“That's incredible! The place is overrun with schoolmasters. You have no
+special qualifications. What possible chance is there for such as you?”
+
+“There is no chance of getting rich. But with my system of education,
+which is as new as it is true, I shall do a great deal of good to my
+fellow-creatures.”
+
+“Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be invented they
+would have found it out at the universities long before this time.”
+
+“Never, Mother. They cannot find it out, because their teachers don't
+come in contact with the class which demands such a system--that
+is, those who have had no preliminary training. My plan is one for
+instilling high knowledge into empty minds without first cramming them
+with what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins.”
+
+“I might have believed you if you had kept yourself free from
+entanglements; but this woman--if she had been a good girl it would have
+been bad enough; but being----”
+
+“She is a good girl.”
+
+“So you think. A Corfu bandmaster's daughter! What has her life been?
+Her surname even is not her true one.”
+
+“She is Captain Vye's granddaughter, and her father merely took her
+mother's name. And she is a lady by instinct.”
+
+“They call him 'captain,' but anybody is captain.”
+
+“He was in the Royal Navy!”
+
+“No doubt he has been to sea in some tub or other. Why doesn't he look
+after her? No lady would rove about the heath at all hours of the day
+and night as she does. But that's not all of it. There was something
+queer between her and Thomasin's husband at one time--I am as sure of it
+as that I stand here.”
+
+“Eustacia has told me. He did pay her a little attention a year ago; but
+there's no harm in that. I like her all the better.”
+
+“Clym,” said his mother with firmness, “I have no proofs against her,
+unfortunately. But if she makes you a good wife, there has never been a
+bad one.”
+
+“Believe me, you are almost exasperating,” said Yeobright vehemently.
+“And this very day I had intended to arrange a meeting between you. But
+you give me no peace; you try to thwart my wishes in everything.”
+
+“I hate the thought of any son of mine marrying badly! I wish I had
+never lived to see this; it is too much for me--it is more than I
+dreamt!” She turned to the window. Her breath was coming quickly, and
+her lips were pale, parted, and trembling.
+
+“Mother,” said Clym, “whatever you do, you will always be dear to
+me--that you know. But one thing I have a right to say, which is, that
+at my age I am old enough to know what is best for me.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright remained for some time silent and shaken, as if she could
+say no more. Then she replied, “Best? Is it best for you to injure your
+prospects for such a voluptuous, idle woman as that? Don't you see that
+by the very fact of your choosing her you prove that you do not know
+what is best for you? You give up your whole thought--you set your whole
+soul--to please a woman.”
+
+“I do. And that woman is you.”
+
+“How can you treat me so flippantly!” said his mother, turning again to
+him with a tearful look. “You are unnatural, Clym, and I did not expect
+it.”
+
+“Very likely,” said he cheerlessly. “You did not know the measure you
+were going to mete me, and therefore did not know the measure that would
+be returned to you again.”
+
+“You answer me; you think only of her. You stick to her in all things.”
+
+“That proves her to be worthy. I have never yet supported what is bad.
+And I do not care only for her. I care for you and for myself, and
+for anything that is good. When a woman once dislikes another she is
+merciless!”
+
+“O Clym! please don't go setting down as my fault what is your obstinate
+wrongheadedness. If you wished to connect yourself with an unworthy
+person why did you come home here to do it? Why didn't you do it in
+Paris?--it is more the fashion there. You have come only to distress me,
+a lonely woman, and shorten my days! I wish that you would bestow your
+presence where you bestow your love!”
+
+Clym said huskily, “You are my mother. I will say no more--beyond this,
+that I beg your pardon for having thought this my home. I will no longer
+inflict myself upon you; I'll go.” And he went out with tears in his
+eyes.
+
+It was a sunny afternoon at the beginning of summer, and the moist
+hollows of the heath had passed from their brown to their green stage.
+Yeobright walked to the edge of the basin which extended down from
+Mistover and Rainbarrow.
+
+By this time he was calm, and he looked over the landscape. In the minor
+valleys, between the hillocks which diversified the contour of the vale,
+the fresh young ferns were luxuriantly growing up, ultimately to reach
+a height of five or six feet. He descended a little way, flung himself
+down in a spot where a path emerged from one of the small hollows, and
+waited. Hither it was that he had promised Eustacia to bring his mother
+this afternoon, that they might meet and be friends. His attempt had
+utterly failed.
+
+He was in a nest of vivid green. The ferny vegetation round him, though
+so abundant, was quite uniform--it was a grove of machine-made foliage,
+a world of green triangles with saw-edges, and not a single flower. The
+air was warm with a vaporous warmth, and the stillness was unbroken.
+Lizards, grasshoppers, and ants were the only living things to
+be beheld. The scene seemed to belong to the ancient world of the
+carboniferous period, when the forms of plants were few, and of the fern
+kind; when there was neither bud nor blossom, nothing but a monotonous
+extent of leafage, amid which no bird sang.
+
+When he had reclined for some considerable time, gloomily pondering, he
+discerned above the ferns a drawn bonnet of white silk approaching from
+the left, and Yeobright knew directly that it covered the head of her
+he loved. His heart awoke from its apathy to a warm excitement, and,
+jumping to his feet, he said aloud, “I knew she was sure to come.”
+
+She vanished in a hollow for a few moments, and then her whole form
+unfolded itself from the brake.
+
+“Only you here?” she exclaimed, with a disappointed air, whose
+hollowness was proved by her rising redness and her half-guilty low
+laugh. “Where is Mrs. Yeobright?”
+
+“She has not come,” he replied in a subdued tone.
+
+“I wish I had known that you would be here alone,” she said seriously,
+“and that we were going to have such an idle, pleasant time as this.
+Pleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to
+double it. I have not thought once today of having you all to myself
+this afternoon, and the actual moment of a thing is so soon gone.”
+
+“It is indeed.”
+
+“Poor Clym!” she continued, looking tenderly into his face. “You are
+sad. Something has happened at your home. Never mind what is--let us
+only look at what seems.”
+
+“But, darling, what shall we do?” said he.
+
+“Still go on as we do now--just live on from meeting to meeting, never
+minding about another day. You, I know, are always thinking of that--I
+can see you are. But you must not--will you, dear Clym?”
+
+“You are just like all women. They are ever content to build their lives
+on any incidental position that offers itself; whilst men would fain
+make a globe to suit them. Listen to this, Eustacia. There is a subject
+I have determined to put off no longer. Your sentiment on the wisdom
+of Carpe diem does not impress me today. Our present mode of life must
+shortly be brought to an end.”
+
+“It is your mother!”
+
+“It is. I love you none the less in telling you; it is only right you
+should know.”
+
+“I have feared my bliss,” she said, with the merest motion of her lips.
+“It has been too intense and consuming.”
+
+“There is hope yet. There are forty years of work in me yet, and why
+should you despair? I am only at an awkward turning. I wish people
+wouldn't be so ready to think that there is no progress without
+uniformity.”
+
+“Ah--your mind runs off to the philosophical side of it. Well, these sad
+and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to
+look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to indulge
+in. I have heard of people, who, upon coming suddenly into happiness,
+have died from anxiety lest they should not live to enjoy it. I felt
+myself in that whimsical state of uneasiness lately; but I shall be
+spared it now. Let us walk on.”
+
+Clym took the hand which was already bared for him--it was a favourite
+way with them to walk bare hand in bare hand--and led her through the
+ferns. They formed a very comely picture of love at full flush, as they
+walked along the valley that late afternoon, the sun sloping down on
+their right, and throwing their thin spectral shadows, tall as poplar
+trees, far out across the furze and fern. Eustacia went with her head
+thrown back fancifully, a certain glad and voluptuous air of triumph
+pervading her eyes at having won by her own unaided self a man who was
+her perfect complement in attainment, appearance, and age. On the young
+man's part, the paleness of face which he had brought with him
+from Paris, and the incipient marks of time and thought, were less
+perceptible than when he returned, the healthful and energetic
+sturdiness which was his by nature having partially recovered its
+original proportions. They wandered onward till they reached the nether
+margin of the heath, where it became marshy and merged in moorland.
+
+“I must part from you here, Clym,” said Eustacia.
+
+They stood still and prepared to bid each other farewell. Everything
+before them was on a perfect level. The sun, resting on the horizon
+line, streamed across the ground from between copper-coloured and lilac
+clouds, stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green. All
+dark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun were overspread by
+a purple haze, against which groups of wailing gnats shone out, rising
+upwards and dancing about like sparks of fire.
+
+“O! this leaving you is too hard to bear!” exclaimed Eustacia in a
+sudden whisper of anguish. “Your mother will influence you too much;
+I shall not be judged fairly, it will get afloat that I am not a good
+girl, and the witch story will be added to make me blacker!”
+
+“They cannot. Nobody dares to speak disrespectfully of you or of me.”
+
+“Oh how I wish I was sure of never losing you--that you could not be
+able to desert me anyhow!”
+
+Clym stood silent a moment. His feelings were high, the moment was
+passionate, and he cut the knot.
+
+“You shall be sure of me, darling,” he said, folding her in his arms.
+“We will be married at once.”
+
+“O Clym!”
+
+“Do you agree to it?”
+
+“If--if we can.”
+
+“We certainly can, both being of full age. And I have not followed my
+occupation all these years without having accumulated money; and if you
+will agree to live in a tiny cottage somewhere on the heath, until I
+take a house in Budmouth for the school, we can do it at a very little
+expense.”
+
+“How long shall we have to live in the tiny cottage, Clym?”
+
+“About six months. At the end of that time I shall have finished my
+reading--yes, we will do it, and this heart-aching will be over. We
+shall, of course, live in absolute seclusion, and our married life will
+only begin to outward view when we take the house in Budmouth, where I
+have already addressed a letter on the matter. Would your grandfather
+allow you?”
+
+“I think he would--on the understanding that it should not last longer
+than six months.”
+
+“I will guarantee that, if no misfortune happens.”
+
+“If no misfortune happens,” she repeated slowly.
+
+“Which is not likely. Dearest, fix the exact day.”
+
+And then they consulted on the question, and the day was chosen. It was
+to be a fortnight from that time.
+
+This was the end of their talk, and Eustacia left him. Clym watched her
+as she retired towards the sun. The luminous rays wrapped her up with
+her increasing distance, and the rustle of her dress over the sprouting
+sedge and grass died away. As he watched, the dead flat of the scenery
+overpowered him, though he was fully alive to the beauty of that
+untarnished early summer green which was worn for the nonce by the
+poorest blade. There was something in its oppressive horizontality which
+too much reminded him of the arena of life; it gave him a sense of bare
+equality with, and no superiority to, a single living thing under the
+sun.
+
+Eustacia was now no longer the goddess but the woman to him, a being
+to fight for, support, help, be maligned for. Now that he had reached
+a cooler moment he would have preferred a less hasty marriage; but the
+card was laid, and he determined to abide by the game. Whether Eustacia
+was to add one other to the list of those who love too hotly to love
+long and well, the forthcoming event was certainly a ready way of
+proving.
+
+
+
+
+6--Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete
+
+
+All that evening smart sounds denoting an active packing up came from
+Yeobright's room to the ears of his mother downstairs.
+
+Next morning he departed from the house and again proceeded across the
+heath. A long day's march was before him, his object being to secure a
+dwelling to which he might take Eustacia when she became his wife.
+Such a house, small, secluded, and with its windows boarded up, he had
+casually observed a month earlier, about two miles beyond the village
+of East Egdon, and six miles distant altogether; and thither he directed
+his steps today.
+
+The weather was far different from that of the evening before. The
+yellow and vapoury sunset which had wrapped up Eustacia from his parting
+gaze had presaged change. It was one of those not infrequent days of
+an English June which are as wet and boisterous as November. The cold
+clouds hastened on in a body, as if painted on a moving slide. Vapours
+from other continents arrived upon the wind, which curled and parted
+round him as he walked on.
+
+At length Clym reached the margin of a fir and beech plantation that had
+been enclosed from heath land in the year of his birth. Here the trees,
+laden heavily with their new and humid leaves, were now suffering more
+damage than during the highest winds of winter, when the boughs are
+especially disencumbered to do battle with the storm. The wet young
+beeches were undergoing amputations, bruises, cripplings, and harsh
+lacerations, from which the wasting sap would bleed for many a day to
+come, and which would leave scars visible till the day of their burning.
+Each stem was wrenched at the root, where it moved like a bone in its
+socket, and at every onset of the gale convulsive sounds came from the
+branches, as if pain were felt. In a neighbouring brake a finch was
+trying to sing; but the wind blew under his feathers till they stood on
+end, twisted round his little tail, and made him give up his song.
+
+Yet a few yards to Yeobright's left, on the open heath, how
+ineffectively gnashed the storm! Those gusts which tore the trees merely
+waved the furze and heather in a light caress. Egdon was made for such
+times as these.
+
+Yeobright reached the empty house about midday. It was almost as lonely
+as that of Eustacia's grandfather, but the fact that it stood near
+a heath was disguised by a belt of firs which almost enclosed the
+premises. He journeyed on about a mile further to the village in which
+the owner lived, and, returning with him to the house, arrangements were
+completed, and the man undertook that one room at least should be ready
+for occupation the next day. Clym's intention was to live there alone
+until Eustacia should join him on their wedding-day.
+
+Then he turned to pursue his way homeward through the drizzle that had
+so greatly transformed the scene. The ferns, among which he had lain in
+comfort yesterday, were dripping moisture from every frond, wetting
+his legs through as he brushed past; and the fur of the rabbits leaping
+before him was clotted into dark locks by the same watery surrounding.
+
+He reached home damp and weary enough after his ten-mile walk. It had
+hardly been a propitious beginning, but he had chosen his course, and
+would show no swerving. The evening and the following morning were spent
+in concluding arrangements for his departure. To stay at home a minute
+longer than necessary after having once come to his determination would
+be, he felt, only to give new pain to his mother by some word, look, or
+deed.
+
+He had hired a conveyance and sent off his goods by two o'clock that
+day. The next step was to get some furniture, which, after serving
+for temporary use in the cottage, would be available for the house
+at Budmouth when increased by goods of a better description. A mart
+extensive enough for the purpose existed at Anglebury, some miles beyond
+the spot chosen for his residence, and there he resolved to pass the
+coming night.
+
+It now only remained to wish his mother good-bye. She was sitting by the
+window as usual when he came downstairs.
+
+“Mother, I am going to leave you,” he said, holding out his hand.
+
+“I thought you were, by your packing,” replied Mrs. Yeobright in a voice
+from which every particle of emotion was painfully excluded.
+
+“And you will part friends with me?”
+
+“Certainly, Clym.”
+
+“I am going to be married on the twenty-fifth.”
+
+“I thought you were going to be married.”
+
+“And then--and then you must come and see us. You will understand me
+better after that, and our situation will not be so wretched as it is
+now.”
+
+“I do not think it likely I shall come to see you.”
+
+“Then it will not be my fault or Eustacia's, Mother. Good-bye!”
+
+He kissed her cheek, and departed in great misery, which was several
+hours in lessening itself to a controllable level. The position had
+been such that nothing more could be said without, in the first place,
+breaking down a barrier; and that was not to be done.
+
+No sooner had Yeobright gone from his mother's house than her face
+changed its rigid aspect for one of blank despair. After a while she
+wept, and her tears brought some relief. During the rest of the day she
+did nothing but walk up and down the garden path in a state bordering
+on stupefaction. Night came, and with it but little rest. The next day,
+with an instinct to do something which should reduce prostration
+to mournfulness, she went to her son's room, and with her own hands
+arranged it in order, for an imaginary time when he should return
+again. She gave some attention to her flowers, but it was perfunctorily
+bestowed, for they no longer charmed her.
+
+It was a great relief when, early in the afternoon, Thomasin paid her an
+unexpected visit. This was not the first meeting between the relatives
+since Thomasin's marriage; and past blunders having been in a rough way
+rectified, they could always greet each other with pleasure and ease.
+
+The oblique band of sunlight which followed her through the door became
+the young wife well. It illuminated her as her presence illuminated the
+heath. In her movements, in her gaze, she reminded the beholder of
+the feathered creatures who lived around her home. All similes and
+allegories concerning her began and ended with birds. There was as much
+variety in her motions as in their flight. When she was musing she was
+a kestrel, which hangs in the air by an invisible motion of its wings.
+When she was in a high wind her light body was blown against trees and
+banks like a heron's. When she was frightened she darted noiselessly
+like a kingfisher. When she was serene she skimmed like a swallow, and
+that is how she was moving now.
+
+“You are looking very blithe, upon my word, Tamsie,” said Mrs.
+Yeobright, with a sad smile. “How is Damon?”
+
+“He is very well.”
+
+“Is he kind to you, Thomasin?” And Mrs. Yeobright observed her narrowly.
+
+“Pretty fairly.”
+
+“Is that honestly said?”
+
+“Yes, Aunt. I would tell you if he were unkind.” She added, blushing,
+and with hesitation, “He--I don't know if I ought to complain to you
+about this, but I am not quite sure what to do. I want some money, you
+know, Aunt--some to buy little things for myself--and he doesn't give
+me any. I don't like to ask him; and yet, perhaps, he doesn't give it me
+because he doesn't know. Ought I to mention it to him, Aunt?”
+
+“Of course you ought. Have you never said a word on the matter?”
+
+“You see, I had some of my own,” said Thomasin evasively, “and I have
+not wanted any of his until lately. I did just say something about it
+last week; but he seems--not to remember.”
+
+“He must be made to remember. You are aware that I have a little box
+full of spade-guineas, which your uncle put into my hands to divide
+between yourself and Clym whenever I chose. Perhaps the time has come
+when it should be done. They can be turned into sovereigns at any
+moment.”
+
+“I think I should like to have my share--that is, if you don't mind.”
+
+“You shall, if necessary. But it is only proper that you should first
+tell your husband distinctly that you are without any, and see what he
+will do.”
+
+“Very well, I will.... Aunt, I have heard about Clym. I know you are in
+trouble about him, and that's why I have come.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned away, and her features worked in her attempt to
+conceal her feelings. Then she ceased to make any attempt, and said,
+weeping, “O Thomasin, do you think he hates me? How can he bear to
+grieve me so, when I have lived only for him through all these years?”
+
+“Hate you--no,” said Thomasin soothingly. “It is only that he loves her
+too well. Look at it quietly--do. It is not so very bad of him. Do you
+know, I thought it not the worst match he could have made. Miss Vye's
+family is a good one on her mother's side; and her father was a romantic
+wanderer--a sort of Greek Ulysses.”
+
+“It is no use, Thomasin; it is no use. Your intention is good; but I
+will not trouble you to argue. I have gone through the whole that can be
+said on either side times, and many times. Clym and I have not parted
+in anger; we have parted in a worse way. It is not a passionate quarrel
+that would have broken my heart; it is the steady opposition and
+persistence in going wrong that he has shown. O Thomasin, he was so good
+as a little boy--so tender and kind!”
+
+“He was, I know.”
+
+“I did not think one whom I called mine would grow up to treat me like
+this. He spoke to me as if I opposed him to injure him. As though I
+could wish him ill!”
+
+“There are worse women in the world than Eustacia Vye.”
+
+“There are too many better that's the agony of it. It was she, Thomasin,
+and she only, who led your husband to act as he did--I would swear it!”
+
+“No,” said Thomasin eagerly. “It was before he knew me that he thought
+of her, and it was nothing but a mere flirtation.”
+
+“Very well; we will let it be so. There is little use in unravelling
+that now. Sons must be blind if they will. Why is it that a woman can
+see from a distance what a man cannot see close? Clym must do as he
+will--he is nothing more to me. And this is maternity--to give one's
+best years and best love to ensure the fate of being despised!”
+
+“You are too unyielding. Think how many mothers there are whose sons
+have brought them to public shame by real crimes before you feel so
+deeply a case like this.”
+
+“Thomasin, don't lecture me--I can't have it. It is the excess above
+what we expect that makes the force of the blow, and that may not
+be greater in their case than in mine--they may have foreseen the
+worst.... I am wrongly made, Thomasin,” she added, with a mournful smile.
+“Some widows can guard against the wounds their children give them by
+turning their hearts to another husband and beginning life again. But I
+always was a poor, weak, one-idea'd creature--I had not the compass of
+heart nor the enterprise for that. Just as forlorn and stupefied as
+I was when my husband's spirit flew away I have sat ever since--never
+attempting to mend matters at all. I was comparatively a young woman
+then, and I might have had another family by this time, and have been
+comforted by them for the failure of this one son.”
+
+“It is more noble in you that you did not.”
+
+“The more noble, the less wise.”
+
+“Forget it, and be soothed, dear Aunt. And I shall not leave you alone
+for long. I shall come and see you every day.”
+
+And for one week Thomasin literally fulfilled her word. She endeavoured
+to make light of the wedding; and brought news of the preparations, and
+that she was invited to be present. The next week she was rather unwell,
+and did not appear. Nothing had as yet been done about the guineas, for
+Thomasin feared to address her husband again on the subject, and Mrs.
+Yeobright had insisted upon this.
+
+
+One day just before this time Wildeve was standing at the door of
+the Quiet Woman. In addition to the upward path through the heath
+to Rainbarrow and Mistover, there was a road which branched from the
+highway a short distance below the inn, and ascended to Mistover by a
+circuitous and easy incline. This was the only route on that side for
+vehicles to the captain's retreat. A light cart from the nearest town
+descended the road, and the lad who was driving pulled up in front of
+the inn for something to drink.
+
+“You come from Mistover?” said Wildeve.
+
+“Yes. They are taking in good things up there. Going to be a wedding.”
+ And the driver buried his face in his mug.
+
+Wildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before, and a sudden
+expression of pain overspread his face. He turned for a moment into the
+passage to hide it. Then he came back again.
+
+“Do you mean Miss Vye?” he said. “How is it--that she can be married so
+soon?”
+
+“By the will of God and a ready young man, I suppose.”
+
+“You don't mean Mr. Yeobright?”
+
+“Yes. He has been creeping about with her all the spring.”
+
+“I suppose--she was immensely taken with him?”
+
+“She is crazy about him, so their general servant of all work tells me.
+And that lad Charley that looks after the horse is all in a daze about
+it. The stun-poll has got fond-like of her.”
+
+“Is she lively--is she glad? Going to be married so soon--well!”
+
+“It isn't so very soon.”
+
+“No; not so very soon.”
+
+Wildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious heartache within him.
+He rested his elbow upon the mantelpiece and his face upon his hand.
+When Thomasin entered the room he did not tell her of what he had heard.
+The old longing for Eustacia had reappeared in his soul--and it was
+mainly because he had discovered that it was another man's intention to
+possess her.
+
+To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered; to care
+for the remote, to dislike the near; it was Wildeve's nature always.
+This is the true mark of the man of sentiment. Though Wildeve's fevered
+feeling had not been elaborated to real poetical compass, it was of the
+standard sort. His might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon.
+
+
+
+
+7--The Morning and the Evening of a Day
+
+
+The wedding morning came. Nobody would have imagined from appearances
+that Blooms-End had any interest in Mistover that day. A solemn
+stillness prevailed around the house of Clym's mother, and there was no
+more animation indoors. Mrs. Yeobright, who had declined to attend the
+ceremony, sat by the breakfast table in the old room which communicated
+immediately with the porch, her eyes listlessly directed towards the
+open door. It was the room in which, six months earlier, the merry
+Christmas party had met, to which Eustacia came secretly and as a
+stranger. The only living thing that entered now was a sparrow; and
+seeing no movements to cause alarm, he hopped boldly round the
+room, endeavoured to go out by the window, and fluttered among the
+pot-flowers. This roused the lonely sitter, who got up, released the
+bird, and went to the door. She was expecting Thomasin, who had written
+the night before to state that the time had come when she would wish to
+have the money and that she would if possible call this day.
+
+Yet Thomasin occupied Mrs. Yeobright's thoughts but slightly as she
+looked up the valley of the heath, alive with butterflies, and with
+grasshoppers whose husky noises on every side formed a whispered chorus.
+A domestic drama, for which the preparations were now being made a mile
+or two off, was but little less vividly present to her eyes than if
+enacted before her. She tried to dismiss the vision, and walked about
+the garden plot; but her eyes ever and anon sought out the direction
+of the parish church to which Mistover belonged, and her excited fancy
+clove the hills which divided the building from her eyes. The morning
+wore away. Eleven o'clock struck--could it be that the wedding was
+then in progress? It must be so. She went on imagining the scene at
+the church, which he had by this time approached with his bride. She
+pictured the little group of children by the gate as the pony carriage
+drove up in which, as Thomasin had learnt, they were going to perform
+the short journey. Then she saw them enter and proceed to the chancel
+and kneel; and the service seemed to go on.
+
+She covered her face with her hands. “O, it is a mistake!” she groaned.
+“And he will rue it some day, and think of me!”
+
+While she remained thus, overcome by her forebodings, the old clock
+indoors whizzed forth twelve strokes. Soon after, faint sounds floated
+to her ear from afar over the hills. The breeze came from that quarter,
+and it had brought with it the notes of distant bells, gaily starting
+off in a peal: one, two, three, four, five. The ringers at East Egdon
+were announcing the nuptials of Eustacia and her son.
+
+“Then it is over,” she murmured. “Well, well! and life too will be over
+soon. And why should I go on scalding my face like this? Cry about one
+thing in life, cry about all; one thread runs through the whole piece.
+And yet we say, 'a time to laugh!'”
+
+Towards evening Wildeve came. Since Thomasin's marriage Mrs. Yeobright
+had shown him that grim friendliness which at last arises in all such
+cases of undesired affinity. The vision of what ought to have been
+is thrown aside in sheer weariness, and browbeaten human endeavour
+listlessly makes the best of the fact that is. Wildeve, to do him
+justice, had behaved very courteously to his wife's aunt; and it was
+with no surprise that she saw him enter now.
+
+“Thomasin has not been able to come, as she promised to do,” he replied
+to her inquiry, which had been anxious, for she knew that her niece was
+badly in want of money. “The captain came down last night and
+personally pressed her to join them today. So, not to be unpleasant,
+she determined to go. They fetched her in the pony-chaise, and are
+going to bring her back.”
+
+“Then it is done,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “Have they gone to their new
+home?”
+
+“I don't know. I have had no news from Mistover since Thomasin left to
+go.”
+
+“You did not go with her?” said she, as if there might be good reasons
+why.
+
+“I could not,” said Wildeve, reddening slightly. “We could not both
+leave the house; it was rather a busy morning, on account of Anglebury
+Great Market. I believe you have something to give to Thomasin? If you
+like, I will take it.”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright hesitated, and wondered if Wildeve knew what the
+something was. “Did she tell you of this?” she inquired.
+
+“Not particularly. She casually dropped a remark about having arranged
+to fetch some article or other.”
+
+“It is hardly necessary to send it. She can have it whenever she chooses
+to come.”
+
+“That won't be yet. In the present state of her health she must not go
+on walking so much as she has done.” He added, with a faint twang of
+sarcasm, “What wonderful thing is it that I cannot be trusted to take?”
+
+“Nothing worth troubling you with.”
+
+“One would think you doubted my honesty,” he said, with a laugh, though
+his colour rose in a quick resentfulness frequent with him.
+
+“You need think no such thing,” said she drily. “It is simply that I,
+in common with the rest of the world, feel that there are certain things
+which had better be done by certain people than by others.”
+
+“As you like, as you like,” said Wildeve laconically. “It is not worth
+arguing about. Well, I think I must turn homeward again, as the inn must
+not be left long in charge of the lad and the maid only.”
+
+He went his way, his farewell being scarcely so courteous as his
+greeting. But Mrs. Yeobright knew him thoroughly by this time, and took
+little notice of his manner, good or bad.
+
+When Wildeve was gone Mrs. Yeobright stood and considered what would be
+the best course to adopt with regard to the guineas, which she had not
+liked to entrust to Wildeve. It was hardly credible that Thomasin had
+told him to ask for them, when the necessity for them had arisen
+from the difficulty of obtaining money at his hands. At the same time
+Thomasin really wanted them, and might be unable to come to Blooms-End
+for another week at least. To take or send the money to her at the inn
+would be impolite, since Wildeve would pretty surely be present, or
+would discover the transaction; and if, as her aunt suspected, he
+treated her less kindly than she deserved to be treated, he might
+then get the whole sum out of her gentle hands. But on this particular
+evening Thomasin was at Mistover, and anything might be conveyed to
+her there without the knowledge of her husband. Upon the whole the
+opportunity was worth taking advantage of.
+
+Her son, too, was there, and was now married. There could be no more
+proper moment to render him his share of the money than the present.
+And the chance that would be afforded her, by sending him this gift,
+of showing how far she was from bearing him ill-will, cheered the sad
+mother's heart.
+
+She went upstairs and took from a locked drawer a little box, out of
+which she poured a hoard of broad unworn guineas that had lain there
+many a year. There were a hundred in all, and she divided them into two
+heaps, fifty in each. Tying up these in small canvas bags, she went down
+to the garden and called to Christian Cantle, who was loitering about in
+hope of a supper which was not really owed him. Mrs. Yeobright gave
+him the moneybags, charged him to go to Mistover, and on no account
+to deliver them into any one's hands save her son's and Thomasin's. On
+further thought she deemed it advisable to tell Christian precisely
+what the two bags contained, that he might be fully impressed with their
+importance. Christian pocketed the moneybags, promised the greatest
+carefulness, and set out on his way.
+
+“You need not hurry,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “It will be better not to get
+there till after dusk, and then nobody will notice you. Come back here
+to supper, if it is not too late.”
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock when he began to ascend the vale towards
+Mistover; but the long days of summer being at their climax, the first
+obscurity of evening had only just begun to tan the landscape. At
+this point of his journey Christian heard voices, and found that they
+proceeded from a company of men and women who were traversing a hollow
+ahead of him, the tops only of their heads being visible.
+
+He paused and thought of the money he carried. It was almost too early
+even for Christian seriously to fear robbery; nevertheless he took
+a precaution which ever since his boyhood he had adopted whenever he
+carried more than two or three shillings upon his person--a precaution
+somewhat like that of the owner of the Pitt Diamond when filled with
+similar misgivings. He took off his boots, untied the guineas, and
+emptied the contents of one little bag into the right boot, and of
+the other into the left, spreading them as flatly as possible over the
+bottom of each, which was really a spacious coffer by no means limited
+to the size of the foot. Pulling them on again and lacing them to the
+very top, he proceeded on his way, more easy in his head than under his
+soles.
+
+His path converged towards that of the noisy company, and on coming
+nearer he found to his relief that they were several Egdon people whom
+he knew very well, while with them walked Fairway, of Blooms-End.
+
+“What! Christian going too?” said Fairway as soon as he recognized the
+newcomer. “You've got no young woman nor wife to your name to gie a
+gown-piece to, I'm sure.”
+
+“What d'ye mean?” said Christian.
+
+“Why, the raffle. The one we go to every year. Going to the raffle as
+well as ourselves?”
+
+“Never knew a word o't. Is it like cudgel playing or other sportful
+forms of bloodshed? I don't want to go, thank you, Mister Fairway, and
+no offence.”
+
+“Christian don't know the fun o't, and 'twould be a fine sight for him,”
+ said a buxom woman. “There's no danger at all, Christian. Every man
+puts in a shilling apiece, and one wins a gown-piece for his wife or
+sweetheart if he's got one.”
+
+“Well, as that's not my fortune there's no meaning in it to me. But I
+should like to see the fun, if there's nothing of the black art in it,
+and if a man may look on without cost or getting into any dangerous
+wrangle?”
+
+“There will be no uproar at all,” said Timothy. “Sure, Christian, if
+you'd like to come we'll see there's no harm done.”
+
+“And no ba'dy gaieties, I suppose? You see, neighbours, if so, it
+would be setting father a bad example, as he is so light moral'd. But
+a gown-piece for a shilling, and no black art--'tis worth looking in to
+see, and it wouldn't hinder me half an hour. Yes, I'll come, if you'll
+step a little way towards Mistover with me afterwards, supposing night
+should have closed in, and nobody else is going that way?”
+
+One or two promised; and Christian, diverging from his direct path,
+turned round to the right with his companions towards the Quiet Woman.
+
+When they entered the large common room of the inn they found assembled
+there about ten men from among the neighbouring population, and the
+group was increased by the new contingent to double that number. Most of
+them were sitting round the room in seats divided by wooden elbows like
+those of crude cathedral stalls, which were carved with the initials of
+many an illustrious drunkard of former times who had passed his days
+and his nights between them, and now lay as an alcoholic cinder in the
+nearest churchyard. Among the cups on the long table before the
+sitters lay an open parcel of light drapery--the gown-piece, as it was
+called--which was to be raffled for. Wildeve was standing with his back
+to the fireplace smoking a cigar; and the promoter of the raffle, a
+packman from a distant town, was expatiating upon the value of the
+fabric as material for a summer dress.
+
+“Now, gentlemen,” he continued, as the newcomers drew up to the table,
+“there's five have entered, and we want four more to make up the number.
+I think, by the faces of those gentlemen who have just come in, that
+they are shrewd enough to take advantage of this rare opportunity of
+beautifying their ladies at a very trifling expense.”
+
+Fairway, Sam, and another placed their shillings on the table, and the
+man turned to Christian.
+
+“No, sir,” said Christian, drawing back, with a quick gaze of misgiving.
+“I am only a poor chap come to look on, an it please ye, sir. I don't
+so much as know how you do it. If so be I was sure of getting it I would
+put down the shilling; but I couldn't otherwise.”
+
+“I think you might almost be sure,” said the pedlar. “In fact, now I
+look into your face, even if I can't say you are sure to win, I can say
+that I never saw anything look more like winning in my life.”
+
+“You'll anyhow have the same chance as the rest of us,” said Sam.
+
+“And the extra luck of being the last comer,” said another.
+
+“And I was born wi' a caul, and perhaps can be no more ruined than
+drowned?” Christian added, beginning to give way.
+
+Ultimately Christian laid down his shilling, the raffle began, and the
+dice went round. When it came to Christian's turn he took the box with a
+trembling hand, shook it fearfully, and threw a pair-royal. Three of the
+others had thrown common low pairs, and all the rest mere points.
+
+“The gentleman looked like winning, as I said,” observed the chapman
+blandly. “Take it, sir; the article is yours.”
+
+“Haw-haw-haw!” said Fairway. “I'm damned if this isn't the quarest start
+that ever I knowed!”
+
+“Mine?” asked Christian, with a vacant stare from his target eyes. “I--I
+haven't got neither maid, wife, nor widder belonging to me at all, and
+I'm afeard it will make me laughed at to ha'e it, Master Traveller. What
+with being curious to join in I never thought of that! What shall I do
+wi' a woman's clothes in MY bedroom, and not lose my decency!”
+
+“Keep 'em, to be sure,” said Fairway, “if it is only for luck. Perhaps
+'twill tempt some woman that thy poor carcase had no power over when
+standing empty-handed.”
+
+“Keep it, certainly,” said Wildeve, who had idly watched the scene from
+a distance.
+
+The table was then cleared of the articles, and the men began to drink.
+
+“Well, to be sure!” said Christian, half to himself. “To think I should
+have been born so lucky as this, and not have found it out until now!
+What curious creatures these dice be--powerful rulers of us all, and
+yet at my command! I am sure I never need be afeared of anything after
+this.” He handled the dice fondly one by one. “Why, sir,” he said in a
+confidential whisper to Wildeve, who was near his left hand, “if I could
+only use this power that's in me of multiplying money I might do some
+good to a near relation of yours, seeing what I've got about me of
+hers--eh?” He tapped one of his money-laden boots upon the floor.
+
+“What do you mean?” said Wildeve.
+
+“That's a secret. Well, I must be going now.” He looked anxiously
+towards Fairway.
+
+“Where are you going?” Wildeve asked.
+
+“To Mistover Knap. I have to see Mrs. Thomasin there--that's all.”
+
+“I am going there, too, to fetch Mrs. Wildeve. We can walk together.”
+
+Wildeve became lost in thought, and a look of inward illumination came
+into his eyes. It was money for his wife that Mrs. Yeobright could not
+trust him with. “Yet she could trust this fellow,” he said to himself.
+“Why doesn't that which belongs to the wife belong to the husband too?”
+
+He called to the pot-boy to bring him his hat, and said, “Now,
+Christian, I am ready.”
+
+“Mr. Wildeve,” said Christian timidly, as he turned to leave the room,
+“would you mind lending me them wonderful little things that carry my
+luck inside 'em, that I might practise a bit by myself, you know?” He
+looked wistfully at the dice and box lying on the mantlepiece.
+
+“Certainly,” said Wildeve carelessly. “They were only cut out by some
+lad with his knife, and are worth nothing.” And Christian went back and
+privately pocketed them.
+
+Wildeve opened the door and looked out. The night was warm and cloudy.
+“By Gad! 'tis dark,” he continued. “But I suppose we shall find our
+way.”
+
+“If we should lose the path it might be awkward,” said Christian. “A
+lantern is the only shield that will make it safe for us.”
+
+“Let's have a lantern by all means.” The stable lantern was fetched and
+lighted. Christian took up his gownpiece, and the two set out to ascend
+the hill.
+
+Within the room the men fell into chat till their attention was for a
+moment drawn to the chimney-corner. This was large, and, in addition
+to its proper recess, contained within its jambs, like many on Egdon, a
+receding seat, so that a person might sit there absolutely unobserved,
+provided there was no fire to light him up, as was the case now and
+throughout the summer. From the niche a single object protruded into the
+light from the candles on the table. It was a clay pipe, and its colour
+was reddish. The men had been attracted to this object by a voice behind
+the pipe asking for a light.
+
+“Upon my life, it fairly startled me when the man spoke!” said Fairway,
+handing a candle. “Oh--'tis the reddleman! You've kept a quiet tongue,
+young man.”
+
+“Yes, I had nothing to say,” observed Venn. In a few minutes he arose
+and wished the company good night.
+
+Meanwhile Wildeve and Christian had plunged into the heath.
+
+It was a stagnant, warm, and misty night, full of all the heavy perfumes
+of new vegetation not yet dried by hot sun, and among these particularly
+the scent of the fern. The lantern, dangling from Christian's hand,
+brushed the feathery fronds in passing by, disturbing moths and other
+winged insects, which flew out and alighted upon its horny panes.
+
+“So you have money to carry to Mrs. Wildeve?” said Christian's
+companion, after a silence. “Don't you think it very odd that it
+shouldn't be given to me?”
+
+“As man and wife be one flesh, 'twould have been all the same, I should
+think,” said Christian. “But my strict documents was, to give the money
+into Mrs. Wildeve's hand--and 'tis well to do things right.”
+
+“No doubt,” said Wildeve. Any person who had known the circumstances
+might have perceived that Wildeve was mortified by the discovery that
+the matter in transit was money, and not, as he had supposed when at
+Blooms-End, some fancy nick-nack which only interested the two women
+themselves. Mrs. Yeobright's refusal implied that his honour was not
+considered to be of sufficiently good quality to make him a safer bearer
+of his wife's property.
+
+“How very warm it is tonight, Christian!” he said, panting, when they
+were nearly under Rainbarrow. “Let us sit down for a few minutes, for
+Heaven's sake.”
+
+Wildeve flung himself down on the soft ferns; and Christian, placing the
+lantern and parcel on the ground, perched himself in a cramped position
+hard by, his knees almost touching his chin. He presently thrust one
+hand into his coat-pocket and began shaking it about.
+
+“What are you rattling in there?” said Wildeve.
+
+“Only the dice, sir,” said Christian, quickly withdrawing his hand.
+“What magical machines these little things be, Mr. Wildeve! 'Tis a
+game I should never get tired of. Would you mind my taking 'em out and
+looking at 'em for a minute, to see how they are made? I didn't like
+to look close before the other men, for fear they should think it bad
+manners in me.” Christian took them out and examined them in the hollow
+of his hand by the lantern light. “That these little things should carry
+such luck, and such charm, and such a spell, and such power in 'em,
+passes all I ever heard or zeed,” he went on, with a fascinated gaze at
+the dice, which, as is frequently the case in country places, were made
+of wood, the points being burnt upon each face with the end of a wire.
+
+“They are a great deal in a small compass, You think?”
+
+“Yes. Do ye suppose they really be the devil's playthings, Mr. Wildeve?
+If so, 'tis no good sign that I be such a lucky man.”
+
+“You ought to win some money, now that you've got them. Any woman would
+marry you then. Now is your time, Christian, and I would recommend you
+not to let it slip. Some men are born to luck, some are not. I belong to
+the latter class.”
+
+“Did you ever know anybody who was born to it besides myself?”
+
+“O yes. I once heard of an Italian, who sat down at a gaming table with
+only a louis, (that's a foreign sovereign), in his pocket. He played on
+for twenty-four hours, and won ten thousand pounds, stripping the
+bank he had played against. Then there was another man who had lost a
+thousand pounds, and went to the broker's next day to sell stock, that
+he might pay the debt. The man to whom he owed the money went with him
+in a hackney-coach; and to pass the time they tossed who should pay
+the fare. The ruined man won, and the other was tempted to continue the
+game, and they played all the way. When the coachman stopped he was told
+to drive home again: the whole thousand pounds had been won back by the
+man who was going to sell.”
+
+“Ha--ha--splendid!” exclaimed Christian. “Go on--go on!”
+
+“Then there was a man of London, who was only a waiter at White's
+clubhouse. He began playing first half-crown stakes, and then higher and
+higher, till he became very rich, got an appointment in India, and rose
+to be Governor of Madras. His daughter married a member of Parliament,
+and the Bishop of Carlisle stood godfather to one of the children.”
+
+“Wonderful! wonderful!”
+
+“And once there was a young man in America who gambled till he had lost
+his last dollar. He staked his watch and chain, and lost as before;
+staked his umbrella, lost again; staked his hat, lost again; staked his
+coat and stood in his shirt-sleeves, lost again. Began taking off his
+breeches, and then a looker-on gave him a trifle for his pluck. With
+this he won. Won back his coat, won back his hat, won back his umbrella,
+his watch, his money, and went out of the door a rich man.”
+
+“Oh, 'tis too good--it takes away my breath! Mr. Wildeve, I think I will
+try another shilling with you, as I am one of that sort; no danger can
+come o't, and you can afford to lose.”
+
+“Very well,” said Wildeve, rising. Searching about with the lantern, he
+found a large flat stone, which he placed between himself and Christian,
+and sat down again. The lantern was opened to give more light, and its
+rays directed upon the stone. Christian put down a shilling, Wildeve
+another, and each threw. Christian won. They played for two, Christian
+won again.
+
+“Let us try four,” said Wildeve. They played for four. This time the
+stakes were won by Wildeve.
+
+“Ah, those little accidents will, of course, sometimes happen, to the
+luckiest man,” he observed.
+
+“And now I have no more money!” explained Christian excitedly. “And yet,
+if I could go on, I should get it back again, and more. I wish this was
+mine.” He struck his boot upon the ground, so that the guineas chinked
+within.
+
+“What! you have not put Mrs. Wildeve's money there?”
+
+“Yes. 'Tis for safety. Is it any harm to raffle with a married lady's
+money when, if I win, I shall only keep my winnings, and give her her
+own all the same; and if t'other man wins, her money will go to the
+lawful owner?”
+
+“None at all.”
+
+Wildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean estimation
+in which he was held by his wife's friends; and it cut his heart
+severely. As the minutes passed he had gradually drifted into a
+revengeful intention without knowing the precise moment of forming it.
+This was to teach Mrs. Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be;
+in other words, to show her if he could that her niece's husband was the
+proper guardian of her niece's money.
+
+“Well, here goes!” said Christian, beginning to unlace one boot. “I
+shall dream of it nights and nights, I suppose; but I shall always swear
+my flesh don't crawl when I think o't!”
+
+He thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one of poor Thomasin's
+precious guineas, piping hot. Wildeve had already placed a sovereign on
+the stone. The game was then resumed. Wildeve won first, and Christian
+ventured another, winning himself this time. The game fluctuated, but
+the average was in Wildeve's favour. Both men became so absorbed in
+the game that they took no heed of anything but the pigmy objects
+immediately beneath their eyes, the flat stone, the open lantern, the
+dice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves which lay under the light,
+were the whole world to them.
+
+At length Christian lost rapidly; and presently, to his horror, the
+whole fifty guineas belonging to Thomasin had been handed over to his
+adversary.
+
+“I don't care--I don't care!” he moaned, and desperately set about
+untying his left boot to get at the other fifty. “The devil will toss me
+into the flames on his three-pronged fork for this night's work, I know!
+But perhaps I shall win yet, and then I'll get a wife to sit up with
+me o' nights and I won't be afeard, I won't! Here's another for'ee, my
+man!” He slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and the dice-box
+was rattled again.
+
+Time passed on. Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself.
+When commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than
+a bitter practical joke on Mrs. Yeobright. To win the money, fairly
+or otherwise, and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt's
+presence, had been the dim outline of his purpose. But men are drawn
+from their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and
+it was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been
+reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than that
+of winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was now no longer
+gambling for his wife's money, but for Yeobright's; though of this fact
+Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards.
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian
+placed Yeobright's last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty
+seconds it had gone the way of its companions.
+
+Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of
+remorse, “O, what shall I do with my wretched self?” he groaned. “What
+shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?”
+
+“Do? Live on just the same.”
+
+“I won't live on just the same! I'll die! I say you are a--a----”
+
+“A man sharper than my neighbour.”
+
+“Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!”
+
+“Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly.”
+
+“I don't know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You've got money
+that isn't your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym's.”
+
+“How's that?”
+
+“Because I had to gie fifty of 'em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so.”
+
+“Oh?... Well, 'twould have been more graceful of her to have given them
+to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now.”
+
+Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could be
+heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and tottered
+away out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to return to
+the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to meet his wife,
+who was to be driven home in the captain's four-wheel. While he was
+closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a neighbouring
+bush and came forward into the lantern light. It was the reddleman
+approaching.
+
+
+
+
+8--A New Force Disturbs the Current
+
+
+Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word
+being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been
+seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid
+it on the stone.
+
+“You have been watching us from behind that bush?” said Wildeve.
+
+The reddleman nodded. “Down with your stake,” he said. “Or haven't you
+pluck enough to go on?”
+
+Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily begun
+with full pockets than left off with the same; and though Wildeve in
+a cooler temper might have prudently declined this invitation, the
+excitement of his recent success carried him completely away. He placed
+one of the guineas on a slab beside the reddleman's sovereign. “Mine is
+a guinea,” he said.
+
+“A guinea that's not your own,” said Venn sarcastically.
+
+“It is my own,” answered Wildeve haughtily. “It is my wife's, and what
+is hers is mine.”
+
+“Very well; let's make a beginning.” He shook the box, and threw eight,
+ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.
+
+This encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts amounted
+to forty-five.
+
+Down went another of the reddleman's sovereigns against his first one
+which Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no
+pair. The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed
+the stakes.
+
+“Here you are again,” said Wildeve contemptuously. “Double the stakes.”
+ He laid two of Thomasin's guineas, and the reddleman his two pounds.
+Venn won again. New stakes were laid on the stone, and the gamblers
+proceeded as before.
+
+Wildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game was beginning
+to tell upon his temper. He writhed, fumed, shifted his seat, and the
+beating of his heart was almost audible. Venn sat with lips impassively
+closed and eyes reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles; he scarcely
+appeared to breathe. He might have been an Arab, or an automaton; he
+would have been like a red sandstone statue but for the motion of his
+arm with the dice-box.
+
+The game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour of the other,
+without any great advantage on the side of either. Nearly twenty minutes
+were passed thus. The light of the candle had by this time attracted
+heath-flies, moths, and other winged creatures of night, which floated
+round the lantern, flew into the flame, or beat about the faces of the
+two players.
+
+But neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes
+being concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an
+arena vast and important as a battlefield. By this time a change had
+come over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty
+guineas--Thomasin's fifty, and ten of Clym's--had passed into his hands.
+Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated.
+
+“'Won back his coat,'” said Venn slily.
+
+Another throw, and the money went the same way.
+
+“'Won back his hat,'” continued Venn.
+
+“Oh, oh!” said Wildeve.
+
+“'Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out of the door a
+rich man,'” added Venn sentence by sentence, as stake after stake passed
+over to him.
+
+“Five more!” shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. “And three casts
+be hanged--one shall decide.”
+
+The red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded, and followed
+his example. Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and five
+points. He clapped his hands; “I have done it this time--hurrah!”
+
+“There are two playing, and only one has thrown,” said the reddleman,
+quietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so intently
+converged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were visible,
+like rays in a fog.
+
+Venn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes was disclosed.
+
+Wildeve was full of fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes
+Wildeve seized the dice and hurled them, box and all, into the darkness,
+uttering a fearful imprecation. Then he arose and began stamping up and
+down like a madman.
+
+“It is all over, then?” said Venn.
+
+“No, no!” cried Wildeve. “I mean to have another chance yet. I must!”
+
+“But, my good man, what have you done with the dice?”
+
+“I threw them away--it was a momentary irritation. What a fool I am!
+Here--come and help me to look for them--we must find them again.”
+
+Wildeve snatched up the lantern and began anxiously prowling among the
+furze and fern.
+
+“You are not likely to find them there,” said Venn, following. “What did
+you do such a crazy thing as that for? Here's the box. The dice can't be
+far off.”
+
+Wildeve turned the light eagerly upon the spot where Venn had found
+the box, and mauled the herbage right and left. In the course of a few
+minutes one of the dice was found. They searched on for some time, but
+no other was to be seen.
+
+“Never mind,” said Wildeve; “let's play with one.”
+
+“Agreed,” said Venn.
+
+Down they sat again, and recommenced with single guinea stakes; and the
+play went on smartly. But Fortune had unmistakably fallen in love
+with the reddleman tonight. He won steadily, till he was the owner of
+fourteen more of the gold pieces. Seventy-nine of the hundred guineas
+were his, Wildeve possessing only twenty-one. The aspect of the two
+opponents was now singular. Apart from motions, a complete diorama
+of the fluctuations of the game went on in their eyes. A diminutive
+candle-flame was mirrored in each pupil, and it would have been possible
+to distinguish therein between the moods of hope and the moods of
+abandonment, even as regards the reddleman, though his facial muscles
+betrayed nothing at all. Wildeve played on with the recklessness of
+despair.
+
+“What's that?” he suddenly exclaimed, hearing a rustle; and they both
+looked up.
+
+They were surrounded by dusky forms between four and five feet high,
+standing a few paces beyond the rays of the lantern. A moment's
+inspection revealed that the encircling figures were heath-croppers,
+their heads being all towards the players, at whom they gazed intently.
+
+“Hoosh!” said Wildeve, and the whole forty or fifty animals at once
+turned and galloped away. Play was again resumed.
+
+Ten minutes passed away. Then a large death's head moth advanced from
+the obscure outer air, wheeled twice round the lantern, flew straight
+at the candle, and extinguished it by the force of the blow. Wildeve had
+just thrown, but had not lifted the box to see what he had cast; and now
+it was impossible.
+
+“What the infernal!” he shrieked. “Now, what shall we do? Perhaps I have
+thrown six--have you any matches?”
+
+“None,” said Venn.
+
+“Christian had some--I wonder where he is. Christian!”
+
+But there was no reply to Wildeve's shout, save a mournful whining
+from the herons which were nesting lower down the vale. Both men looked
+blankly round without rising. As their eyes grew accustomed to the
+darkness they perceived faint greenish points of light among the
+grass and fern. These lights dotted the hillside like stars of a low
+magnitude.
+
+“Ah--glowworms,” said Wildeve. “Wait a minute. We can continue the
+game.”
+
+Venn sat still, and his companion went hither and thither till he had
+gathered thirteen glowworms--as many as he could find in a space of four
+or five minutes--upon a fox-glove leaf which he pulled for the purpose.
+The reddleman vented a low humorous laugh when he saw his adversary
+return with these. “Determined to go on, then?” he said drily.
+
+“I always am!” said Wildeve angrily. And shaking the glowworms from
+the leaf he ranged them with a trembling hand in a circle on the stone,
+leaving a space in the middle for the descent of the dice-box, over
+which the thirteen tiny lamps threw a pale phosphoric shine. The game
+was again renewed. It happened to be that season of the year at which
+glowworms put forth their greatest brilliancy, and the light they
+yielded was more than ample for the purpose, since it is possible on
+such nights to read the handwriting of a letter by the light of two or
+three.
+
+The incongruity between the men's deeds and their environment was great.
+Amid the soft juicy vegetation of the hollow in which they sat, the
+motionless and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of guineas,
+the rattle of dice, the exclamations of the reckless players.
+
+Wildeve had lifted the box as soon as the lights were obtained, and the
+solitary die proclaimed that the game was still against him.
+
+“I won't play any more--you've been tampering with the dice,” he
+shouted.
+
+“How--when they were your own?” said the reddleman.
+
+“We'll change the game: the lowest point shall win the stake--it may cut
+off my ill luck. Do you refuse?”
+
+“No--go on,” said Venn.
+
+“O, there they are again--damn them!” cried Wildeve, looking up. The
+heath-croppers had returned noiselessly, and were looking on with erect
+heads just as before, their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as if they
+were wondering what mankind and candlelight could have to do in these
+haunts at this untoward hour.
+
+“What a plague those creatures are--staring at me so!” he said, and
+flung a stone, which scattered them; when the game was continued as
+before.
+
+Wildeve had now ten guineas left; and each laid five. Wildeve threw
+three points; Venn two, and raked in the coins. The other seized the
+die, and clenched his teeth upon it in sheer rage, as if he would bite
+it in pieces. “Never give in--here are my last five!” he cried, throwing
+them down. “Hang the glowworms--they are going out. Why don't you burn,
+you little fools? Stir them up with a thorn.”
+
+He probed the glowworms with a bit of stick, and rolled them over, till
+the bright side of their tails was upwards.
+
+“There's light enough. Throw on,” said Venn.
+
+Wildeve brought down the box within the shining circle and looked
+eagerly. He had thrown ace. “Well done!--I said it would turn, and it
+has turned.” Venn said nothing; but his hand shook slightly.
+
+He threw ace also.
+
+“O!” said Wildeve. “Curse me!”
+
+The die smacked the stone a second time. It was ace again. Venn looked
+gloomy, threw--the die was seen to be lying in two pieces, the cleft
+sides uppermost.
+
+“I've thrown nothing at all,” he said.
+
+“Serves me right--I split the die with my teeth. Here--take your money.
+Blank is less than one.”
+
+“I don't wish it.”
+
+“Take it, I say--you've won it!” And Wildeve threw the stakes against
+the reddleman's chest. Venn gathered them up, arose, and withdrew from
+the hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.
+
+When he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the extinguished
+lantern in his hand, went towards the highroad. On reaching it he stood
+still. The silence of night pervaded the whole heath except in one
+direction; and that was towards Mistover. There he could hear the noise
+of light wheels, and presently saw two carriagelamps descending the
+hill. Wildeve screened himself under a bush and waited.
+
+The vehicle came on and passed before him. It was a hired carriage,
+and behind the coachman were two persons whom he knew well. There sat
+Eustacia and Yeobright, the arm of the latter being round her waist.
+They turned the sharp corner at the bottom towards the temporary home
+which Clym had hired and furnished, about five miles to the eastward.
+
+Wildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight of his lost love,
+whose preciousness in his eyes was increasing in geometrical progression
+with each new incident that reminded him of their hopeless division.
+Brimming with the subtilized misery that he was capable of feeling, he
+followed the opposite way towards the inn.
+
+About the same moment that Wildeve stepped into the highway Venn also
+had reached it at a point a hundred yards further on; and he, hearing
+the same wheels, likewise waited till the carriage should come up. When
+he saw who sat therein he seemed to be disappointed. Reflecting a minute
+or two, during which interval the carriage rolled on, he crossed the
+road, and took a short cut through the furze and heath to a point where
+the turnpike road bent round in ascending a hill. He was now again in
+front of the carriage, which presently came up at a walking pace. Venn
+stepped forward and showed himself.
+
+Eustacia started when the lamp shone upon him, and Clym's arm was
+involuntarily withdrawn from her waist. He said, “What, Diggory? You are
+having a lonely walk.”
+
+“Yes--I beg your pardon for stopping you,” said Venn. “But I am
+waiting about for Mrs. Wildeve: I have something to give her from Mrs.
+Yeobright. Can you tell me if she's gone home from the party yet?”
+
+“No. But she will be leaving soon. You may possibly meet her at the
+corner.”
+
+Venn made a farewell obeisance, and walked back to his former position,
+where the byroad from Mistover joined the highway. Here he remained
+fixed for nearly half an hour, and then another pair of lights came down
+the hill. It was the old-fashioned wheeled nondescript belonging to the
+captain, and Thomasin sat in it alone, driven by Charley.
+
+The reddleman came up as they slowly turned the corner. “I beg pardon
+for stopping you, Mrs. Wildeve,” he said. “But I have something to
+give you privately from Mrs. Yeobright.” He handed a small parcel; it
+consisted of the hundred guineas he had just won, roughly twisted up in
+a piece of paper.
+
+Thomasin recovered from her surprise, and took the packet. “That's all,
+ma'am--I wish you good night,” he said, and vanished from her view.
+
+Thus Venn, in his anxiety to rectify matters, had placed in Thomasin's
+hands not only the fifty guineas which rightly belonged to her, but also
+the fifty intended for her cousin Clym. His mistake had been based upon
+Wildeve's words at the opening of the game, when he indignantly denied
+that the guinea was not his own. It had not been comprehended by the
+reddleman that at halfway through the performance the game was continued
+with the money of another person; and it was an error which afterwards
+helped to cause more misfortune than treble the loss in money value
+could have done.
+
+The night was now somewhat advanced; and Venn plunged deeper into the
+heath, till he came to a ravine where his van was standing--a spot
+not more than two hundred yards from the site of the gambling bout. He
+entered this movable home of his, lit his lantern, and, before closing
+his door for the night, stood reflecting on the circumstances of the
+preceding hours. While he stood the dawn grew visible in the northeast
+quarter of the heavens, which, the clouds having cleared off, was bright
+with a soft sheen at this midsummer time, though it was only between one
+and two o'clock. Venn, thoroughly weary, then shut his door and flung
+himself down to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR -- THE CLOSED DOOR
+
+
+
+
+1--The Rencounter by the Pool
+
+
+The July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson heather to scarlet.
+It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season,
+in which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the
+second or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial changes
+which alone were possible here; it followed the green or young-fern
+period, representing the morn, and preceded the brown period, when the
+heathbells and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be in
+turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period, representing night.
+
+Clym and Eustacia, in their little house at Alderworth, beyond East
+Egdon, were living on with a monotony which was delightful to them. The
+heath and changes of weather were quite blotted out from their eyes for
+the present. They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid
+from them surroundings of any inharmonious colour, and gave to all
+things the character of light. When it rained they were charmed, because
+they could remain indoors together all day with such a show of reason;
+when it was fine they were charmed, because they could sit together on
+the hills. They were like those double stars which revolve round and
+round each other, and from a distance appear to be one. The absolute
+solitude in which they lived intensified their reciprocal thoughts; yet
+some might have said that it had the disadvantage of consuming their
+mutual affections at a fearfully prodigal rate. Yeobright did not fear
+for his own part; but recollection of Eustacia's old speech about the
+evanescence of love, now apparently forgotten by her, sometimes caused
+him to ask himself a question; and he recoiled at the thought that the
+quality of finiteness was not foreign to Eden.
+
+When three or four weeks had been passed thus, Yeobright resumed his
+reading in earnest. To make up for lost time he studied indefatigably,
+for he wished to enter his new profession with the least possible delay.
+
+Now, Eustacia's dream had always been that, once married to Clym,
+she would have the power of inducing him to return to Paris. He had
+carefully withheld all promise to do so; but would he be proof against
+her coaxing and argument? She had calculated to such a degree on the
+probability of success that she had represented Paris, and not Budmouth,
+to her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home. Her hopes
+were bound up in this dream. In the quiet days since their marriage,
+when Yeobright had been poring over her lips, her eyes, and the lines of
+her face, she had mused and mused on the subject, even while in the
+act of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the books, indicating a
+future which was antagonistic to her dream, struck her with a positively
+painful jar. She was hoping for the time when, as the mistress of some
+pretty establishment, however small, near a Parisian Boulevard, she
+would be passing her days on the skirts at least of the gay world, and
+catching stray wafts from those town pleasures she was so well fitted
+to enjoy. Yet Yeobright was as firm in the contrary intention as if
+the tendency of marriage were rather to develop the fantasies of young
+philanthropy than to sweep them away.
+
+Her anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something in Clym's
+undeviating manner which made her hesitate before sounding him on the
+subject. At this point in their experience, however, an incident helped
+her. It occurred one evening about six weeks after their union, and
+arose entirely out of the unconscious misapplication of Venn of the
+fifty guineas intended for Yeobright.
+
+A day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin had sent a note to
+her aunt to thank her. She had been surprised at the largeness of the
+amount; but as no sum had ever been mentioned she set that down to her
+late uncle's generosity. She had been strictly charged by her aunt to
+say nothing to her husband of this gift; and Wildeve, as was natural
+enough, had not brought himself to mention to his wife a single
+particular of the midnight scene in the heath. Christian's terror,
+in like manner, had tied his tongue on the share he took in that
+proceeding; and hoping that by some means or other the money had gone
+to its proper destination, he simply asserted as much, without giving
+details.
+
+Therefore, when a week or two had passed away, Mrs. Yeobright began to
+wonder why she never heard from her son of the receipt of the present;
+and to add gloom to her perplexity came the possibility that resentment
+might be the cause of his silence. She could hardly believe as much, but
+why did he not write? She questioned Christian, and the confusion in his
+answers would at once have led her to believe that something was wrong,
+had not one-half of his story been corroborated by Thomasin's note.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was in this state of uncertainty when she was informed
+one morning that her son's wife was visiting her grandfather at
+Mistover. She determined to walk up the hill, see Eustacia, and
+ascertain from her daughter-in-law's lips whether the family guineas,
+which were to Mrs. Yeobright what family jewels are to wealthier
+dowagers, had miscarried or not.
+
+When Christian learnt where she was going his concern reached its
+height. At the moment of her departure he could prevaricate no longer,
+and, confessing to the gambling, told her the truth as far as he knew
+it--that the guineas had been won by Wildeve.
+
+“What, is he going to keep them?” Mrs. Yeobright cried.
+
+“I hope and trust not!” moaned Christian. “He's a good man, and perhaps
+will do right things. He said you ought to have gied Mr. Clym's share to
+Eustacia, and that's perhaps what he'll do himself.”
+
+To Mrs. Yeobright, as soon as she could calmly reflect, there was much
+likelihood in this, for she could hardly believe that Wildeve would
+really appropriate money belonging to her son. The intermediate course
+of giving it to Eustacia was the sort of thing to please Wildeve's
+fancy. But it filled the mother with anger none the less. That Wildeve
+should have got command of the guineas after all, and should rearrange
+the disposal of them, placing Clym's share in Clym's wife's hands,
+because she had been his own sweetheart, and might be so still, was as
+irritating a pain as any that Mrs. Yeobright had ever borne.
+
+She instantly dismissed the wretched Christian from her employ for his
+conduct in the affair; but, feeling quite helpless and unable to do
+without him, told him afterwards that he might stay a little longer
+if he chose. Then she hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less
+promising emotion towards her daughter-in-law than she had felt half an
+hour earlier, when planning her journey. At that time it was to inquire
+in a friendly spirit if there had been any accidental loss; now it was
+to ask plainly if Wildeve had privately given her money which had been
+intended as a sacred gift to Clym.
+
+She started at two o'clock, and her meeting with Eustacia was hastened
+by the appearance of the young lady beside the pool and bank which
+bordered her grandfather's premises, where she stood surveying the
+scene, and perhaps thinking of the romantic enactments it had witnessed
+in past days. When Mrs. Yeobright approached, Eustacia surveyed her with
+the calm stare of a stranger.
+
+The mother-in-law was the first to speak. “I was coming to see you,” she
+said.
+
+“Indeed!” said Eustacia with surprise, for Mrs. Yeobright, much to the
+girl's mortification, had refused to be present at the wedding. “I did
+not at all expect you.”
+
+“I was coming on business only,” said the visitor, more coldly than at
+first. “Will you excuse my asking this--Have you received a gift from
+Thomasin's husband?”
+
+“A gift?”
+
+“I mean money!”
+
+“What--I myself?”
+
+“Well, I meant yourself, privately--though I was not going to put it in
+that way.”
+
+“Money from Mr. Wildeve? No--never! Madam, what do you mean by that?”
+ Eustacia fired up all too quickly, for her own consciousness of the old
+attachment between herself and Wildeve led her to jump to the conclusion
+that Mrs. Yeobright also knew of it, and might have come to accuse her
+of receiving dishonourable presents from him now.
+
+“I simply ask the question,” said Mrs. Yeobright. “I have been----”
+
+“You ought to have better opinions of me--I feared you were against me
+from the first!” exclaimed Eustacia.
+
+“No. I was simply for Clym,” replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much
+emphasis in her earnestness. “It is the instinct of everyone to look
+after their own.”
+
+“How can you imply that he required guarding against me?” cried
+Eustacia, passionate tears in her eyes. “I have not injured him by
+marrying him! What sin have I done that you should think so ill of me?
+You had no right to speak against me to him when I have never wronged
+you.”
+
+“I only did what was fair under the circumstances,” said Mrs. Yeobright
+more softly. “I would rather not have gone into this question at
+present, but you compel me. I am not ashamed to tell you the honest
+truth. I was firmly convinced that he ought not to marry you--therefore
+I tried to dissuade him by all the means in my power. But it is done
+now, and I have no idea of complaining any more. I am ready to welcome
+you.”
+
+“Ah, yes, it is very well to see things in that business point of view,”
+ murmured Eustacia with a smothered fire of feeling. “But why should you
+think there is anything between me and Mr. Wildeve? I have a spirit
+as well as you. I am indignant; and so would any woman be. It was a
+condescension in me to be Clym's wife, and not a manoeuvre, let me
+remind you; and therefore I will not be treated as a schemer whom it
+becomes necessary to bear with because she has crept into the family.”
+
+“Oh!” said Mrs. Yeobright, vainly endeavouring to control her anger. “I
+have never heard anything to show that my son's lineage is not as
+good as the Vyes'--perhaps better. It is amusing to hear you talk of
+condescension.”
+
+“It was condescension, nevertheless,” said Eustacia vehemently. “And if
+I had known then what I know now, that I should be living in this wild
+heath a month after my marriage, I--I should have thought twice before
+agreeing.”
+
+“It would be better not to say that; it might not sound truthful. I
+am not aware that any deception was used on his part--I know there was
+not--whatever might have been the case on the other side.”
+
+“This is too exasperating!” answered the younger woman huskily, her face
+crimsoning, and her eyes darting light. “How can you dare to speak to me
+like that? I insist upon repeating to you that had I known that my life
+would from my marriage up to this time have been as it is, I should have
+said NO. I don't complain. I have never uttered a sound of such a thing
+to him; but it is true. I hope therefore that in the future you will be
+silent on my eagerness. If you injure me now you injure yourself.”
+
+“Injure you? Do you think I am an evil-disposed person?”
+
+“You injured me before my marriage, and you have now suspected me of
+secretly favouring another man for money!”
+
+“I could not help what I thought. But I have never spoken of you outside
+my house.”
+
+“You spoke of me within it, to Clym, and you could not do worse.”
+
+“I did my duty.”
+
+“And I'll do mine.”
+
+“A part of which will possibly be to set him against his mother. It is
+always so. But why should I not bear it as others have borne it before
+me!”
+
+“I understand you,” said Eustacia, breathless with emotion. “You
+think me capable of every bad thing. Who can be worse than a wife who
+encourages a lover, and poisons her husband's mind against his relative?
+Yet that is now the character given to me. Will you not come and drag
+him out of my hands?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright gave back heat for heat.
+
+“Don't rage at me, madam! It ill becomes your beauty, and I am not worth
+the injury you may do it on my account, I assure you. I am only a poor
+old woman who has lost a son.”
+
+“If you had treated me honourably you would have had him still.”
+ Eustacia said, while scalding tears trickled from her eyes. “You have
+brought yourself to folly; you have caused a division which can never be
+healed!”
+
+“I have done nothing. This audacity from a young woman is more than I
+can bear.”
+
+“It was asked for; you have suspected me, and you have made me speak of
+my husband in a way I would not have done. You will let him know that I
+have spoken thus, and it will cause misery between us. Will you go away
+from me? You are no friend!”
+
+“I will go when I have spoken a word. If anyone says I have come here to
+question you without good grounds for it, that person speaks untruly.
+If anyone says that I attempted to stop your marriage by any but honest
+means, that person, too, does not speak the truth. I have fallen on an
+evil time; God has been unjust to me in letting you insult me! Probably
+my son's happiness does not lie on this side of the grave, for he is a
+foolish man who neglects the advice of his parent. You, Eustacia, stand
+on the edge of a precipice without knowing it. Only show my son one-half
+the temper you have shown me today--and you may before long--and you
+will find that though he is as gentle as a child with you now, he can be
+as hard as steel!”
+
+The excited mother then withdrew, and Eustacia, panting, stood looking
+into the pool.
+
+
+
+
+2--He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song
+
+
+The result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia, instead
+of passing the afternoon with her grandfather, hastily returned home to
+Clym, where she arrived three hours earlier than she had been expected.
+
+She came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes still showing
+traces of her recent excitement. Yeobright looked up astonished; he had
+never seen her in any way approaching to that state before. She
+passed him by, and would have gone upstairs unnoticed, but Clym was so
+concerned that he immediately followed her.
+
+“What is the matter, Eustacia?” he said. She was standing on the
+hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in
+front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer;
+and then she replied in a low voice--
+
+“I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!”
+
+A weight fell like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustacia
+had arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a wish
+that she would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her mother-in-
+law, or adopt any other means she might think fit to bring about a
+reconciliation. She had set out gaily; and he had hoped for much.
+
+“Why is this?” he asked.
+
+“I cannot tell--I cannot remember. I met your mother. And I will never
+meet her again.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now? I won't have wicked opinions
+passed on me by anybody. O! it was too humiliating to be asked if I
+had received any money from him, or encouraged him, or something of the
+sort--I don't exactly know what!”
+
+“How could she have asked you that?”
+
+“She did.”
+
+“Then there must have been some meaning in it. What did my mother say
+besides?”
+
+“I don't know what she said, except in so far as this, that we both said
+words which can never be forgiven!”
+
+“Oh, there must be some misapprehension. Whose fault was it that her
+meaning was not made clear?”
+
+“I would rather not say. It may have been the fault of the
+circumstances, which were awkward at the very least. O Clym--I cannot
+help expressing it--this is an unpleasant position that you have placed
+me in. But you must improve it--yes, say you will--for I hate it all
+now! Yes, take me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation, Clym! I
+don't mind how humbly we live there at first, if it can only be Paris,
+and not Egdon Heath.”
+
+“But I have quite given up that idea,” said Yeobright, with surprise.
+“Surely I never led you to expect such a thing?”
+
+“I own it. Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept out of mind, and
+that one was mine. Must I not have a voice in the matter, now I am your
+wife and the sharer of your doom?”
+
+“Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale of discussion;
+and I thought this was specially so, and by mutual agreement.”
+
+“Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear,” she said in a low voice; and her
+eyes drooped, and she turned away.
+
+This indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia's bosom
+disconcerted her husband. It was the first time that he had confronted
+the fact of the indirectness of a woman's movement towards her desire.
+But his intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia well. All the
+effect that her remark had upon him was a resolve to chain himself more
+closely than ever to his books, so as to be the sooner enabled to appeal
+to substantial results from another course in arguing against her whim.
+
+Next day the mystery of the guineas was explained. Thomasin paid them
+a hurried visit, and Clym's share was delivered up to him by her own
+hands. Eustacia was not present at the time.
+
+“Then this is what my mother meant,” exclaimed Clym. “Thomasin, do you
+know that they have had a bitter quarrel?”
+
+There was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin's manner
+towards her cousin. It is the effect of marriage to engender in several
+directions some of the reserve it annihilates in one. “Your mother
+told me,” she said quietly. “She came back to my house after seeing
+Eustacia.”
+
+“The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass. Was Mother much disturbed
+when she came to you, Thomasin?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Very much indeed?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered his
+eyes with his hand.
+
+“Don't trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends.”
+
+He shook his head. “Not two people with inflammable natures like theirs.
+Well, what must be will be.”
+
+“One thing is cheerful in it--the guineas are not lost.”
+
+“I would rather have lost them twice over than have had this happen.”
+
+
+Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to be
+indispensable--that he should speedily make some show of progress in his
+scholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hours during
+many nights.
+
+One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with a
+strange sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon the
+window-blind, and at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obliged
+him to close his eyelids quickly. At every new attempt to look about
+him the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, and excoriating
+tears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged to tie a bandage over his brow
+while dressing; and during the day it could not be abandoned. Eustacia
+was thoroughly alarmed. On finding that the case was no better the next
+morning they decided to send to Anglebury for a surgeon.
+
+Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acute
+inflammation induced by Clym's night studies, continued in spite of a
+cold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.
+
+Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was so
+anxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shut
+up in a room from which all light was excluded, and his condition would
+have been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him by the
+glimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon be over;
+but at the surgeon's third visit he learnt to his dismay that although
+he might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the course of a
+month, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print of any
+description, would have to be given up for a long time to come.
+
+One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten the
+gloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia, but
+she carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Suppose
+he should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficient
+strength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial to
+her feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling among
+the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to cohere into
+substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after day passed
+by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this mournful
+groove, and she would go away from him into the garden and weep
+despairing tears.
+
+Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought he
+would not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more unhappy;
+and the seclusion of their life was such that she would hardly be likely
+to learn the news except through a special messenger. Endeavouring to
+take the trouble as philosophically as possible, he waited on till the
+third week had arrived, when he went into the open air for the first
+time since the attack. The surgeon visited him again at this stage, and
+Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion. The young man learnt with
+added surprise that the date at which he might expect to resume his
+labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes being in that peculiar state
+which, though affording him sight enough for walking about, would not
+admit of their being strained upon any definite object without incurring
+the risk of reproducing ophthalmia in its acute form.
+
+Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quiet
+firmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was not
+to be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world through
+smoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and fatal to any
+kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in the face
+of mishaps which only affected his social standing; and, apart from
+Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if it could be
+made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To keep a cottage
+night-school was one such form; and his affliction did not master his
+spirit as it might otherwise have done.
+
+He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon with
+which he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old home.
+He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron,
+and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of a
+man who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and Yeobright
+learnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.
+
+Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym's condition, and added, “Now, if
+yours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just the
+same.”
+
+“Yes, I could,” said Yeobright musingly. “How much do you get for
+cutting these faggots?”
+
+“Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well on
+the wages.”
+
+During the whole of Yeobright's walk home to Alderworth he was lost in
+reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up to
+the house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went across
+to her.
+
+“Darling,” he said, “I am much happier. And if my mother were reconciled
+to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite.”
+
+“I fear that will never be,” she said, looking afar with her beautiful
+stormy eyes. “How CAN you say 'I am happier,' and nothing changed?”
+
+“It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and get
+a living at, in this time of misfortune.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I am going to be a furze- and turf-cutter.”
+
+“No, Clym!” she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in her
+face going off again, and leaving her worse than before.
+
+“Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the
+little money we've got when I can keep down expenditures by an honest
+occupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but that
+in a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?”
+
+“But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance.”
+
+“We don't require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly well
+off.”
+
+“In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and such
+people!” A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia's face, which he did not
+see. There had been nonchalance in his tone, showing her that he felt no
+absolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive horror.
+
+The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowed of
+him leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook, to use till he should be
+able to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth with his new
+fellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the
+furze grew thickest he struck the first blow in his adopted calling. His
+sight, like the wings in Rasselas, though useless to him for his grand
+purpose, sufficed for this strait, and he found that when a little
+practice should have hardened his palms against blistering he would be
+able to work with ease.
+
+Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and went
+off to the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from four
+o'clock in the morning till noon; then, when the heat of the day was at
+its highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards coming
+out again and working till dusk at nine.
+
+This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements,
+and by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that his
+closest friend might have passed by without recognizing him. He was a
+brown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, and nothing
+more. Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actually at work,
+owing to thoughts of Eustacia's position and his mother's estrangement,
+when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully disposed and calm.
+
+His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world being
+limited to a circuit of a few feet from his person. His familiars were
+creeping and winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their band.
+Bees hummed around his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at the
+heath and furze-flowers at his side in such numbers as to weigh them
+down to the sod. The strange amber-coloured butterflies which Egdon
+produced, and which were never seen elsewhere, quivered in the breath of
+his lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and sported with the
+glittering point of his hook as he flourished it up and down. Tribes of
+emerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet, falling awkwardly on
+their backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance might
+rule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations under the fern-fronds
+with silent ones of homely hue. Huge flies, ignorant of larders and
+wire-netting, and quite in a savage state, buzzed about him without
+knowing that he was a man. In and out of the fern-dells snakes glided
+in their most brilliant blue and yellow guise, it being the season
+immediately following the shedding of their old skins, when their
+colours are brightest. Litters of young rabbits came out from their
+forms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the hot beams blazing through the
+delicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing it to a blood-red
+transparency in which the veins could be seen. None of them feared
+him.
+
+The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself
+a pleasure. A forced limitation of effort offered a justification of
+homely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly have
+allowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers were unimpeded.
+Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged to accompany
+Humphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would amuse his
+companion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and so while
+away the time.
+
+On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in the
+direction of Yeobright's place of work. He was busily chopping away
+at the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from his
+position representing the labour of the day. He did not observe her
+approach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent of
+song. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earning
+money by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; but to
+hear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which, however
+satisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated lady-
+wife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he still went
+on singing:--
+
+            “Le point du jour
+          A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;
+            Flore est plus belle a son retour;
+            L'oiseau reprend doux chant d'amour;
+            Tout celebre dans la nature
+              Le point du jour.
+
+            “Le point du jour
+          Cause parfois, cause douleur extreme;
+            Que l'espace des nuits est court
+            Pour le berger brulant d'amour,
+            Force de quitter ce qu'il aime
+              Au point du jour!”
+
+It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much about
+social failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in sick
+despair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of that mood
+and condition in him. Then she came forward.
+
+“I would starve rather than do it!” she exclaimed vehemently. “And you
+can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!”
+
+“Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving,” he
+said gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, and
+took her hand. “Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only a
+little old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and now
+just applies to my life with you. Has your love for me all died, then,
+because my appearance is no longer that of a fine gentleman?”
+
+“Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make me not
+love you.”
+
+“Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing that?”
+
+“Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won't give in to mine when
+I wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything you
+dislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am your wife,
+and why will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!”
+
+“I know what that tone means.”
+
+“What tone?”
+
+“The tone in which you said, 'Your wife indeed.' It meant, 'Your wife,
+worse luck.'”
+
+“It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may have
+reason, though she is not without heart, and if I felt 'worse luck,' it
+was no ignoble feeling--it was only too natural. There, you see that at
+any rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how, before we were
+married, I warned you that I had not good wifely qualities?”
+
+“You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noble
+course would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me,
+Eustacia, though I may no longer be king of you.”
+
+“You are my husband. Does not that content you?”
+
+“Not unless you are my wife without regret.”
+
+“I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a serious
+matter on your hands.”
+
+“Yes, I saw that.”
+
+“Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen any such
+thing; you are too severe upon me, Clym--I won't like your speaking so
+at all.”
+
+“Well, I married you in spite of it, and don't regret doing so. How
+cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was a
+warmer heart than yours.”
+
+“Yes, I fear we are cooling--I see it as well as you,” she sighed
+mournfully. “And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never tired
+of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have thought
+then that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright to yours,
+nor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months--is it possible? Yes,
+'tis too true!”
+
+“You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that's a hopeful
+sign.”
+
+“No. I don't sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh for,
+or any other woman in my place.”
+
+“That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste an
+unfortunate man?”
+
+“Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity as
+much as you. As much?--I think I deserve it more. For you can sing! It
+would be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a cloud
+as this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would astonish
+and confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you felt careless
+about your own affliction, you might have refrained from singing out
+of sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a position I would
+curse rather than sing.”
+
+Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. “Now, don't you suppose, my
+inexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,
+against the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam and
+smoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see of
+life the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great in
+its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small in mine of
+furze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings vouchsafed to us
+are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any great hardship when
+they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time. Have you indeed lost
+all tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a few cheerful moments?”
+
+“I have still some tenderness left for you.”
+
+“Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with good
+fortune!”
+
+“I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly,” she said in a
+broken voice. “I will go home.”
+
+
+
+
+3--She Goes Out to Battle against Depression
+
+
+A few days later, before the month of August has expired, Eustacia and
+Yeobright sat together at their early dinner.
+
+Eustacia's manner had become of late almost apathetic. There was a
+forlorn look about her beautiful eyes which, whether she deserved it or
+not, would have excited pity in the breast of anyone who had known her
+during the full flush of her love for Clym. The feelings of husband and
+wife varied, in some measure, inversely with their positions. Clym, the
+afflicted man, was cheerful; and he even tried to comfort her, who had
+never felt a moment of physical suffering in her whole life.
+
+“Come, brighten up, dearest; we shall be all right again. Some day
+perhaps I shall see as well as ever. And I solemnly promise that I'll
+leave off cutting furze as soon as I have the power to do anything
+better. You cannot seriously wish me to stay idling at home all day?”
+
+“But it is so dreadful--a furze-cutter! and you a man who have lived
+about the world, and speak French, and German, and who are fit for what
+is so much better than this.”
+
+“I suppose when you first saw me and heard about me I was wrapped in a
+sort of golden halo to your eyes--a man who knew glorious things,
+and had mixed in brilliant scenes--in short, an adorable, delightful,
+distracting hero?”
+
+“Yes,” she said, sobbing.
+
+“And now I am a poor fellow in brown leather.”
+
+“Don't taunt me. But enough of this. I will not be depressed any more.
+I am going from home this afternoon, unless you greatly object. There is
+to be a village picnic--a gipsying, they call it--at East Egdon, and I
+shall go.”
+
+“To dance?”
+
+“Why not? You can sing.”
+
+“Well, well, as you will. Must I come to fetch you?”
+
+“If you return soon enough from your work. But do not inconvenience
+yourself about it. I know the way home, and the heath has no terror for
+me.”
+
+“And can you cling to gaiety so eagerly as to walk all the way to a
+village festival in search of it?”
+
+“Now, you don't like my going alone! Clym, you are not jealous?”
+
+“No. But I would come with you if it could give you any pleasure;
+though, as things stand, perhaps you have too much of me already. Still,
+I somehow wish that you did not want to go. Yes, perhaps I am jealous;
+and who could be jealous with more reason than I, a half-blind man, over
+such a woman as you?”
+
+“Don't think like it. Let me go, and don't take all my spirits away!”
+
+“I would rather lose all my own, my sweet wife. Go and do whatever you
+like. Who can forbid your indulgence in any whim? You have all my heart
+yet, I believe; and because you bear with me, who am in truth a drag
+upon you, I owe you thanks. Yes, go alone and shine. As for me, I will
+stick to my doom. At that kind of meeting people would shun me. My hook
+and gloves are like the St. Lazarus rattle of the leper, warning the
+world to get out of the way of a sight that would sadden them.” He
+kissed her, put on his leggings, and went out.
+
+When he was gone she rested her head upon her hands and said to herself,
+“Two wasted lives--his and mine. And I am come to this! Will it drive me
+out of my mind?”
+
+She cast about for any possible course which offered the least
+improvement on the existing state of things, and could find none. She
+imagined how all those Budmouth ones who should learn what had become
+of her would say, “Look at the girl for whom nobody was good enough!”
+ To Eustacia the situation seemed such a mockery of her hopes that death
+appeared the only door of relief if the satire of Heaven should go much
+further.
+
+Suddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, “But I'll shake it off. Yes,
+I WILL shake it off! No one shall know my suffering. I'll be bitterly
+merry, and ironically gay, and I'll laugh in derision. And I'll begin by
+going to this dance on the green.”
+
+She ascended to her bedroom and dressed herself with scrupulous care.
+To an onlooker her beauty would have made her feelings almost
+seem reasonable. The gloomy corner into which accident as much as
+indiscretion had brought this woman might have led even a moderate
+partisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking the Supreme
+Power by what right a being of such exquisite finish had been placed
+in circumstances calculated to make of her charms a curse rather than a
+blessing.
+
+It was five in the afternoon when she came out from the house ready
+for her walk. There was material enough in the picture for twenty new
+conquests. The rebellious sadness that was rather too apparent when she
+sat indoors without a bonnet was cloaked and softened by her outdoor
+attire, which always had a sort of nebulousness about it, devoid of
+harsh edges anywhere; so that her face looked from its environment as
+from a cloud, with no noticeable lines of demarcation between flesh and
+clothes. The heat of the day had scarcely declined as yet, and she went
+along the sunny hills at a leisurely pace, there being ample time for
+her idle expedition. Tall ferns buried her in their leafage whenever her
+path lay through them, which now formed miniature forests, though not
+one stem of them would remain to bud the next year.
+
+The site chosen for the village festivity was one of the lawnlike oases
+which were occasionally, yet not often, met with on the plateaux of the
+heath district. The brakes of furze and fern terminated abruptly round
+the margin, and the grass was unbroken. A green cattletrack skirted the
+spot, without, however, emerging from the screen of fern, and this path
+Eustacia followed, in order to reconnoitre the group before joining it.
+The lusty notes of the East Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and
+she now beheld the musicians themselves, sitting in a blue wagon with
+red wheels scrubbed as bright as new, and arched with sticks, to which
+boughs and flowers were tied. In front of this was the grand central
+dance of fifteen or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferior
+individuals whose gyrations were not always in strict keeping with the
+tune.
+
+The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a flush on their
+faces footed it to the girls, who, with the excitement and the exercise,
+blushed deeper than the pink of their numerous ribbons. Fair ones with
+long curls, fair ones with short curls, fair ones with lovelocks, fair
+ones with braids, flew round and round; and a beholder might well have
+wondered how such a prepossessing set of young women of like size, age,
+and disposition, could have been collected together where there were
+only one or two villages to choose from. In the background was one happy
+man dancing by himself, with closed eyes, totally oblivious of all the
+rest. A fire was burning under a pollard thorn a few paces off, over
+which three kettles hung in a row. Hard by was a table where elderly
+dames prepared tea, but Eustacia looked among them in vain for the
+cattle-dealer's wife who had suggested that she should come, and had
+promised to obtain a courteous welcome for her.
+
+This unexpected absence of the only local resident whom Eustacia knew
+considerably damaged her scheme for an afternoon of reckless gaiety.
+Joining in became a matter of difficulty, notwithstanding that, were she
+to advance, cheerful dames would come forward with cups of tea and make
+much of her as a stranger of superior grace and knowledge to themselves.
+Having watched the company through the figures of two dances, she
+decided to walk a little further, to a cottage where she might get some
+refreshment, and then return homeward in the shady time of evening.
+
+This she did, and by the time that she retraced her steps towards the
+scene of the gipsying, which it was necessary to repass on her way to
+Alderworth, the sun was going down. The air was now so still that she
+could hear the band afar off, and it seemed to be playing with more
+spirit, if that were possible, than when she had come away. On reaching
+the hill the sun had quite disappeared; but this made little difference
+either to Eustacia or to the revellers, for a round yellow moon was
+rising before her, though its rays had not yet outmastered those from
+the west. The dance was going on just the same, but strangers had
+arrived and formed a ring around the figure, so that Eustacia could
+stand among these without a chance of being recognized.
+
+A whole village-full of sensuous emotion, scattered abroad all the year
+long, surged here in a focus for an hour. The forty hearts of those
+waving couples were beating as they had not done since, twelve months
+before, they had come together in similar jollity. For the time paganism
+was revived in their hearts, the pride of life was all in all, and they
+adored none other than themselves.
+
+How many of those impassioned but temporary embraces were destined to
+become perpetual was possibly the wonder of some of those who indulged
+in them, as well as of Eustacia who looked on. She began to envy those
+pirouetters, to hunger for the hope and happiness which the fascination
+of the dance seemed to engender within them. Desperately fond of
+dancing herself, one of Eustacia's expectations of Paris had been the
+opportunity it might afford her of indulgence in this favourite pastime.
+Unhappily, that expectation was now extinct within her for ever.
+
+Whilst she abstractedly watched them spinning and fluctuating in the
+increasing moonlight she suddenly heard her name whispered by a voice
+over her shoulder. Turning in surprise, she beheld at her elbow one
+whose presence instantly caused her to flush to the temples.
+
+It was Wildeve. Till this moment he had not met her eye since the
+morning of his marriage, when she had been loitering in the church,
+and had startled him by lifting her veil and coming forward to sign the
+register as witness. Yet why the sight of him should have instigated
+that sudden rush of blood she could not tell.
+
+Before she could speak he whispered, “Do you like dancing as much as
+ever?”
+
+“I think I do,” she replied in a low voice.
+
+“Will you dance with me?”
+
+“It would be a great change for me; but will it not seem strange?”
+
+“What strangeness can there be in relations dancing together?”
+
+“Ah--yes, relations. Perhaps none.”
+
+“Still, if you don't like to be seen, pull down your veil; though there
+is not much risk of being known by this light. Lots of strangers are
+here.”
+
+She did as he suggested; and the act was a tacit acknowledgment that she
+accepted his offer.
+
+Wildeve gave her his arm and took her down on the outside of the ring
+to the bottom of the dance, which they entered. In two minutes more they
+were involved in the figure and began working their way upwards to the
+top. Till they had advanced halfway thither Eustacia wished more than
+once that she had not yielded to his request; from the middle to the
+top she felt that, since she had come out to seek pleasure, she was only
+doing a natural thing to obtain it. Fairly launched into the ceaseless
+glides and whirls which their new position as top couple opened up to
+them, Eustacia's pulses began to move too quickly for long rumination of
+any kind.
+
+Through the length of five-and-twenty couples they threaded their giddy
+way, and a new vitality entered her form. The pale ray of evening lent
+a fascination to the experience. There is a certain degree and tone
+of light which tends to disturb the equilibrium of the senses, and to
+promote dangerously the tenderer moods; added to movement, it drives
+the emotions to rankness, the reason becoming sleepy and unperceiving in
+inverse proportion; and this light fell now upon these two from the disc
+of the moon. All the dancing girls felt the symptoms, but Eustacia most
+of all. The grass under their feet became trodden away, and the hard,
+beaten surface of the sod, when viewed aslant towards the moonlight,
+shone like a polished table. The air became quite still, the flag above
+the wagon which held the musicians clung to the pole, and the players
+appeared only in outline against the sky; except when the circular
+mouths of the trombone, ophicleide, and French horn gleamed out like
+huge eyes from the shade of their figures. The pretty dresses of the
+maids lost their subtler day colours and showed more or less of a misty
+white. Eustacia floated round and round on Wildeve's arm, her face
+rapt and statuesque; her soul had passed away from and forgotten her
+features, which were left empty and quiescent, as they always are when
+feeling goes beyond their register.
+
+How near she was to Wildeve! it was terrible to think of. She could feel
+his breathing, and he, of course, could feel hers. How badly she had
+treated him! yet, here they were treading one measure. The enchantment
+of the dance surprised her. A clear line of difference divided like
+a tangible fence her experience within this maze of motion from her
+experience without it. Her beginning to dance had been like a change
+of atmosphere; outside, she had been steeped in arctic frigidity by
+comparison with the tropical sensations here. She had entered the dance
+from the troubled hours of her late life as one might enter a brilliant
+chamber after a night walk in a wood. Wildeve by himself would have been
+merely an agitation; Wildeve added to the dance, and the moonlight, and
+the secrecy, began to be a delight. Whether his personality supplied the
+greater part of this sweetly compounded feeling, or whether the dance
+and the scene weighed the more therein, was a nice point upon which
+Eustacia herself was entirely in a cloud.
+
+People began to say “Who are they?” but no invidious inquiries were
+made. Had Eustacia mingled with the other girls in their ordinary
+daily walks the case would have been different: here she was not
+inconvenienced by excessive inspection, for all were wrought to their
+brightest grace by the occasion. Like the planet Mercury surrounded
+by the lustre of sunset, her permanent brilliancy passed without much
+notice in the temporary glory of the situation.
+
+As for Wildeve, his feelings are easy to guess. Obstacles were a
+ripening sun to his love, and he was at this moment in a delirium of
+exquisite misery. To clasp as his for five minutes what was another
+man's through all the rest of the year was a kind of thing he of all men
+could appreciate. He had long since begun to sigh again for Eustacia;
+indeed, it may be asserted that signing the marriage register with
+Thomasin was the natural signal to his heart to return to its first
+quarters, and that the extra complication of Eustacia's marriage was the
+one addition required to make that return compulsory.
+
+Thus, for different reasons, what was to the rest an exhilarating
+movement was to these two a riding upon the whirlwind. The dance had
+come like an irresistible attack upon whatever sense of social order
+there was in their minds, to drive them back into old paths which were
+now doubly irregular. Through three dances in succession they spun their
+way; and then, fatigued with the incessant motion, Eustacia turned to
+quit the circle in which she had already remained too long. Wildeve
+led her to a grassy mound a few yards distant, where she sat down, her
+partner standing beside her. From the time that he addressed her at the
+beginning of the dance till now they had not exchanged a word.
+
+“The dance and the walking have tired you?” he said tenderly.
+
+“No; not greatly.”
+
+“It is strange that we should have met here of all places, after missing
+each other so long.”
+
+“We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose.”
+
+“Yes. But you began that proceeding--by breaking a promise.”
+
+“It is scarcely worth while to talk of that now. We have formed other
+ties since then--you no less than I.”
+
+“I am sorry to hear that your husband is ill.”
+
+“He is not ill--only incapacitated.”
+
+“Yes--that is what I mean. I sincerely sympathize with you in your
+trouble. Fate has treated you cruelly.”
+
+She was silent awhile. “Have you heard that he has chosen to work as a
+furze-cutter?” she said in a low, mournful voice.
+
+“It has been mentioned to me,” answered Wildeve hesitatingly. “But I
+hardly believed it.”
+
+“It is true. What do you think of me as a furze-cutter's wife?”
+
+“I think the same as ever of you, Eustacia. Nothing of that sort can
+degrade you--you ennoble the occupation of your husband.”
+
+“I wish I could feel it.”
+
+“Is there any chance of Mr. Yeobright getting better?”
+
+“He thinks so. I doubt it.”
+
+“I was quite surprised to hear that he had taken a cottage. I thought,
+in common with other people, that he would have taken you off to a home
+in Paris immediately after you had married him. 'What a gay, bright
+future she has before her!' I thought. He will, I suppose, return there
+with you, if his sight gets strong again?”
+
+Observing that she did not reply he regarded her more closely. She was
+almost weeping. Images of a future never to be enjoyed, the revived
+sense of her bitter disappointment, the picture of the neighbour's
+suspended ridicule which was raised by Wildeve's words, had been too
+much for proud Eustacia's equanimity.
+
+Wildeve could hardly control his own too forward feelings when he saw
+her silent perturbation. But he affected not to notice this, and she
+soon recovered her calmness.
+
+“You do not intend to walk home by yourself?” he asked.
+
+“O yes,” said Eustacia. “What could hurt me on this heath, who have
+nothing?”
+
+“By diverging a little I can make my way home the same as yours. I
+shall be glad to keep you company as far as Throope Corner.” Seeing that
+Eustacia sat on in hesitation he added, “Perhaps you think it unwise to
+be seen in the same road with me after the events of last summer?”
+
+“Indeed I think no such thing,” she said haughtily. “I shall accept
+whose company I choose, for all that may be said by the miserable
+inhabitants of Egdon.”
+
+“Then let us walk on--if you are ready. Our nearest way is towards that
+holly bush with the dark shadow that you see down there.”
+
+Eustacia arose, and walked beside him in the direction signified,
+brushing her way over the damping heath and fern, and followed by the
+strains of the merrymakers, who still kept up the dance. The moon had
+now waxed bright and silvery, but the heath was proof against such
+illumination, and there was to be observed the striking scene of a dark,
+rayless tract of country under an atmosphere charged from its zenith to
+its extremities with whitest light. To an eye above them their two
+faces would have appeared amid the expanse like two pearls on a table of
+ebony.
+
+On this account the irregularities of the path were not visible, and
+Wildeve occasionally stumbled; whilst Eustacia found it necessary
+to perform some graceful feats of balancing whenever a small tuft of
+heather or root of furze protruded itself through the grass of the
+narrow track and entangled her feet. At these junctures in her progress
+a hand was invariably stretched forward to steady her, holding her
+firmly until smooth ground was again reached, when the hand was again
+withdrawn to a respectful distance.
+
+They performed the journey for the most part in silence, and drew near
+to Throope Corner, a few hundred yards from which a short path branched
+away to Eustacia's house. By degrees they discerned coming towards them
+a pair of human figures, apparently of the male sex.
+
+When they came a little nearer Eustacia broke the silence by saying,
+“One of those men is my husband. He promised to come to meet me.”
+
+“And the other is my greatest enemy,” said Wildeve.
+
+“It looks like Diggory Venn.”
+
+“That is the man.”
+
+“It is an awkward meeting,” said she; “but such is my fortune. He knows
+too much about me, unless he could know more, and so prove to himself
+that what he now knows counts for nothing. Well, let it be--you must
+deliver me up to them.”
+
+“You will think twice before you direct me to do that. Here is a man
+who has not forgotten an item in our meetings at Rainbarrow--he is in
+company with your husband. Which of them, seeing us together here, will
+believe that our meeting and dancing at the gipsy party was by chance?”
+
+“Very well,” she whispered gloomily. “Leave me before they come up.”
+
+Wildeve bade her a tender farewell, and plunged across the fern and
+furze, Eustacia slowly walking on. In two or three minutes she met her
+husband and his companion.
+
+“My journey ends here for tonight, reddleman,” said Yeobright as soon as
+he perceived her. “I turn back with this lady. Good night.”
+
+“Good night, Mr. Yeobright,” said Venn. “I hope to see you better soon.”
+
+The moonlight shone directly upon Venn's face as he spoke, and revealed
+all its lines to Eustacia. He was looking suspiciously at her. That
+Venn's keen eye had discerned what Yeobright's feeble vision had not--a
+man in the act of withdrawing from Eustacia's side--was within the
+limits of the probable.
+
+If Eustacia had been able to follow the reddleman she would soon have
+found striking confirmation of her thought. No sooner had Clym given her
+his arm and led her off the scene than the reddleman turned back from
+the beaten track towards East Egdon, whither he had been strolling
+merely to accompany Clym in his walk, Diggory's van being again in the
+neighbourhood. Stretching out his long legs, he crossed the pathless
+portion of the heath somewhat in the direction which Wildeve had taken.
+Only a man accustomed to nocturnal rambles could at this hour have
+descended those shaggy slopes with Venn's velocity without falling
+headlong into a pit, or snapping off his leg by jamming his foot into
+some rabbit burrow. But Venn went on without much inconvenience to
+himself, and the course of his scamper was towards the Quiet Woman Inn.
+This place he reached in about half an hour, and he was well aware that
+no person who had been near Throope Corner when he started could have
+got down here before him.
+
+The lonely inn was not yet closed, though scarcely an individual was
+there, the business done being chiefly with travellers who passed the
+inn on long journeys, and these had now gone on their way. Venn went to
+the public room, called for a mug of ale, and inquired of the maid in an
+indifferent tone if Mr. Wildeve was at home.
+
+Thomasin sat in an inner room and heard Venn's voice. When customers
+were present she seldom showed herself, owing to her inherent dislike
+for the business; but perceiving that no one else was there tonight she
+came out.
+
+“He is not at home yet, Diggory,” she said pleasantly. “But I expected
+him sooner. He has been to East Egdon to buy a horse.”
+
+“Did he wear a light wideawake?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I saw him at Throope Corner, leading one home,” said Venn drily.
+“A beauty, with a white face and a mane as black as night. He will soon
+be here, no doubt.” Rising and looking for a moment at the pure, sweet
+face of Thomasin, over which a shadow of sadness had passed since the
+time when he had last seen her, he ventured to add, “Mr. Wildeve seems
+to be often away at this time.”
+
+“O yes,” cried Thomasin in what was intended to be a tone of gaiety.
+“Husbands will play the truant, you know. I wish you could tell me of
+some secret plan that would help me to keep him home at my will in the
+evenings.”
+
+“I will consider if I know of one,” replied Venn in that same light
+tone which meant no lightness. And then he bowed in a manner of his own
+invention and moved to go. Thomasin offered him her hand; and without a
+sigh, though with food for many, the reddleman went out.
+
+When Wildeve returned, a quarter of an hour later Thomasin said simply,
+and in the abashed manner usual with her now, “Where is the horse,
+Damon?”
+
+“O, I have not bought it, after all. The man asks too much.”
+
+“But somebody saw you at Throope Corner leading it home--a beauty, with
+a white face and a mane as black as night.”
+
+“Ah!” said Wildeve, fixing his eyes upon her; “who told you that?”
+
+“Venn the reddleman.”
+
+The expression of Wildeve's face became curiously condensed. “That is
+a mistake--it must have been someone else,” he said slowly and testily,
+for he perceived that Venn's countermoves had begun again.
+
+
+
+
+4--Rough Coercion Is Employed
+
+
+Those words of Thomasin, which seemed so little, but meant so much,
+remained in the ears of Diggory Venn: “Help me to keep him home in the
+evenings.”
+
+On this occasion Venn had arrived on Egdon Heath only to cross to the
+other side--he had no further connection with the interests of the
+Yeobright family, and he had a business of his own to attend to. Yet
+he suddenly began to feel himself drifting into the old track of
+manoeuvring on Thomasin's account.
+
+He sat in his van and considered. From Thomasin's words and manner
+he had plainly gathered that Wildeve neglected her. For whom could
+he neglect her if not for Eustacia? Yet it was scarcely credible
+that things had come to such a head as to indicate that Eustacia
+systematically encouraged him. Venn resolved to reconnoitre somewhat
+carefully the lonely road which led along the vale from Wildeve's
+dwelling to Clym's house at Alderworth.
+
+At this time, as has been seen, Wildeve was quite innocent of any
+predetermined act of intrigue, and except at the dance on the green he
+had not once met Eustacia since her marriage. But that the spirit of
+intrigue was in him had been shown by a recent romantic habit of his--a
+habit of going out after dark and strolling towards Alderworth, there
+looking at the moon and stars, looking at Eustacia's house, and walking
+back at leisure.
+
+Accordingly, when watching on the night after the festival, the
+reddleman saw him ascend by the little path, lean over the front gate
+of Clym's garden, sigh, and turn to go back again. It was plain that
+Wildeve's intrigue was rather ideal than real. Venn retreated before him
+down the hill to a place where the path was merely a deep groove
+between the heather; here he mysteriously bent over the ground for a few
+minutes, and retired. When Wildeve came on to that spot his ankle was
+caught by something, and he fell headlong.
+
+As soon as he had recovered the power of respiration he sat up and
+listened. There was not a sound in the gloom beyond the spiritless stir
+of the summer wind. Feeling about for the obstacle which had flung
+him down, he discovered that two tufts of heath had been tied together
+across the path, forming a loop, which to a traveller was certain
+overthrow. Wildeve pulled off the string that bound them, and went on
+with tolerable quickness. On reaching home he found the cord to be of a
+reddish colour. It was just what he had expected.
+
+Although his weaknesses were not specially those akin to physical fear,
+this species of coup-de-Jarnac from one he knew too well troubled the
+mind of Wildeve. But his movements were unaltered thereby. A night
+or two later he again went along the vale to Alderworth, taking the
+precaution of keeping out of any path. The sense that he was watched,
+that craft was employed to circumvent his errant tastes, added piquancy
+to a journey so entirely sentimental, so long as the danger was of no
+fearful sort. He imagined that Venn and Mrs. Yeobright were in league,
+and felt that there was a certain legitimacy in combating such a
+coalition.
+
+The heath tonight appeared to be totally deserted; and Wildeve, after
+looking over Eustacia's garden gate for some little time, with a cigar
+in his mouth, was tempted by the fascination that emotional smuggling
+had for his nature to advance towards the window, which was not quite
+closed, the blind being only partly drawn down. He could see into the
+room, and Eustacia was sitting there alone. Wildeve contemplated her
+for a minute, and then retreating into the heath beat the ferns lightly,
+whereupon moths flew out alarmed. Securing one, he returned to the
+window, and holding the moth to the chink, opened his hand. The moth
+made towards the candle upon Eustacia's table, hovered round it two or
+three times, and flew into the flame.
+
+Eustacia started up. This had been a well-known signal in old times when
+Wildeve had used to come secretly wooing to Mistover. She at once knew
+that Wildeve was outside, but before she could consider what to do her
+husband came in from upstairs. Eustacia's face burnt crimson at the
+unexpected collision of incidents, and filled it with an animation that
+it too frequently lacked.
+
+“You have a very high colour, dearest,” said Yeobright, when he came
+close enough to see it. “Your appearance would be no worse if it were
+always so.”
+
+“I am warm,” said Eustacia. “I think I will go into the air for a few
+minutes.”
+
+“Shall I go with you?”
+
+“O no. I am only going to the gate.”
+
+She arose, but before she had time to get out of the room a loud rapping
+began upon the front door.
+
+“I'll go--I'll go,” said Eustacia in an unusually quick tone for her;
+and she glanced eagerly towards the window whence the moth had flown;
+but nothing appeared there.
+
+“You had better not at this time of the evening,” he said. Clym stepped
+before her into the passage, and Eustacia waited, her somnolent manner
+covering her inner heat and agitation.
+
+She listened, and Clym opened the door. No words were uttered outside,
+and presently he closed it and came back, saying, “Nobody was there. I
+wonder what that could have meant?”
+
+He was left to wonder during the rest of the evening, for no explanation
+offered itself, and Eustacia said nothing, the additional fact that she
+knew of only adding more mystery to the performance.
+
+Meanwhile a little drama had been acted outside which saved Eustacia
+from all possibility of compromising herself that evening at least.
+Whilst Wildeve had been preparing his moth-signal another person had
+come behind him up to the gate. This man, who carried a gun in his hand,
+looked on for a moment at the other's operation by the window, walked
+up to the house, knocked at the door, and then vanished round the corner
+and over the hedge.
+
+“Damn him!” said Wildeve. “He has been watching me again.”
+
+As his signal had been rendered futile by this uproarious rapping
+Wildeve withdrew, passed out at the gate, and walked quickly down the
+path without thinking of anything except getting away unnoticed. Halfway
+down the hill the path ran near a knot of stunted hollies, which in the
+general darkness of the scene stood as the pupil in a black eye. When
+Wildeve reached this point a report startled his ear, and a few spent
+gunshots fell among the leaves around him.
+
+There was no doubt that he himself was the cause of that gun's
+discharge; and he rushed into the clump of hollies, beating the bushes
+furiously with his stick; but nobody was there. This attack was a
+more serious matter than the last, and it was some time before Wildeve
+recovered his equanimity. A new and most unpleasant system of menace
+had begun, and the intent appeared to be to do him grievous bodily harm.
+Wildeve had looked upon Venn's first attempt as a species of horseplay,
+which the reddleman had indulged in for want of knowing better; but
+now the boundary line was passed which divides the annoying from the
+perilous.
+
+Had Wildeve known how thoroughly in earnest Venn had become he might
+have been still more alarmed. The reddleman had been almost exasperated
+by the sight of Wildeve outside Clym's house, and he was prepared to go
+to any lengths short of absolutely shooting him, to terrify the young
+innkeeper out of his recalcitrant impulses. The doubtful legitimacy of
+such rough coercion did not disturb the mind of Venn. It troubles few
+such minds in such cases, and sometimes this is not to be regretted.
+From the impeachment of Strafford to Farmer Lynch's short way with the
+scamps of Virginia there have been many triumphs of justice which are
+mockeries of law.
+
+About half a mile below Clym's secluded dwelling lay a hamlet where
+lived one of the two constables who preserved the peace in the parish of
+Alderworth, and Wildeve went straight to the constable's cottage. Almost
+the first thing that he saw on opening the door was the constable's
+truncheon hanging to a nail, as if to assure him that here were the
+means to his purpose. On inquiry, however, of the constable's wife he
+learnt that the constable was not at home. Wildeve said he would wait.
+
+The minutes ticked on, and the constable did not arrive. Wildeve cooled
+down from his state of high indignation to a restless dissatisfaction
+with himself, the scene, the constable's wife, and the whole set of
+circumstances. He arose and left the house. Altogether, the experience
+of that evening had had a cooling, not to say a chilling, effect on
+misdirected tenderness, and Wildeve was in no mood to ramble again to
+Alderworth after nightfall in hope of a stray glance from Eustacia.
+
+Thus far the reddleman had been tolerably successful in his rude
+contrivances for keeping down Wildeve's inclination to rove in the
+evening. He had nipped in the bud the possible meeting between Eustacia
+and her old lover this very night. But he had not anticipated that the
+tendency of his action would be to divert Wildeve's movement rather than
+to stop it. The gambling with the guineas had not conduced to make him a
+welcome guest to Clym; but to call upon his wife's relative was natural,
+and he was determined to see Eustacia. It was necessary to choose some
+less untoward hour than ten o'clock at night. “Since it is unsafe to go
+in the evening,” he said, “I'll go by day.”
+
+Meanwhile Venn had left the heath and gone to call upon Mrs. Yeobright,
+with whom he had been on friendly terms since she had learnt what a
+providential countermove he had made towards the restitution of the
+family guineas. She wondered at the lateness of his call, but had no
+objection to see him.
+
+He gave her a full account of Clym's affliction, and of the state in
+which he was living; then, referring to Thomasin, touched gently upon
+the apparent sadness of her days. “Now, ma'am, depend upon it,” he said,
+“you couldn't do a better thing for either of 'em than to make yourself
+at home in their houses, even if there should be a little rebuff at
+first.”
+
+“Both she and my son disobeyed me in marrying; therefore I have no
+interest in their households. Their troubles are of their own making.”
+ Mrs. Yeobright tried to speak severely; but the account of her son's
+state had moved her more than she cared to show.
+
+“Your visits would make Wildeve walk straighter than he is inclined to
+do, and might prevent unhappiness down the heath.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I saw something tonight out there which I didn't like at all. I wish
+your son's house and Mr. Wildeve's were a hundred miles apart instead of
+four or five.”
+
+“Then there WAS an understanding between him and Clym's wife when he
+made a fool of Thomasin!”
+
+“We'll hope there's no understanding now.”
+
+“And our hope will probably be very vain. O Clym! O Thomasin!”
+
+“There's no harm done yet. In fact, I've persuaded Wildeve to mind his
+own business.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“O, not by talking--by a plan of mine called the silent system.”
+
+“I hope you'll succeed.”
+
+“I shall if you help me by calling and making friends with your son.
+You'll have a chance then of using your eyes.”
+
+“Well, since it has come to this,” said Mrs. Yeobright sadly, “I will
+own to you, reddleman, that I thought of going. I should be much happier
+if we were reconciled. The marriage is unalterable, my life may be cut
+short, and I should wish to die in peace. He is my only son; and since
+sons are made of such stuff I am not sorry I have no other. As for
+Thomasin, I never expected much from her; and she has not disappointed
+me. But I forgave her long ago; and I forgive him now. I'll go.”
+
+At this very time of the reddleman's conversation with Mrs. Yeobright
+at Blooms-End another conversation on the same subject was languidly
+proceeding at Alderworth.
+
+All the day Clym had borne himself as if his mind were too full of its
+own matter to allow him to care about outward things, and his words now
+showed what had occupied his thoughts. It was just after the mysterious
+knocking that he began the theme. “Since I have been away today,
+Eustacia, I have considered that something must be done to heal up this
+ghastly breach between my dear mother and myself. It troubles me.”
+
+“What do you propose to do?” said Eustacia abstractedly, for she could
+not clear away from her the excitement caused by Wildeve's recent
+manoeuvre for an interview.
+
+“You seem to take a very mild interest in what I propose, little or
+much,” said Clym, with tolerable warmth.
+
+“You mistake me,” she answered, reviving at his reproach. “I am only
+thinking.”
+
+“What of?”
+
+“Partly of that moth whose skeleton is getting burnt up in the wick of
+the candle,” she said slowly. “But you know I always take an interest in
+what you say.”
+
+“Very well, dear. Then I think I must go and call upon her.” ...He went
+on with tender feeling: “It is a thing I am not at all too proud to do,
+and only a fear that I might irritate her has kept me away so long. But
+I must do something. It is wrong in me to allow this sort of thing to go
+on.”
+
+“What have you to blame yourself about?”
+
+“She is getting old, and her life is lonely, and I am her only son.”
+
+“She has Thomasin.”
+
+“Thomasin is not her daughter; and if she were that would not excuse me.
+But this is beside the point. I have made up my mind to go to her, and
+all I wish to ask you is whether you will do your best to help me--that
+is, forget the past; and if she shows her willingness to be reconciled,
+meet her halfway by welcoming her to our house, or by accepting a
+welcome to hers?”
+
+At first Eustacia closed her lips as if she would rather do anything
+on the whole globe than what he suggested. But the lines of her mouth
+softened with thought, though not so far as they might have softened,
+and she said, “I will put nothing in your way; but after what has passed
+it is asking too much that I go and make advances.”
+
+“You never distinctly told me what did pass between you.”
+
+“I could not do it then, nor can I now. Sometimes more bitterness is
+sown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that
+may be the case here.” She paused a few moments, and added, “If you had
+never returned to your native place, Clym, what a blessing it would have
+been for you!... It has altered the destinies of----”
+
+“Three people.”
+
+“Five,” Eustacia thought; but she kept that in.
+
+
+
+
+5--The Journey across the Heath
+
+
+Thursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series of days during
+which snug houses were stifling, and when cool draughts were treats;
+when cracks appeared in clayey gardens, and were called “earthquakes” by
+apprehensive children; when loose spokes were discovered in the wheels
+of carts and carriages; and when stinging insects haunted the air, the
+earth, and every drop of water that was to be found.
+
+In Mrs. Yeobright's garden large-leaved plants of a tender kind flagged
+by ten o'clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward at eleven; and even
+stiff cabbages were limp by noon.
+
+It was about eleven o'clock on this day that Mrs. Yeobright started
+across the heath towards her son's house, to do her best in getting
+reconciled with him and Eustacia, in conformity with her words to the
+reddleman. She had hoped to be well advanced in her walk before the heat
+of the day was at its highest, but after setting out she found that this
+was not to be done. The sun had branded the whole heath with its mark,
+even the purple heath-flowers having put on a brownness under the dry
+blazes of the few preceding days. Every valley was filled with air like
+that of a kiln, and the clean quartz sand of the winter water-courses,
+which formed summer paths, had undergone a species of incineration since
+the drought had set in.
+
+In cool, fresh weather Mrs. Yeobright would have found no inconvenience
+in walking to Alderworth, but the present torrid attack made the journey
+a heavy undertaking for a woman past middle age; and at the end of the
+third mile she wished that she had hired Fairway to drive her a portion
+at least of the distance. But from the point at which she had arrived it
+was as easy to reach Clym's house as to get home again. So she went on,
+the air around her pulsating silently, and oppressing the earth with
+lassitude. She looked at the sky overhead, and saw that the sapphirine
+hue of the zenith in spring and early summer had been replaced by a
+metallic violet.
+
+Occasionally she came to a spot where independent worlds of ephemerons
+were passing their time in mad carousal, some in the air, some on the
+hot ground and vegetation, some in the tepid and stringy water of a
+nearly dried pool. All the shallower ponds had decreased to a vaporous
+mud amid which the maggoty shapes of innumerable obscure creatures could
+be indistinctly seen, heaving and wallowing with enjoyment. Being a
+woman not disinclined to philosophize she sometimes sat down under her
+umbrella to rest and to watch their happiness, for a certain hopefulness
+as to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind, and between
+important thoughts left it free to dwell on any infinitesimal matter
+which caught her eyes.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright had never before been to her son's house, and its exact
+position was unknown to her. She tried one ascending path and another,
+and found that they led her astray. Retracing her steps, she came again
+to an open level, where she perceived at a distance a man at work. She
+went towards him and inquired the way.
+
+The labourer pointed out the direction, and added, “Do you see that
+furze-cutter, ma'am, going up that footpath yond?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright strained her eyes, and at last said that she did perceive
+him.
+
+“Well, if you follow him you can make no mistake. He's going to the same
+place, ma'am.”
+
+She followed the figure indicated. He appeared of a russet hue, not more
+distinguishable from the scene around him than the green caterpillar
+from the leaf it feeds on. His progress when actually walking was more
+rapid than Mrs. Yeobright's; but she was enabled to keep at an equable
+distance from him by his habit of stopping whenever he came to a brake
+of brambles, where he paused awhile. On coming in her turn to each of
+these spots she found half a dozen long limp brambles which he had cut
+from the bush during his halt and laid out straight beside the path.
+They were evidently intended for furze-faggot bonds which he meant to
+collect on his return.
+
+The silent being who thus occupied himself seemed to be of no more
+account in life than an insect. He appeared as a mere parasite of
+the heath, fretting its surface in his daily labour as a moth frets a
+garment, entirely engrossed with its products, having no knowledge of
+anything in the world but fern, furze, heath, lichens, and moss.
+
+The furze-cutter was so absorbed in the business of his journey that he
+never turned his head; and his leather-legged and gauntleted form at
+length became to her as nothing more than a moving handpost to show her
+the way. Suddenly she was attracted to his individuality by observing
+peculiarities in his walk. It was a gait she had seen somewhere before;
+and the gait revealed the man to her, as the gait of Ahimaaz in the
+distant plain made him known to the watchman of the king. “His walk
+is exactly as my husband's used to be,” she said; and then the thought
+burst upon her that the furze-cutter was her son.
+
+She was scarcely able to familiarize herself with this strange reality.
+She had been told that Clym was in the habit of cutting furze, but she
+had supposed that he occupied himself with the labour only at odd times,
+by way of useful pastime; yet she now beheld him as a furze-cutter and
+nothing more--wearing the regulation dress of the craft, and thinking
+the regulation thoughts, to judge by his motions. Planning a dozen hasty
+schemes for at once preserving him and Eustacia from this mode of life,
+she throbbingly followed the way, and saw him enter his own door.
+
+At one side of Clym's house was a knoll, and on the top of the knoll a
+clump of fir trees so highly thrust up into the sky that their foliage
+from a distance appeared as a black spot in the air above the crown
+of the hill. On reaching this place Mrs. Yeobright felt distressingly
+agitated, weary, and unwell. She ascended, and sat down under their
+shade to recover herself, and to consider how best to break the ground
+with Eustacia, so as not to irritate a woman underneath whose apparent
+indolence lurked passions even stronger and more active than her own.
+
+The trees beneath which she sat were singularly battered, rude, and
+wild, and for a few minutes Mrs. Yeobright dismissed thoughts of her own
+storm-broken and exhausted state to contemplate theirs. Not a bough in
+the nine trees which composed the group but was splintered, lopped,
+and distorted by the fierce weather that there held them at its mercy
+whenever it prevailed. Some were blasted and split as if by lightning,
+black stains as from fire marking their sides, while the ground at their
+feet was strewn with dead fir-needles and heaps of cones blown down in
+the gales of past years. The place was called the Devil's Bellows, and
+it was only necessary to come there on a March or November night to
+discover the forcible reasons for that name. On the present heated
+afternoon, when no perceptible wind was blowing, the trees kept up a
+perpetual moan which one could hardly believe to be caused by the air.
+
+Here she sat for twenty minutes or more ere she could summon resolution
+to go down to the door, her courage being lowered to zero by her
+physical lassitude. To any other person than a mother it might have
+seemed a little humiliating that she, the elder of the two women, should
+be the first to make advances. But Mrs. Yeobright had well considered
+all that, and she only thought how best to make her visit appear to
+Eustacia not abject but wise.
+
+From her elevated position the exhausted woman could perceive the roof
+of the house below, and the garden and the whole enclosure of the
+little domicile. And now, at the moment of rising, she saw a second man
+approaching the gate. His manner was peculiar, hesitating, and not that
+of a person come on business or by invitation. He surveyed the house
+with interest, and then walked round and scanned the outer boundary
+of the garden, as one might have done had it been the birthplace of
+Shakespeare, the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Chateau of Hougomont.
+After passing round and again reaching the gate he went in. Mrs.
+Yeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on finding her son and his
+wife by themselves; but a moment's thought showed her that the
+presence of an acquaintance would take off the awkwardness of her first
+appearance in the house, by confining the talk to general matters until
+she had begun to feel comfortable with them. She came down the hill to
+the gate, and looked into the hot garden.
+
+There lay the cat asleep on the bare gravel of the path, as if beds,
+rugs, and carpets were unendurable. The leaves of the hollyhocks hung
+like half-closed umbrellas, the sap almost simmered in the stems, and
+foliage with a smooth surface glared like metallic mirrors. A small
+apple tree, of the sort called Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate, the
+only one which throve in the garden, by reason of the lightness of
+the soil; and among the fallen apples on the ground beneath were wasps
+rolling drunk with the juice, or creeping about the little caves in each
+fruit which they had eaten out before stupefied by its sweetness. By the
+door lay Clym's furze-hook and the last handful of faggot-bonds she had
+seen him gather; they had plainly been thrown down there as he entered
+the house.
+
+
+
+
+6--A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian
+
+
+Wildeve, as has been stated, was determined to visit Eustacia boldly, by
+day, and on the easy terms of a relation, since the reddleman had spied
+out and spoilt his walks to her by night. The spell that she had thrown
+over him in the moonlight dance made it impossible for a man having no
+strong puritanic force within him to keep away altogether. He merely
+calculated on meeting her and her husband in an ordinary manner,
+chatting a little while, and leaving again. Every outward sign was to be
+conventional; but the one great fact would be there to satisfy him--he
+would see her. He did not even desire Clym's absence, since it was just
+possible that Eustacia might resent any situation which could compromise
+her dignity as a wife, whatever the state of her heart towards him.
+Women were often so.
+
+He went accordingly; and it happened that the time of his arrival
+coincided with that of Mrs. Yeobright's pause on the hill near the
+house. When he had looked round the premises in the manner she had
+noticed he went and knocked at the door. There was a few minutes'
+interval, and then the key turned in the lock, the door opened, and
+Eustacia herself confronted him.
+
+Nobody could have imagined from her bearing now that here stood the
+woman who had joined with him in the impassioned dance of the week
+before, unless indeed he could have penetrated below the surface and
+gauged the real depth of that still stream.
+
+“I hope you reached home safely?” said Wildeve.
+
+“O yes,” she carelessly returned.
+
+“And were you not tired the next day? I feared you might be.”
+
+“I was rather. You need not speak low--nobody will over-hear us. My
+small servant is gone on an errand to the village.”
+
+“Then Clym is not at home?”
+
+“Yes, he is.”
+
+“O! I thought that perhaps you had locked the door because you were
+alone and were afraid of tramps.”
+
+“No--here is my husband.”
+
+They had been standing in the entry. Closing the front door and turning
+the key, as before, she threw open the door of the adjoining room and
+asked him to walk in. Wildeve entered, the room appearing to be empty;
+but as soon as he had advanced a few steps he started. On the hearthrug
+lay Clym asleep. Beside him were the leggings, thick boots, leather
+gloves, and sleeve-waistcoat in which he worked.
+
+“You may go in; you will not disturb him,” she said, following behind.
+“My reason for fastening the door is that he may not be intruded upon
+by any chance comer while lying here, if I should be in the garden or
+upstairs.”
+
+“Why is he sleeping there?” said Wildeve in low tones.
+
+“He is very weary. He went out at half-past four this morning, and has
+been working ever since. He cuts furze because it is the only thing he
+can do that does not put any strain upon his poor eyes.” The contrast
+between the sleeper's appearance and Wildeve's at this moment was
+painfully apparent to Eustacia, Wildeve being elegantly dressed in a new
+summer suit and light hat; and she continued: “Ah! you don't know how
+differently he appeared when I first met him, though it is such a little
+while ago. His hands were as white and soft as mine; and look at them
+now, how rough and brown they are! His complexion is by nature fair, and
+that rusty look he has now, all of a colour with his leather clothes, is
+caused by the burning of the sun.”
+
+“Why does he go out at all!” Wildeve whispered.
+
+“Because he hates to be idle; though what he earns doesn't add much to
+our exchequer. However, he says that when people are living upon their
+capital they must keep down current expenses by turning a penny where
+they can.”
+
+“The fates have not been kind to you, Eustacia Yeobright.”
+
+“I have nothing to thank them for.”
+
+“Nor has he--except for their one great gift to him.”
+
+“What's that?”
+
+Wildeve looked her in the eyes.
+
+Eustacia blushed for the first time that day. “Well, I am a questionable
+gift,” she said quietly. “I thought you meant the gift of content--which
+he has, and I have not.”
+
+“I can understand content in such a case--though how the outward
+situation can attract him puzzles me.”
+
+“That's because you don't know him. He's an enthusiast about ideas, and
+careless about outward things. He often reminds me of the Apostle Paul.”
+
+“I am glad to hear that he's so grand in character as that.”
+
+“Yes; but the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent as a man in
+the Bible he would hardly have done in real life.”
+
+Their voices had instinctively dropped lower, though at first they had
+taken no particular care to avoid awakening Clym. “Well, if that means
+that your marriage is a misfortune to you, you know who is to blame,”
+ said Wildeve.
+
+“The marriage is no misfortune in itself,” she retorted with some little
+petulance. “It is simply the accident which has happened since that has
+been the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for figs in a
+worldly sense, but how could I tell what time would bring forth?”
+
+“Sometimes, Eustacia, I think it is a judgment upon you. You rightly
+belonged to me, you know; and I had no idea of losing you.”
+
+“No, it was not my fault! Two could not belong to you; and remember
+that, before I was aware, you turned aside to another woman. It was
+cruel levity in you to do that. I never dreamt of playing such a game on
+my side till you began it on yours.”
+
+“I meant nothing by it,” replied Wildeve. “It was a mere interlude. Men
+are given to the trick of having a passing fancy for somebody else in
+the midst of a permanent love, which reasserts itself afterwards just as
+before. On account of your rebellious manner to me I was tempted to go
+further than I should have done; and when you still would keep playing
+the same tantalizing part I went further still, and married her.”
+ Turning and looking again at the unconscious form of Clym, he murmured,
+“I am afraid that you don't value your prize, Clym.... He ought to be
+happier than I in one thing at least. He may know what it is to come
+down in the world, and to be afflicted with a great personal calamity;
+but he probably doesn't know what it is to lose the woman he loved.”
+
+“He is not ungrateful for winning her,” whispered Eustacia, “and in that
+respect he is a good man. Many women would go far for such a husband.
+But do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called life--music,
+poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that are going on
+in the great arteries of the world? That was the shape of my youthful
+dream; but I did not get it. Yet I thought I saw the way to it in my
+Clym.”
+
+“And you only married him on that account?”
+
+“There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I won't
+say that I didn't love him partly because I thought I saw a promise of
+that life in him.”
+
+“You have dropped into your old mournful key.”
+
+“But I am not going to be depressed,” she cried perversely. “I began a
+new system by going to that dance, and I mean to stick to it. Clym can
+sing merrily; why should not I?”
+
+Wildeve looked thoughtfully at her. “It is easier to say you will sing
+than to do it; though if I could I would encourage you in your attempt.
+But as life means nothing to me, without one thing which is now
+impossible, you will forgive me for not being able to encourage you.”
+
+“Damon, what is the matter with you, that you speak like that?” she
+asked, raising her deep shady eyes to his.
+
+“That's a thing I shall never tell plainly; and perhaps if I try to tell
+you in riddles you will not care to guess them.”
+
+Eustacia remained silent for a minute, and she said, “We are in a
+strange relationship today. You mince matters to an uncommon nicety. You
+mean, Damon, that you still love me. Well, that gives me sorrow, for I
+am not made so entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing to spurn
+you for the information, as I ought to do. But we have said too much
+about this. Do you mean to wait until my husband is awake?”
+
+“I thought to speak to him; but it is unnecessary, Eustacia, if I offend
+you by not forgetting you, you are right to mention it; but do not talk
+of spurning.”
+
+She did not reply, and they stood looking musingly at Clym as he slept
+on in that profound sleep which is the result of physical labour carried
+on in circumstances that wake no nervous fear.
+
+“God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!” said Wildeve. “I have not slept
+like that since I was a boy--years and years ago.”
+
+While they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible, and a knock
+came to the door. Eustacia went to a window and looked out.
+
+Her countenance changed. First she became crimson, and then the red
+subsided till it even partially left her lips.
+
+“Shall I go away?” said Wildeve, standing up.
+
+“I hardly know.”
+
+“Who is it?”
+
+“Mrs. Yeobright. O, what she said to me that day! I cannot understand
+this visit--what does she mean? And she suspects that past time of
+ours.”
+
+“I am in your hands. If you think she had better not see me here I'll go
+into the next room.”
+
+“Well, yes--go.”
+
+Wildeve at once withdrew; but before he had been half a minute in the
+adjoining apartment Eustacia came after him.
+
+“No,” she said, “we won't have any of this. If she comes in she must see
+you--and think if she likes there's something wrong! But how can I open
+the door to her, when she dislikes me--wishes to see not me, but her
+son? I won't open the door!”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright knocked again more loudly.
+
+“Her knocking will, in all likelihood, awaken him,” continued Eustacia,
+“and then he will let her in himself. Ah--listen.”
+
+They could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if disturbed by the
+knocking, and he uttered the word “Mother.”
+
+“Yes--he is awake--he will go to the door,” she said, with a breath of
+relief. “Come this way. I have a bad name with her, and you must not
+be seen. Thus I am obliged to act by stealth, not because I do ill, but
+because others are pleased to say so.”
+
+By this time she had taken him to the back door, which was open,
+disclosing a path leading down the garden. “Now, one word, Damon,” she
+remarked as he stepped forth. “This is your first visit here; let it
+be your last. We have been hot lovers in our time, but it won't do now.
+Good-bye.”
+
+“Good-bye,” said Wildeve. “I have had all I came for, and I am
+satisfied.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“A sight of you. Upon my eternal honour I came for no more.”
+
+Wildeve kissed his hand to the beautiful girl he addressed, and passed
+into the garden, where she watched him down the path, over the stile at
+the end, and into the ferns outside, which brushed his hips as he went
+along till he became lost in their thickets. When he had quite gone she
+slowly turned, and directed her attention to the interior of the house.
+
+But it was possible that her presence might not be desired by Clym and
+his mother at this moment of their first meeting, or that it would be
+superfluous. At all events, she was in no hurry to meet Mrs. Yeobright.
+She resolved to wait till Clym came to look for her, and glided back
+into the garden. Here she idly occupied herself for a few minutes, till
+finding no notice was taken of her she retraced her steps through the
+house to the front, where she listened for voices in the parlour. But
+hearing none she opened the door and went in. To her astonishment Clym
+lay precisely as Wildeve and herself had left him, his sleep apparently
+unbroken. He had been disturbed and made to dream and murmur by the
+knocking, but he had not awakened. Eustacia hastened to the door, and in
+spite of her reluctance to open it to a woman who had spoken of her
+so bitterly, she unfastened it and looked out. Nobody was to be seen.
+There, by the scraper, lay Clym's hook and the handful of faggot-bonds
+he had brought home; in front of her were the empty path, the garden
+gate standing slightly ajar; and, beyond, the great valley of purple
+heath thrilling silently in the sun. Mrs. Yeobright was gone.
+
+
+Clym's mother was at this time following a path which lay hidden from
+Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill. Her walk thither from the garden
+gate had been hasty and determined, as of a woman who was now no less
+anxious to escape from the scene than she had previously been to enter
+it. Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights were
+graven--that of Clym's hook and brambles at the door, and that of a
+woman's face at a window. Her lips trembled, becoming unnaturally thin
+as she murmured, “'Tis too much--Clym, how can he bear to do it! He is
+at home; and yet he lets her shut the door against me!”
+
+In her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house she had
+diverged from the straightest path homeward, and while looking about
+to regain it she came upon a little boy gathering whortleberries in a
+hollow. The boy was Johnny Nunsuch, who had been Eustacia's stoker
+at the bonfire, and, with the tendency of a minute body to gravitate
+towards a greater, he began hovering round Mrs. Yeobright as soon as she
+appeared, and trotted on beside her without perceptible consciousness of
+his act.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke to him as one in a mesmeric sleep. “'Tis a long way
+home, my child, and we shall not get there till evening.”
+
+“I shall,” said her small companion. “I am going to play marnels afore
+supper, and we go to supper at six o'clock, because Father comes home.
+Does your father come home at six too?”
+
+“No, he never comes; nor my son either, nor anybody.”
+
+“What have made you so down? Have you seen a ooser?”
+
+“I have seen what's worse--a woman's face looking at me through a
+windowpane.”
+
+“Is that a bad sight?”
+
+“Yes. It is always a bad sight to see a woman looking out at a weary
+wayfarer and not letting her in.”
+
+“Once when I went to Throope Great Pond to catch effets I seed myself
+looking up at myself, and I was frightened and jumped back like
+anything.”
+
+...“If they had only shown signs of meeting my advances halfway how well
+it might have been done! But there is no chance. Shut out! She must have
+set him against me. Can there be beautiful bodies without hearts inside?
+I think so. I would not have done it against a neighbour's cat on such a
+fiery day as this!”
+
+“What is it you say?”
+
+“Never again--never! Not even if they send for me!”
+
+“You must be a very curious woman to talk like that.”
+
+“O no, not at all,” she said, returning to the boy's prattle. “Most
+people who grow up and have children talk as I do. When you grow up your
+mother will talk as I do too.”
+
+“I hope she won't; because 'tis very bad to talk nonsense.”
+
+“Yes, child; it is nonsense, I suppose. Are you not nearly spent with
+the heat?”
+
+“Yes. But not so much as you be.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Your face is white and wet, and your head is hanging-down-like.”
+
+“Ah, I am exhausted from inside.”
+
+“Why do you, every time you take a step, go like this?” The child in
+speaking gave to his motion the jerk and limp of an invalid.
+
+“Because I have a burden which is more than I can bear.”
+
+The little boy remained silently pondering, and they tottered on side
+by side until more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when Mrs.
+Yeobright, whose weakness plainly increased, said to him, “I must sit
+down here to rest.”
+
+When she had seated herself he looked long in her face and said, “How
+funny you draw your breath--like a lamb when you drive him till he's
+nearly done for. Do you always draw your breath like that?”
+
+“Not always.” Her voice was now so low as to be scarcely above a
+whisper.
+
+“You will go to sleep there, I suppose, won't you? You have shut your
+eyes already.”
+
+“No. I shall not sleep much till--another day, and then I hope to have
+a long, long one--very long. Now can you tell me if Rimsmoor Pond is dry
+this summer?”
+
+“Rimsmoor Pond is, but Oker's Pool isn't, because he is deep, and is
+never dry--'tis just over there.”
+
+“Is the water clear?”
+
+“Yes, middling--except where the heath-croppers walk into it.”
+
+“Then, take this, and go as fast as you can, and dip me up the clearest
+you can find. I am very faint.”
+
+She drew from the small willow reticule that she carried in her hand an
+old-fashioned china teacup without a handle; it was one of half a dozen
+of the same sort lying in the reticule, which she had preserved ever
+since her childhood, and had brought with her today as a small present
+for Clym and Eustacia.
+
+The boy started on his errand, and soon came back with the water, such
+as it was. Mrs. Yeobright attempted to drink, but it was so warm as to
+give her nausea, and she threw it away. Afterwards she still remained
+sitting, with her eyes closed.
+
+The boy waited, played near her, caught several of the little brown
+butterflies which abounded, and then said as he waited again, “I like
+going on better than biding still. Will you soon start again?”
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+“I wish I might go on by myself,” he resumed, fearing, apparently, that
+he was to be pressed into some unpleasant service. “Do you want me any
+more, please?”
+
+Mrs. Yeobright made no reply.
+
+“What shall I tell Mother?” the boy continued.
+
+“Tell her you have seen a broken-hearted woman cast off by her son.”
+
+Before quite leaving her he threw upon her face a wistful glance, as if
+he had misgivings on the generosity of forsaking her thus. He gazed into
+her face in a vague, wondering manner, like that of one examining some
+strange old manuscript the key to whose characters is undiscoverable. He
+was not so young as to be absolutely without a sense that sympathy
+was demanded, he was not old enough to be free from the terror felt
+in childhood at beholding misery in adult quarters hither-to deemed
+impregnable; and whether she were in a position to cause trouble or to
+suffer from it, whether she and her affliction were something to pity or
+something to fear, it was beyond him to decide. He lowered his eyes
+and went on without another word. Before he had gone half a mile he had
+forgotten all about her, except that she was a woman who had sat down to
+rest.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright's exertions, physical and emotional, had well-nigh
+prostrated her; but she continued to creep along in short stages with
+long breaks between. The sun had now got far to the west of south and
+stood directly in her face, like some merciless incendiary, brand in
+hand, waiting to consume her. With the departure of the boy all visible
+animation disappeared from the landscape, though the intermittent husky
+notes of the male grasshoppers from every tuft of furze were enough to
+show that amid the prostration of the larger animal species an unseen
+insect world was busy in all the fullness of life.
+
+In two hours she reached a slope about three-fourths the whole
+distance from Alderworth to her own home, where a little patch of
+shepherd's-thyme intruded upon the path; and she sat down upon the
+perfumed mat it formed there. In front of her a colony of ants
+had established a thoroughfare across the way, where they toiled a
+never-ending and heavy-laden throng. To look down upon them was like
+observing a city street from the top of a tower. She remembered
+that this bustle of ants had been in progress for years at the same
+spot--doubtless those of the old times were the ancestors of these which
+walked there now. She leant back to obtain more thorough rest, and the
+soft eastern portion of the sky was as great a relief to her eyes as the
+thyme was to her head. While she looked a heron arose on that side of
+the sky and flew on with his face towards the sun. He had come dripping
+wet from some pool in the valleys, and as he flew the edges and lining
+of his wings, his thighs and his breast were so caught by the bright
+sunbeams that he appeared as if formed of burnished silver. Up in the
+zenith where he was seemed a free and happy place, away from all contact
+with the earthly ball to which she was pinioned; and she wished that she
+could arise uncrushed from its surface and fly as he flew then.
+
+But, being a mother, it was inevitable that she should soon cease to
+ruminate upon her own condition. Had the track of her next thought been
+marked by a streak in the air, like the path of a meteor, it would have
+shown a direction contrary to the heron's, and have descended to the
+eastward upon the roof of Clym's house.
+
+
+
+
+7--The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends
+
+
+He in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up, and looked
+around. Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard by him, and though she held
+a book in her hand she had not looked into it for some time.
+
+“Well, indeed!” said Clym, brushing his eyes with his hands. “How
+soundly I have slept! I have had such a tremendous dream, too--one I
+shall never forget.”
+
+“I thought you had been dreaming,” said she.
+
+“Yes. It was about my mother. I dreamt that I took you to her house to
+make up differences, and when we got there we couldn't get in, though
+she kept on crying to us for help. However, dreams are dreams. What
+o'clock is it, Eustacia?”
+
+“Half-past two.”
+
+“So late, is it? I didn't mean to stay so long. By the time I have had
+something to eat it will be after three.”
+
+“Ann is not come back from the village, and I thought I would let you
+sleep on till she returned.”
+
+Clym went to the window and looked out. Presently he said, musingly,
+“Week after week passes, and yet Mother does not come. I thought I
+should have heard something from her long before this.”
+
+Misgiving, regret, fear, resolution, ran their swift course of
+expression in Eustacia's dark eyes. She was face to face with
+a monstrous difficulty, and she resolved to get free of it by
+postponement.
+
+“I must certainly go to Blooms-End soon,” he continued, “and I think I
+had better go alone.” He picked up his leggings and gloves, threw them
+down again, and added, “As dinner will be so late today I will not go
+back to the heath, but work in the garden till the evening, and then,
+when it will be cooler, I will walk to Blooms-End. I am quite sure that
+if I make a little advance Mother will be willing to forget all. It will
+be rather late before I can get home, as I shall not be able to do the
+distance either way in less than an hour and a half. But you will not
+mind for one evening, dear? What are you thinking of to make you look so
+abstracted?”
+
+“I cannot tell you,” she said heavily. “I wish we didn't live here,
+Clym. The world seems all wrong in this place.”
+
+“Well--if we make it so. I wonder if Thomasin has been to Blooms-End
+lately. I hope so. But probably not, as she is, I believe, expecting to
+be confined in a month or so. I wish I had thought of that before. Poor
+Mother must indeed be very lonely.”
+
+“I don't like you going tonight.”
+
+“Why not tonight?”
+
+“Something may be said which will terribly injure me.”
+
+“My mother is not vindictive,” said Clym, his colour faintly rising.
+
+“But I wish you would not go,” Eustacia repeated in a low tone. “If you
+agree not to go tonight I promise to go by myself to her house tomorrow,
+and make it up with her, and wait till you fetch me.”
+
+“Why do you want to do that at this particular time, when at every
+previous time that I have proposed it you have refused?”
+
+“I cannot explain further than that I should like to see her alone
+before you go,” she answered, with an impatient move of her head, and
+looking at him with an anxiety more frequently seen upon those of a
+sanguine temperament than upon such as herself.
+
+“Well, it is very odd that just when I had decided to go myself you
+should want to do what I proposed long ago. If I wait for you to go
+tomorrow another day will be lost; and I know I shall be unable to rest
+another night without having been. I want to get this settled, and will.
+You must visit her afterwards--it will be all the same.”
+
+“I could even go with you now?”
+
+“You could scarcely walk there and back without a longer rest than I
+shall take. No, not tonight, Eustacia.”
+
+“Let it be as you say, then,” she replied in the quiet way of one who,
+though willing to ward off evil consequences by a mild effort, would let
+events fall out as they might sooner than wrestle hard to direct them.
+
+Clym then went into the garden; and a thoughtful languor stole
+over Eustacia for the remainder of the afternoon, which her husband
+attributed to the heat of the weather.
+
+In the evening he set out on the journey. Although the heat of summer
+was yet intense the days had considerably shortened, and before he had
+advanced a mile on his way all the heath purples, browns, and greens
+had merged in a uniform dress without airiness or graduation, and broken
+only by touches of white where the little heaps of clean quartz sand
+showed the entrance to a rabbit burrow, or where the white flints of a
+footpath lay like a thread over the slopes. In almost every one of
+the isolated and stunted thorns which grew here and there a nighthawk
+revealed his presence by whirring like the clack of a mill as long as he
+could hold his breath, then stopping, flapping his wings, wheeling round
+the bush, alighting, and after a silent interval of listening beginning
+to whirr again. At each brushing of Clym's feet white millermoths
+flew into the air just high enough to catch upon their dusty wings the
+mellowed light from the west, which now shone across the depressions and
+levels of the ground without falling thereon to light them up.
+
+Yeobright walked on amid this quiet scene with a hope that all would
+soon be well. Three miles on he came to a spot where a soft perfume was
+wafted across his path, and he stood still for a moment to inhale the
+familiar scent. It was the place at which, four hours earlier,
+his mother had sat down exhausted on the knoll covered with
+shepherd's-thyme. While he stood a sound between a breathing and a moan
+suddenly reached his ears.
+
+He looked to where the sound came from; but nothing appeared there save
+the verge of the hillock stretching against the sky in an unbroken line.
+He moved a few steps in that direction, and now he perceived a recumbent
+figure almost close to his feet.
+
+Among the different possibilities as to the person's individuality there
+did not for a moment occur to Yeobright that it might be one of his own
+family. Sometimes furze-cutters had been known to sleep out of doors at
+these times, to save a long journey homeward and back again; but
+Clym remembered the moan and looked closer, and saw that the form was
+feminine; and a distress came over him like cold air from a cave. But he
+was not absolutely certain that the woman was his mother till he stooped
+and beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes.
+
+His breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry of anguish
+which would have escaped him died upon his lips. During the momentary
+interval that elapsed before he became conscious that something must be
+done all sense of time and place left him, and it seemed as if he and
+his mother were as when he was a child with her many years ago on this
+heath at hours similar to the present. Then he awoke to activity; and
+bending yet lower he found that she still breathed, and that her breath
+though feeble was regular, except when disturbed by an occasional gasp.
+
+“O, what is it! Mother, are you very ill--you are not dying?” he cried,
+pressing his lips to her face. “I am your Clym. How did you come here?
+What does it all mean?”
+
+At that moment the chasm in their lives which his love for Eustacia had
+caused was not remembered by Yeobright, and to him the present joined
+continuously with that friendly past that had been their experience
+before the division.
+
+She moved her lips, appeared to know him, but could not speak; and then
+Clym strove to consider how best to move her, as it would be necessary
+to get her away from the spot before the dews were intense. He was
+able-bodied, and his mother was thin. He clasped his arms round her,
+lifted her a little, and said, “Does that hurt you?”
+
+She shook her head, and he lifted her up; then, at a slow pace, went
+onward with his load. The air was now completely cool; but whenever he
+passed over a sandy patch of ground uncarpeted with vegetation there was
+reflected from its surface into his face the heat which it had imbibed
+during the day. At the beginning of his undertaking he had thought
+but little of the distance which yet would have to be traversed before
+Blooms-End could be reached; but though he had slept that afternoon he
+soon began to feel the weight of his burden. Thus he proceeded, like
+Aeneas with his father; the bats circling round his head, nightjars
+flapping their wings within a yard of his face, and not a human being
+within call.
+
+While he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother exhibited signs
+of restlessness under the constraint of being borne along, as if his
+arms were irksome to her. He lowered her upon his knees and looked
+around. The point they had now reached, though far from any road, was
+not more than a mile from the Blooms-End cottages occupied by Fairway,
+Sam, Humphrey, and the Cantles. Moreover, fifty yards off stood a hut,
+built of clods and covered with thin turves, but now entirely disused.
+The simple outline of the lonely shed was visible, and thither he
+determined to direct his steps. As soon as he arrived he laid her down
+carefully by the entrance, and then ran and cut with his pocketknife
+an armful of the dryest fern. Spreading this within the shed, which was
+entirely open on one side, he placed his mother thereon; then he ran
+with all his might towards the dwelling of Fairway.
+
+Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, disturbed only by the broken
+breathing of the sufferer, when moving figures began to animate the
+line between heath and sky. In a few moments Clym arrived with Fairway,
+Humphrey, and Susan Nunsuch; Olly Dowden, who had chanced to be at
+Fairway's, Christian and Grandfer Cantle following helter-skelter
+behind. They had brought a lantern and matches, water, a pillow, and a
+few other articles which had occurred to their minds in the hurry of the
+moment. Sam had been despatched back again for brandy, and a boy brought
+Fairway's pony, upon which he rode off to the nearest medical man, with
+directions to call at Wildeve's on his way, and inform Thomasin that her
+aunt was unwell.
+
+Sam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered by the light of
+the lantern; after which she became sufficiently conscious to signify
+by signs that something was wrong with her foot. Olly Dowden at length
+understood her meaning, and examined the foot indicated. It was swollen
+and red. Even as they watched the red began to assume a more livid
+colour, in the midst of which appeared a scarlet speck, smaller than a
+pea, and it was found to consist of a drop of blood, which rose above
+the smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere.
+
+“I know what it is,” cried Sam. “She has been stung by an adder!”
+
+“Yes,” said Clym instantly. “I remember when I was a child seeing just
+such a bite. O, my poor mother!”
+
+“It was my father who was bit,” said Sam. “And there's only one way to
+cure it. You must rub the place with the fat of other adders, and the
+only way to get that is by frying them. That's what they did for him.”
+
+“'Tis an old remedy,” said Clym distrustfully, “and I have doubts about
+it. But we can do nothing else till the doctor comes.”
+
+“'Tis a sure cure,” said Olly Dowden, with emphasis. “I've used it when
+I used to go out nursing.”
+
+“Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them,” said Clym gloomily.
+
+“I will see what I can do,” said Sam.
+
+He took a green hazel which he had used as a walking stick, split it at
+the end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand
+went out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and
+despatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying pan. Before she had returned Sam
+came in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in the
+cleft of the stick, and the other two hanging dead across it.
+
+“I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to be,”
+ said Sam. “These limp ones are two I killed today at work; but as they
+don't die till the sun goes down they can't be very stale meat.”
+
+The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its
+small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back
+seemed to intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature,
+and the creature saw her--she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes.
+
+“Look at that,” murmured Christian Cantle. “Neighbours, how do we know
+but that something of the old serpent in God's garden, that gied the
+apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes
+still? Look at his eye--for all the world like a villainous sort of
+black currant. 'Tis to be hoped he can't ill-wish us! There's folks in
+heath who've been overlooked already. I will never kill another adder as
+long as I live.”
+
+“Well, 'tis right to be afeard of things, if folks can't help it,” said
+Grandfer Cantle. “'Twould have saved me many a brave danger in my time.”
+
+“I fancy I heard something outside the shed,” said Christian. “I wish
+troubles would come in the daytime, for then a man could show his
+courage, and hardly beg for mercy of the most broomstick old woman he
+should see, if he was a brave man, and able to run out of her sight!”
+
+“Even such an ignorant fellow as I should know better than do that,”
+ said Sam.
+
+“Well, there's calamities where we least expect it, whether or no.
+Neighbours, if Mrs. Yeobright were to die, d'ye think we should be took
+up and tried for the manslaughter of a woman?”
+
+“No, they couldn't bring it in as that,” said Sam, “unless they could
+prove we had been poachers at some time of our lives. But she'll fetch
+round.”
+
+“Now, if I had been stung by ten adders I should hardly have lost a
+day's work for't,” said Grandfer Cantle. “Such is my spirit when I am on
+my mettle. But perhaps 'tis natural in a man trained for war. Yes, I've
+gone through a good deal; but nothing ever came amiss to me after I
+joined the Locals in four.” He shook his head and smiled at a mental
+picture of himself in uniform. “I was always first in the most
+galliantest scrapes in my younger days!”
+
+“I suppose that was because they always used to put the biggest fool
+afore,” said Fairway from the fire, beside which he knelt, blowing it
+with his breath.
+
+“D'ye think so, Timothy?” said Grandfer Cantle, coming forward to
+Fairway's side with sudden depression in his face. “Then a man may feel
+for years that he is good solid company, and be wrong about himself
+after all?”
+
+“Never mind that question, Grandfer. Stir your stumps and get some more
+sticks. 'Tis very nonsense of an old man to prattle so when life and
+death's in mangling.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Grandfer Cantle, with melancholy conviction. “Well,
+this is a bad night altogether for them that have done well in their
+time; and if I were ever such a dab at the hautboy or tenor viol, I
+shouldn't have the heart to play tunes upon 'em now.”
+
+Susan now arrived with the frying pan, when the live adder was killed
+and the heads of the three taken off. The remainders, being cut into
+lengths and split open, were tossed into the pan, which began hissing
+and crackling over the fire. Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from the
+carcases, whereupon Clym dipped the corner of his handkerchief into the
+liquid and anointed the wound.
+
+
+
+
+8--Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil
+
+
+In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth,
+had become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The
+consequences which might result from Clym's discovery that his mother
+had been turned from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable,
+and this was a quality in events which she hated as much as the
+dreadful.
+
+To be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome to her at any
+time, and this evening it was more irksome than usual by reason of
+the excitements of the past hours. The two visits had stirred her into
+restlessness. She was not wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness by
+the probability of appearing in an ill light in the discussion between
+Clym and his mother, but she was wrought to vexation, and her slumbering
+activities were quickened to the extent of wishing that she had opened
+the door. She had certainly believed that Clym was awake, and the excuse
+would be an honest one as far as it went; but nothing could save her
+from censure in refusing to answer at the first knock. Yet, instead of
+blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders
+of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who had framed her
+situation and ruled her lot.
+
+At this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by night than by day,
+and when Clym had been absent about an hour she suddenly resolved to go
+out in the direction of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting him on his
+return. When she reached the garden gate she heard wheels approaching,
+and looking round beheld her grandfather coming up in his car.
+
+“I can't stay a minute, thank ye,” he answered to her greeting. “I am
+driving to East Egdon; but I came round here just to tell you the news.
+Perhaps you have heard--about Mr. Wildeve's fortune?”
+
+“No,” said Eustacia blankly.
+
+“Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand pounds--uncle died
+in Canada, just after hearing that all his family, whom he was sending
+home, had gone to the bottom in the Cassiopeia; so Wildeve has come into
+everything, without in the least expecting it.”
+
+Eustacia stood motionless awhile. “How long has he known of this?” she
+asked.
+
+“Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew it at ten
+o'clock, when Charley came back. Now, he is what I call a lucky man.
+What a fool you were, Eustacia!”
+
+“In what way?” she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness.
+
+“Why, in not sticking to him when you had him.”
+
+“Had him, indeed!”
+
+“I did not know there had ever been anything between you till lately;
+and, faith, I should have been hot and strong against it if I had known;
+but since it seems that there was some sniffing between ye, why the
+deuce didn't you stick to him?”
+
+Eustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could say as much upon
+that subject as he if she chose.
+
+“And how is your poor purblind husband?” continued the old man. “Not a
+bad fellow either, as far as he goes.”
+
+“He is quite well.”
+
+“It is a good thing for his cousin what-d'ye-call-her? By George, you
+ought to have been in that galley, my girl! Now I must drive on. Do you
+want any assistance? What's mine is yours, you know.”
+
+“Thank you, Grandfather, we are not in want at present,” she said
+coldly. “Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly as a useful pastime,
+because he can do nothing else.”
+
+“He is paid for his pastime, isn't he? Three shillings a hundred, I
+heard.”
+
+“Clym has money,” she said, colouring, “but he likes to earn a little.”
+
+“Very well; good night.” And the captain drove on.
+
+When her grandfather was gone Eustacia went on her way mechanically;
+but her thoughts were no longer concerning her mother-in-law and Clym.
+Wildeve, notwithstanding his complaints against his fate, had been
+seized upon by destiny and placed in the sunshine once more. Eleven
+thousand pounds! From every Egdon point of view he was a rich man. In
+Eustacia's eyes, too, it was an ample sum--one sufficient to supply
+those wants of hers which had been stigmatized by Clym in his more
+austere moods as vain and luxurious. Though she was no lover of money
+she loved what money could bring; and the new accessories she
+imagined around him clothed Wildeve with a great deal of interest. She
+recollected now how quietly well-dressed he had been that morning--he
+had probably put on his newest suit, regardless of damage by briars and
+thorns. And then she thought of his manner towards herself.
+
+“O I see it, I see it,” she said. “How much he wishes he had me now,
+that he might give me all I desire!”
+
+In recalling the details of his glances and words--at the time scarcely
+regarded--it became plain to her how greatly they had been dictated
+by his knowledge of this new event. “Had he been a man to bear a jilt
+ill-will he would have told me of his good fortune in crowing tones;
+instead of doing that he mentioned not a word, in deference to my
+misfortunes, and merely implied that he loved me still, as one superior
+to him.”
+
+Wildeve's silence that day on what had happened to him was just the kind
+of behaviour calculated to make an impression on such a woman. Those
+delicate touches of good taste were, in fact, one of the strong points
+in his demeanour towards the other sex. The peculiarity of Wildeve was
+that, while at one time passionate, upbraiding, and resentful towards a
+woman, at another he would treat her with such unparalleled grace as
+to make previous neglect appear as no discourtesy, injury as no insult,
+interference as a delicate attention, and the ruin of her honour as
+excess of chivalry. This man, whose admiration today Eustacia had
+disregarded, whose good wishes she had scarcely taken the trouble to
+accept, whom she had shown out of the house by the back door, was
+the possessor of eleven thousand pounds--a man of fair professional
+education, and one who had served his articles with a civil engineer.
+
+So intent was Eustacia upon Wildeve's fortunes that she forgot how much
+closer to her own course were those of Clym; and instead of walking on
+to meet him at once she sat down upon a stone. She was disturbed in her
+reverie by a voice behind, and turning her head beheld the old lover and
+fortunate inheritor of wealth immediately beside her.
+
+She remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look might have told
+any man who knew her so well as Wildeve that she was thinking of him.
+
+“How did you come here?” she said in her clear low tone. “I thought you
+were at home.”
+
+“I went on to the village after leaving your garden; and now I have come
+back again--that's all. Which way are you walking, may I ask?”
+
+She waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. “I am going to meet
+my husband. I think I may possibly have got into trouble whilst you were
+with me today.”
+
+“How could that be?”
+
+“By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright.”
+
+“I hope that visit of mine did you no harm.”
+
+“None. It was not your fault,” she said quietly.
+
+By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on
+together, without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia
+broke silence by saying, “I assume I must congratulate you.”
+
+“On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since I
+didn't get something else, I must be content with getting that.”
+
+“You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn't you tell me today when
+you came?” she said in the tone of a neglected person. “I heard of it
+quite by accident.”
+
+“I did mean to tell you,” said Wildeve. “But I--well, I will speak
+frankly--I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your
+star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work,
+as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you
+would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I
+could not help feeling too that in many respects he was a richer man
+than I.”
+
+At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, “What, would you
+exchange with him--your fortune for me?”
+
+“I certainly would,” said Wildeve.
+
+“As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change
+the subject?”
+
+“Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you care
+to hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds, keep one
+thousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand travel for a
+year or so.”
+
+“Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?”
+
+“From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then I
+shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot weather
+comes on. In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a plan not
+yet settled, I shall go to Australia and round to India. By that time
+I shall have begun to have had enough of it. Then I shall probably come
+back to Paris again, and there I shall stay as long as I can afford to.”
+
+“Back to Paris again,” she murmured in a voice that was nearly a sigh.
+She had never once told Wildeve of the Parisian desires which Clym's
+description had sown in her; yet here was he involuntarily in a position
+to gratify them. “You think a good deal of Paris?” she added.
+
+“Yes. In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot of the world.”
+
+“And in mine! And Thomasin will go with you?”
+
+“Yes, if she cares to. She may prefer to stay at home.”
+
+“So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!”
+
+“I suppose you will. But we know whose fault that is.”
+
+“I am not blaming you,” she said quickly.
+
+“Oh, I thought you were. If ever you SHOULD be inclined to blame me,
+think of a certain evening by Rainbarrow, when you promised to meet me
+and did not. You sent me a letter; and my heart ached to read that as
+I hope yours never will. That was one point of divergence. I then did
+something in haste.... But she is a good woman, and I will say no more.”
+
+“I know that the blame was on my side that time,” said Eustacia. “But it
+had not always been so. However, it is my misfortune to be too sudden in
+feeling. O, Damon, don't reproach me any more--I can't bear that.”
+
+They went on silently for a distance of two or three miles, when
+Eustacia said suddenly, “Haven't you come out of your way, Mr. Wildeve?”
+
+“My way is anywhere tonight. I will go with you as far as the hill on
+which we can see Blooms-End, as it is getting late for you to be alone.”
+
+“Don't trouble. I am not obliged to be out at all. I think I would
+rather you did not accompany me further. This sort of thing would have
+an odd look if known.”
+
+“Very well, I will leave you.” He took her hand unexpectedly, and kissed
+it--for the first time since her marriage. “What light is that on the
+hill?” he added, as it were to hide the caress.
+
+She looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding from the open side
+of a hovel a little way before them. The hovel, which she had hitherto
+always found empty, seemed to be inhabited now.
+
+“Since you have come so far,” said Eustacia, “will you see me safely
+past that hut? I thought I should have met Clym somewhere about here,
+but as he doesn't appear I will hasten on and get to Blooms-End before
+he leaves.”
+
+They advanced to the turf-shed, and when they got near it the firelight
+and the lantern inside showed distinctly enough the form of a woman
+reclining on a bed of fern, a group of heath men and women standing
+around her. Eustacia did not recognize Mrs. Yeobright in the reclining
+figure, nor Clym as one of the standers-by till she came close. Then
+she quickly pressed her hand up on Wildeve's arm and signified to him to
+come back from the open side of the shed into the shadow.
+
+“It is my husband and his mother,” she whispered in an agitated voice.
+“What can it mean? Will you step forward and tell me?”
+
+Wildeve left her side and went to the back wall of the hut. Presently
+Eustacia perceived that he was beckoning to her, and she advanced and
+joined him.
+
+“It is a serious case,” said Wildeve.
+
+From their position they could hear what was proceeding inside.
+
+“I cannot think where she could have been going,” said Clym to someone.
+“She had evidently walked a long way, but even when she was able to
+speak just now she would not tell me where. What do you really think of
+her?”
+
+“There is a great deal to fear,” was gravely answered, in a voice which
+Eustacia recognized as that of the only surgeon in the district. “She
+has suffered somewhat from the bite of the adder; but it is exhaustion
+which has overpowered her. My impression is that her walk must have been
+exceptionally long.”
+
+“I used to tell her not to overwalk herself this weather,” said Clym,
+with distress. “Do you think we did well in using the adder's fat?”
+
+“Well, it is a very ancient remedy--the old remedy of the
+viper-catchers, I believe,” replied the doctor. “It is mentioned as
+an infallible ointment by Hoffman, Mead, and I think the Abbé Fontana.
+Undoubtedly it was as good a thing as you could do; though I question if
+some other oils would not have been equally efficacious.”
+
+“Come here, come here!” was then rapidly said in anxious female tones,
+and Clym and the doctor could be heard rushing forward from the back
+part of the shed to where Mrs. Yeobright lay.
+
+“Oh, what is it?” whispered Eustacia.
+
+“'Twas Thomasin who spoke,” said Wildeve. “Then they have fetched her. I
+wonder if I had better go in--yet it might do harm.”
+
+For a long time there was utter silence among the group within; and it
+was broken at last by Clym saying, in an agonized voice, “O Doctor, what
+does it mean?”
+
+The doctor did not reply at once; ultimately he said, “She is sinking
+fast. Her heart was previously affected, and physical exhaustion has
+dealt the finishing blow.”
+
+Then there was a weeping of women, then waiting, then hushed
+exclamations, then a strange gasping sound, then a painful stillness.
+
+“It is all over,” said the doctor.
+
+Further back in the hut the cotters whispered, “Mrs. Yeobright is dead.”
+
+Almost at the same moment the two watchers observed the form of a
+small old-fashioned child entering at the open side of the shed. Susan
+Nunsuch, whose boy it was, went forward to the opening and silently
+beckoned to him to go back.
+
+“I've got something to tell 'ee, Mother,” he cried in a shrill tone.
+“That woman asleep there walked along with me today; and she said I was
+to say that I had seed her, and she was a broken-hearted woman and cast
+off by her son, and then I came on home.”
+
+A confused sob as from a man was heard within, upon which Eustacia
+gasped faintly, “That's Clym--I must go to him--yet dare I do it?
+No--come away!”
+
+When they had withdrawn from the neighbourhood of the shed she said
+huskily, “I am to blame for this. There is evil in store for me.”
+
+“Was she not admitted to your house after all?” Wildeve inquired.
+
+“No, and that's where it all lies! Oh, what shall I do! I shall not
+intrude upon them--I shall go straight home. Damon, good-bye! I cannot
+speak to you any more now.”
+
+They parted company; and when Eustacia had reached the next hill she
+looked back. A melancholy procession was wending its way by the light of
+the lantern from the hut towards Blooms-End. Wildeve was nowhere to be
+seen.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIVE -- THE DISCOVERY
+
+
+
+
+1--“Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery”
+
+
+One evening, about three weeks after the funeral of Mrs. Yeobright, when
+the silver face of the moon sent a bundle of beams directly upon the
+floor of Clym's house at Alderworth, a woman came forth from within. She
+reclined over the garden gate as if to refresh herself awhile. The pale
+lunar touches which make beauties of hags lent divinity to this face,
+already beautiful.
+
+She had not long been there when a man came up the road and with some
+hesitation said to her, “How is he tonight, ma'am, if you please?”
+
+“He is better, though still very unwell, Humphrey,” replied Eustacia.
+
+“Is he light-headed, ma'am?”
+
+“No. He is quite sensible now.”
+
+“Do he rave about his mother just the same, poor fellow?” continued
+Humphrey.
+
+“Just as much, though not quite so wildly,” she said in a low voice.
+
+“It was very unfortunate, ma'am, that the boy Johnny should ever ha'
+told him his mother's dying words, about her being broken-hearted and
+cast off by her son. 'Twas enough to upset any man alive.”
+
+Eustacia made no reply beyond that of a slight catch in her breath, as
+of one who fain would speak but could not; and Humphrey, declining her
+invitation to come in, went away.
+
+Eustacia turned, entered the house, and ascended to the front bedroom,
+where a shaded light was burning. In the bed lay Clym, pale, haggard,
+wide awake, tossing to one side and to the other, his eyes lit by a hot
+light, as if the fire in their pupils were burning up their substance.
+
+“Is it you, Eustacia?” he said as she sat down.
+
+“Yes, Clym. I have been down to the gate. The moon is shining
+beautifully, and there is not a leaf stirring.”
+
+“Shining, is it? What's the moon to a man like me? Let it shine--let
+anything be, so that I never see another day!... Eustacia, I don't know
+where to look--my thoughts go through me like swords. O, if any man
+wants to make himself immortal by painting a picture of wretchedness,
+let him come here!”
+
+“Why do you say so?”
+
+“I cannot help feeling that I did my best to kill her.”
+
+“No, Clym.”
+
+“Yes, it was so; it is useless to excuse me! My conduct to her was too
+hideous--I made no advances; and she could not bring herself to forgive
+me. Now she is dead! If I had only shown myself willing to make it up
+with her sooner, and we had been friends, and then she had died, it
+wouldn't be so hard to bear. But I never went near her house, so
+she never came near mine, and didn't know how welcome she would have
+been--that's what troubles me. She did not know I was going to her house
+that very night, for she was too insensible to understand me. If she had
+only come to see me! I longed that she would. But it was not to be.”
+
+There escaped from Eustacia one of those shivering sighs which used to
+shake her like a pestilent blast. She had not yet told.
+
+But Yeobright was too deeply absorbed in the ramblings incidental to
+his remorseful state to notice her. During his illness he had been
+continually talking thus. Despair had been added to his original grief
+by the unfortunate disclosure of the boy who had received the last
+words of Mrs. Yeobright--words too bitterly uttered in an hour of
+misapprehension. Then his distress had overwhelmed him, and he longed
+for death as a field labourer longs for the shade. It was the pitiful
+sight of a man standing in the very focus of sorrow. He continually
+bewailed his tardy journey to his mother's house, because it was an
+error which could never be rectified, and insisted that he must have
+been horribly perverted by some fiend not to have thought before that it
+was his duty to go to her, since she did not come to him. He would
+ask Eustacia to agree with him in his self-condemnation; and when she,
+seared inwardly by a secret she dared not tell, declared that she could
+not give an opinion, he would say, “That's because you didn't know my
+mother's nature. She was always ready to forgive if asked to do so;
+but I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that made
+her unyielding. Yet not unyielding--she was proud and reserved, no
+more.... Yes, I can understand why she held out against me so long. She
+was waiting for me. I dare say she said a hundred times in her sorrow,
+'What a return he makes for all the sacrifices I have made for him!' I
+never went to her! When I set out to visit her it was too late. To think
+of that is nearly intolerable!”
+
+Sometimes his condition had been one of utter remorse, unsoftened by a
+single tear of pure sorrow: and then he writhed as he lay, fevered
+far more by thought than by physical ills. “If I could only get one
+assurance that she did not die in a belief that I was resentful,” he
+said one day when in this mood, “it would be better to think of than a
+hope of heaven. But that I cannot do.”
+
+“You give yourself up too much to this wearying despair,” said Eustacia.
+“Other men's mothers have died.”
+
+“That doesn't make the loss of mine less. Yet it is less the loss than
+the circumstances of the loss. I sinned against her, and on that account
+there is no light for me.”
+
+“She sinned against you, I think.”
+
+“No, she did not. I committed the guilt; and may the whole burden be
+upon my head!”
+
+“I think you might consider twice before you say that,” Eustacia
+replied. “Single men have, no doubt, a right to curse themselves as much
+as they please; but men with wives involve two in the doom they pray
+down.”
+
+“I am in too sorry a state to understand what you are refining on,” said
+the wretched man. “Day and night shout at me, 'You have helped to kill
+her.' But in loathing myself I may, I own, be unjust to you, my poor
+wife. Forgive me for it, Eustacia, for I scarcely know what I do.”
+
+Eustacia was always anxious to avoid the sight of her husband in such
+a state as this, which had become as dreadful to her as the trial scene
+was to Judas Iscariot. It brought before her eyes the spectre of a
+worn-out woman knocking at a door which she would not open; and she
+shrank from contemplating it. Yet it was better for Yeobright himself
+when he spoke openly of his sharp regret, for in silence he endured
+infinitely more, and would sometimes remain so long in a tense, brooding
+mood, consuming himself by the gnawing of his thought, that it was
+imperatively necessary to make him talk aloud, that his grief might in
+some degree expend itself in the effort.
+
+Eustacia had not been long indoors after her look at the moonlight when
+a soft footstep came up to the house, and Thomasin was announced by the
+woman downstairs.
+
+“Ah, Thomasin! Thank you for coming tonight,” said Clym when she entered
+the room. “Here am I, you see. Such a wretched spectacle am I, that I
+shrink from being seen by a single friend, and almost from you.”
+
+“You must not shrink from me, dear Clym,” said Thomasin earnestly, in
+that sweet voice of hers which came to a sufferer like fresh air into a
+Black Hole. “Nothing in you can ever shock me or drive me away. I have
+been here before, but you don't remember it.”
+
+“Yes, I do; I am not delirious, Thomasin, nor have I been so at all.
+Don't you believe that if they say so. I am only in great misery at what
+I have done, and that, with the weakness, makes me seem mad. But it
+has not upset my reason. Do you think I should remember all about my
+mother's death if I were out of my mind? No such good luck. Two months
+and a half, Thomasin, the last of her life, did my poor mother live
+alone, distracted and mourning because of me; yet she was unvisited
+by me, though I was living only six miles off. Two months and a
+half--seventy-five days did the sun rise and set upon her in that
+deserted state which a dog didn't deserve! Poor people who had nothing
+in common with her would have cared for her, and visited her had they
+known her sickness and loneliness; but I, who should have been all to
+her, stayed away like a cur. If there is any justice in God let Him kill
+me now. He has nearly blinded me, but that is not enough. If He would
+only strike me with more pain I would believe in Him forever!”
+
+“Hush, hush! O, pray, Clym, don't, don't say it!” implored Thomasin,
+affrighted into sobs and tears; while Eustacia, at the other side of
+the room, though her pale face remained calm, writhed in her chair. Clym
+went on without heeding his cousin.
+
+“But I am not worth receiving further proof even of Heaven's
+reprobation. Do you think, Thomasin, that she knew me--that she did not
+die in that horrid mistaken notion about my not forgiving her, which I
+can't tell you how she acquired? If you could only assure me of that! Do
+you think so, Eustacia? Do speak to me.”
+
+“I think I can assure you that she knew better at last,” said Thomasin.
+The pallid Eustacia said nothing.
+
+“Why didn't she come to my house? I would have taken her in and showed
+her how I loved her in spite of all. But she never came; and I didn't go
+to her, and she died on the heath like an animal kicked out, nobody to
+help her till it was too late. If you could have seen her, Thomasin, as
+I saw her--a poor dying woman, lying in the dark upon the bare ground,
+moaning, nobody near, believing she was utterly deserted by all the
+world, it would have moved you to anguish, it would have moved a brute.
+And this poor woman my mother! No wonder she said to the child, 'You
+have seen a broken-hearted woman.' What a state she must have been
+brought to, to say that! and who can have done it but I? It is too
+dreadful to think of, and I wish I could be punished more heavily than I
+am. How long was I what they called out of my senses?”
+
+“A week, I think.”
+
+“And then I became calm.”
+
+“Yes, for four days.”
+
+“And now I have left off being calm.”
+
+“But try to be quiet--please do, and you will soon be strong. If you
+could remove that impression from your mind--”
+
+“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “But I don't want to get strong. What's
+the use of my getting well? It would be better for me if I die, and it
+would certainly be better for Eustacia. Is Eustacia there?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It would be better for you, Eustacia, if I were to die?”
+
+“Don't press such a question, dear Clym.”
+
+“Well, it really is but a shadowy supposition; for unfortunately I am
+going to live. I feel myself getting better. Thomasin, how long are
+you going to stay at the inn, now that all this money has come to your
+husband?”
+
+“Another month or two, probably; until my illness is over. We cannot get
+off till then. I think it will be a month or more.”
+
+“Yes, yes. Of course. Ah, Cousin Tamsie, you will get over your
+trouble--one little month will take you through it, and bring something
+to console you; but I shall never get over mine, and no consolation will
+come!”
+
+“Clym, you are unjust to yourself. Depend upon it, Aunt thought kindly
+of you. I know that, if she had lived, you would have been reconciled
+with her.”
+
+“But she didn't come to see me, though I asked her, before I married, if
+she would come. Had she come, or had I gone there, she would never have
+died saying, 'I am a broken-hearted woman, cast off by my son.' My door
+has always been open to her--a welcome here has always awaited her. But
+that she never came to see.”
+
+“You had better not talk any more now, Clym,” said Eustacia faintly from
+the other part of the room, for the scene was growing intolerable to
+her.
+
+“Let me talk to you instead for the little time I shall be here,”
+ Thomasin said soothingly. “Consider what a one-sided way you have of
+looking at the matter, Clym. When she said that to the little boy you
+had not found her and taken her into your arms; and it might have been
+uttered in a moment of bitterness. It was rather like Aunt to say things
+in haste. She sometimes used to speak so to me. Though she did not come
+I am convinced that she thought of coming to see you. Do you suppose
+a man's mother could live two or three months without one forgiving
+thought? She forgave me; and why should she not have forgiven you?”
+
+“You laboured to win her round; I did nothing. I, who was going to teach
+people the higher secrets of happiness, did not know how to keep out of
+that gross misery which the most untaught are wise enough to avoid.”
+
+“How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?” said Eustacia.
+
+“Damon set me down at the end of the lane. He has driven into East Egdon
+on business, and he will come and pick me up by-and-by.”
+
+Accordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels. Wildeve had come,
+and was waiting outside with his horse and gig.
+
+“Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes,” said Thomasin.
+
+“I will run down myself,” said Eustacia.
+
+She went down. Wildeve had alighted, and was standing before the horse's
+head when Eustacia opened the door. He did not turn for a moment,
+thinking the comer Thomasin. Then he looked, startled ever so little,
+and said one word: “Well?”
+
+“I have not yet told him,” she replied in a whisper.
+
+“Then don't do so till he is well--it will be fatal. You are ill
+yourself.”
+
+“I am wretched.... O Damon,” she said, bursting into tears, “I--I can't
+tell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly bear this. I can tell nobody of
+my trouble--nobody knows of it but you.”
+
+“Poor girl!” said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress, and at
+last led on so far as to take her hand. “It is hard, when you have done
+nothing to deserve it, that you should have got involved in such a web
+as this. You were not made for these sad scenes. I am to blame most. If
+I could only have saved you from it all!”
+
+“But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour
+after hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her
+death, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all,
+drives me into cold despair. I don't know what to do. Should I tell him
+or should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that. O, I want to
+tell him; and yet I am afraid. If he finds it out he must surely kill me,
+for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings now. 'Beware the
+fury of a patient man' sounds day by day in my ears as I watch him.”
+
+“Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance. And when you tell,
+you must only tell part--for his own sake.”
+
+“Which part should I keep back?”
+
+Wildeve paused. “That I was in the house at the time,” he said in a low
+tone.
+
+“Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has been whispered. How much
+easier are hasty actions than speeches that will excuse them!”
+
+“If he were only to die--” Wildeve murmured.
+
+“Do not think of it! I would not buy hope of immunity by so cowardly
+a desire even if I hated him. Now I am going up to him again. Thomasin
+bade me tell you she would be down in a few minutes. Good-bye.”
+
+She returned, and Thomasin soon appeared. When she was seated in the gig
+with her husband, and the horse was turning to go off, Wildeve lifted
+his eyes to the bedroom windows. Looking from one of them he could
+discern a pale, tragic face watching him drive away. It was Eustacia's.
+
+
+
+
+2--A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding
+
+
+Clym's grief became mitigated by wearing itself out. His strength
+returned, and a month after the visit of Thomasin he might have been
+seen walking about the garden. Endurance and despair, equanimity and
+gloom, the tints of health and the pallor of death, mingled weirdly
+in his face. He was now unnaturally silent upon all of the past that
+related to his mother; and though Eustacia knew that he was thinking
+of it none the less, she was only too glad to escape the topic ever to
+bring it up anew. When his mind had been weaker his heart had led him to
+speak out; but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he sank into
+taciturnity.
+
+One evening when he was thus standing in the garden, abstractedly
+spudding up a weed with his stick, a bony figure turned the corner of
+the house and came up to him.
+
+“Christian, isn't it?” said Clym. “I am glad you have found me out. I
+shall soon want you to go to Blooms-End and assist me in putting the
+house in order. I suppose it is all locked up as I left it?”
+
+“Yes, Mister Clym.”
+
+“Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?”
+
+“Yes, without a drop o' rain, thank God. But I was coming to tell 'ee of
+something else which is quite different from what we have lately had in
+the family. I am sent by the rich gentleman at the Woman, that we used
+to call the landlord, to tell 'ee that Mrs. Wildeve is doing well of a
+girl, which was born punctually at one o'clock at noon, or a few minutes
+more or less; and 'tis said that expecting of this increase is what have
+kept 'em there since they came into their money.”
+
+“And she is getting on well, you say?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Only Mr. Wildeve is twanky because 'tisn't a boy--that's what
+they say in the kitchen, but I was not supposed to notice that.”
+
+“Christian, now listen to me.”
+
+“Yes, sure, Mr. Yeobright.”
+
+“Did you see my mother the day before she died?”
+
+“No, I did not.”
+
+Yeobright's face expressed disappointment.
+
+“But I zeed her the morning of the same day she died.”
+
+Clym's look lighted up. “That's nearer still to my meaning,” he said.
+
+“Yes, I know 'twas the same day; for she said, 'I be going to see him,
+Christian; so I shall not want any vegetables brought in for dinner.'”
+
+“See whom?”
+
+“See you. She was going to your house, you understand.”
+
+Yeobright regarded Christian with intense surprise. “Why did you never
+mention this?” he said. “Are you sure it was my house she was coming
+to?”
+
+“O yes. I didn't mention it because I've never zeed you lately. And as
+she didn't get there it was all nought, and nothing to tell.”
+
+“And I have been wondering why she should have walked in the heath on
+that hot day! Well, did she say what she was coming for? It is a thing,
+Christian, I am very anxious to know.”
+
+“Yes, Mister Clym. She didn't say it to me, though I think she did to
+one here and there.”
+
+“Do you know one person to whom she spoke of it?”
+
+“There is one man, please, sir, but I hope you won't mention my name
+to him, as I have seen him in strange places, particular in dreams. One
+night last summer he glared at me like Famine and Sword, and it made
+me feel so low that I didn't comb out my few hairs for two days. He was
+standing, as it might be, Mister Yeobright, in the middle of the path to
+Mistover, and your mother came up, looking as pale--”
+
+“Yes, when was that?”
+
+“Last summer, in my dream.”
+
+“Pooh! Who's the man?”
+
+“Diggory, the reddleman. He called upon her and sat with her the evening
+before she set out to see you. I hadn't gone home from work when he came
+up to the gate.”
+
+“I must see Venn--I wish I had known it before,” said Clym anxiously. “I
+wonder why he has not come to tell me?”
+
+“He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not be likely to know
+you wanted him.”
+
+“Christian,” said Clym, “you must go and find Venn. I am otherwise
+engaged, or I would go myself. Find him at once, and tell him I want to
+speak to him.”
+
+“I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day,” said Christian, looking
+dubiously round at the declining light; “but as to night-time, never is
+such a bad hand as I, Mister Yeobright.”
+
+“Search the heath when you will, so that you bring him soon. Bring him
+tomorrow, if you can.”
+
+Christian then departed. The morrow came, but no Venn. In the evening
+Christian arrived, looking very weary. He had been searching all day,
+and had heard nothing of the reddleman.
+
+“Inquire as much as you can tomorrow without neglecting your work,” said
+Yeobright. “Don't come again till you have found him.”
+
+The next day Yeobright set out for the old house at Blooms-End, which,
+with the garden, was now his own. His severe illness had hindered all
+preparations for his removal thither; but it had become necessary that
+he should go and overlook its contents, as administrator to his mother's
+little property; for which purpose he decided to pass the next night on
+the premises.
+
+He journeyed onward, not quickly or decisively, but in the slow walk
+of one who has been awakened from a stupefying sleep. It was early
+afternoon when he reached the valley. The expression of the place, the
+tone of the hour, were precisely those of many such occasions in days
+gone by; and these antecedent similarities fostered the illusion that
+she, who was there no longer, would come out to welcome him. The garden
+gate was locked and the shutters were closed, just as he himself had
+left them on the evening after the funeral. He unlocked the gate, and
+found that a spider had already constructed a large web, tying the door
+to the lintel, on the supposition that it was never to be opened again.
+When he had entered the house and flung back the shutters he set about
+his task of overhauling the cupboards and closets, burning papers, and
+considering how best to arrange the place for Eustacia's reception,
+until such time as he might be in a position to carry out his
+long-delayed scheme, should that time ever arrive.
+
+As he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined for the
+alterations which would have to be made in the time-honoured furnishing
+of his parents and grandparents, to suit Eustacia's modern ideas. The
+gaunt oak-cased clock, with the picture of the Ascension on the
+door panel and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes on the base; his
+grandmother's corner cupboard with the glass door, through which the
+spotted china was visible; the dumb-waiter; the wooden tea trays; the
+hanging fountain with the brass tap--whither would these venerable
+articles have to be banished?
+
+He noticed that the flowers in the window had died for want of water,
+and he placed them out upon the ledge, that they might be taken away.
+While thus engaged he heard footsteps on the gravel without, and
+somebody knocked at the door.
+
+Yeobright opened it, and Venn was standing before him.
+
+“Good morning,” said the reddleman. “Is Mrs. Yeobright at home?”
+
+Yeobright looked upon the ground. “Then you have not seen Christian or
+any of the Egdon folks?” he said.
+
+“No. I have only just returned after a long stay away. I called here the
+day before I left.”
+
+“And you have heard nothing?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“My mother is--dead.”
+
+“Dead!” said Venn mechanically.
+
+“Her home now is where I shouldn't mind having mine.”
+
+Venn regarded him, and then said, “If I didn't see your face I could
+never believe your words. Have you been ill?”
+
+“I had an illness.”
+
+“Well, the change! When I parted from her a month ago everything seemed
+to say that she was going to begin a new life.”
+
+“And what seemed came true.”
+
+“You say right, no doubt. Trouble has taught you a deeper vein of talk
+than mine. All I meant was regarding her life here. She has died too
+soon.”
+
+“Perhaps through my living too long. I have had a bitter experience on
+that score this last month, Diggory. But come in; I have been wanting to
+see you.”
+
+He conducted the reddleman into the large room where the dancing had
+taken place the previous Christmas, and they sat down in the settle
+together. “There's the cold fireplace, you see,” said Clym. “When that
+half-burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive! Little has
+been changed here yet. I can do nothing. My life creeps like a snail.”
+
+“How came she to die?” said Venn.
+
+Yeobright gave him some particulars of her illness and death, and
+continued: “After this no kind of pain will ever seem more than an
+indisposition to me. I began saying that I wanted to ask you something,
+but I stray from subjects like a drunken man. I am anxious to know what
+my mother said to you when she last saw you. You talked with her a long
+time, I think?”
+
+“I talked with her more than half an hour.”
+
+“About me?”
+
+“Yes. And it must have been on account of what we said that she was on
+the heath. Without question she was coming to see you.”
+
+“But why should she come to see me if she felt so bitterly against me?
+There's the mystery.”
+
+“Yet I know she quite forgave 'ee.”
+
+“But, Diggory--would a woman, who had quite forgiven her son, say,
+when she felt herself ill on the way to his house, that she was
+broken-hearted because of his ill-usage? Never!”
+
+“What I know is that she didn't blame you at all. She blamed herself for
+what had happened, and only herself. I had it from her own lips.”
+
+“You had it from her lips that I had NOT ill-treated her; and at the
+same time another had it from her lips that I HAD ill-treated her? My
+mother was no impulsive woman who changed her opinion every hour without
+reason. How can it be, Venn, that she should have told such different
+stories in close succession?”
+
+“I cannot say. It is certainly odd, when she had forgiven you, and had
+forgiven your wife, and was going to see ye on purpose to make friends.”
+
+“If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this
+incomprehensible thing!... Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only
+allowed to hold conversation with the dead--just once, a bare minute,
+even through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison--what we
+might learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And
+this mystery--I should then be at the bottom of it at once. But the
+grave has forever shut her in; and how shall it be found out now?”
+
+No reply was returned by his companion, since none could be given; and
+when Venn left, a few minutes later, Clym had passed from the dullness
+of sorrow to the fluctuation of carking incertitude.
+
+He continued in the same state all the afternoon. A bed was made up for
+him in the same house by a neighbour, that he might not have to return
+again the next day; and when he retired to rest in the deserted place it
+was only to remain awake hour after hour thinking the same thoughts. How
+to discover a solution to this riddle of death seemed a query of more
+importance than highest problems of the living. There was housed in his
+memory a vivid picture of the face of a little boy as he entered the
+hovel where Clym's mother lay. The round eyes, eager gaze, the piping
+voice which enunciated the words, had operated like stilettos on his
+brain.
+
+A visit to the boy suggested itself as a means of gleaning new
+particulars; though it might be quite unproductive. To probe a child's
+mind after the lapse of six weeks, not for facts which the child had
+seen and understood, but to get at those which were in their nature
+beyond him, did not promise much; yet when every obvious channel is
+blocked we grope towards the small and obscure. There was nothing else
+left to do; after that he would allow the enigma to drop into the abyss
+of undiscoverable things.
+
+It was about daybreak when he had reached this decision, and he at once
+arose. He locked up the house and went out into the green patch which
+merged in heather further on. In front of the white garden-palings the
+path branched into three like a broad arrow. The road to the right
+led to the Quiet Woman and its neighbourhood; the middle track led to
+Mistover Knap; the left-hand track led over the hill to another part
+of Mistover, where the child lived. On inclining into the latter path
+Yeobright felt a creeping chilliness, familiar enough to most people,
+and probably caused by the unsunned morning air. In after days he
+thought of it as a thing of singular significance.
+
+When Yeobright reached the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, the mother of the
+boy he sought, he found that the inmates were not yet astir. But in
+upland hamlets the transition from a-bed to abroad is surprisingly swift
+and easy. There no dense partition of yawns and toilets divides humanity
+by night from humanity by day. Yeobright tapped at the upper windowsill,
+which he could reach with his walking stick; and in three or four
+minutes the woman came down.
+
+It was not till this moment that Clym recollected her to be the person
+who had behaved so barbarously to Eustacia. It partly explained the
+insuavity with which the woman greeted him. Moreover, the boy had been
+ailing again; and Susan now, as ever since the night when he had
+been pressed into Eustacia's service at the bonfire, attributed his
+indispositions to Eustacia's influence as a witch. It was one of those
+sentiments which lurk like moles underneath the visible surface of
+manners, and may have been kept alive by Eustacia's entreaty to the
+captain, at the time that he had intended to prosecute Susan for the
+pricking in church, to let the matter drop; which he accordingly had
+done.
+
+Yeobright overcame his repugnance, for Susan had at least borne his
+mother no ill-will. He asked kindly for the boy; but her manner did not
+improve.
+
+“I wish to see him,” continued Yeobright, with some hesitation, “to ask
+him if he remembers anything more of his walk with my mother than what
+he has previously told.”
+
+She regarded him in a peculiar and criticizing manner. To anybody but a
+half-blind man it would have said, “You want another of the knocks which
+have already laid you so low.”
+
+She called the boy downstairs, asked Clym to sit down on a stool, and
+continued, “Now, Johnny, tell Mr. Yeobright anything you can call to
+mind.”
+
+“You have not forgotten how you walked with the poor lady on that hot
+day?” said Clym.
+
+“No,” said the boy.
+
+“And what she said to you?”
+
+The boy repeated the exact words he had used on entering the hut.
+Yeobright rested his elbow on the table and shaded his face with his
+hand; and the mother looked as if she wondered how a man could want more
+of what had stung him so deeply.
+
+“She was going to Alderworth when you first met her?”
+
+“No; she was coming away.”
+
+“That can't be.”
+
+“Yes; she walked along with me. I was coming away, too.”
+
+“Then where did you first see her?”
+
+“At your house.”
+
+“Attend, and speak the truth!” said Clym sternly.
+
+“Yes, sir; at your house was where I seed her first.”
+
+Clym started up, and Susan smiled in an expectant way which did not
+embellish her face; it seemed to mean, “Something sinister is coming!”
+
+“What did she do at my house?”
+
+“She went and sat under the trees at the Devil's Bellows.”
+
+“Good God! this is all news to me!”
+
+“You never told me this before?” said Susan.
+
+“No, Mother; because I didn't like to tell 'ee I had been so far. I was
+picking blackhearts, and went further than I meant.”
+
+“What did she do then?” said Yeobright.
+
+“Looked at a man who came up and went into your house.”
+
+“That was myself--a furze-cutter, with brambles in his hand.”
+
+“No; 'twas not you. 'Twas a gentleman. You had gone in afore.”
+
+“Who was he?”
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+“Now tell me what happened next.”
+
+“The poor lady went and knocked at your door, and the lady with black
+hair looked out of the side window at her.”
+
+The boy's mother turned to Clym and said, “This is something you didn't
+expect?”
+
+Yeobright took no more notice of her than if he had been of stone. “Go
+on, go on,” he said hoarsely to the boy.
+
+“And when she saw the young lady look out of the window the old lady
+knocked again; and when nobody came she took up the furze-hook and
+looked at it, and put it down again, and then she looked at the
+faggot-bonds; and then she went away, and walked across to me, and
+blowed her breath very hard, like this. We walked on together, she and
+I, and I talked to her and she talked to me a bit, but not much, because
+she couldn't blow her breath.”
+
+“O!” murmured Clym, in a low tone, and bowed his head. “Let's have
+more,” he said.
+
+“She couldn't talk much, and she couldn't walk; and her face was, O so
+queer!”
+
+“How was her face?”
+
+“Like yours is now.”
+
+The woman looked at Yeobright, and beheld him colourless, in a cold
+sweat. “Isn't there meaning in it?” she said stealthily. “What do you
+think of her now?”
+
+“Silence!” said Clym fiercely. And, turning to the boy, “And then you
+left her to die?”
+
+“No,” said the woman, quickly and angrily. “He did not leave her to die!
+She sent him away. Whoever says he forsook her says what's not true.”
+
+“Trouble no more about that,” answered Clym, with a quivering mouth.
+“What he did is a trifle in comparison with what he saw. Door kept
+shut, did you say? Kept shut, she looking out of window? Good heart of
+God!--what does it mean?”
+
+The child shrank away from the gaze of his questioner.
+
+“He said so,” answered the mother, “and Johnny's a God-fearing boy and
+tells no lies.”
+
+“'Cast off by my son!' No, by my best life, dear mother, it is not so!
+But by your son's, your son's--May all murderesses get the torment they
+deserve!”
+
+With these words Yeobright went forth from the little dwelling. The
+pupils of his eyes, fixed steadfastly on blankness, were vaguely lit
+with an icy shine; his mouth had passed into the phase more or less
+imaginatively rendered in studies of Oedipus. The strangest deeds were
+possible to his mood. But they were not possible to his situation.
+Instead of there being before him the pale face of Eustacia, and a
+masculine shape unknown, there was only the imperturbable countenance
+of the heath, which, having defied the cataclysmal onsets of centuries,
+reduced to insignificance by its seamed and antique features the wildest
+turmoil of a single man.
+
+
+
+
+3--Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning
+
+
+A consciousness of a vast impassivity in all which lay around him took
+possession even of Yeobright in his wild walk towards Alderworth. He had
+once before felt in his own person this overpowering of the fervid by
+the inanimate; but then it had tended to enervate a passion far sweeter
+than that which at present pervaded him. It was once when he stood
+parting from Eustacia in the moist still levels beyond the hills.
+
+But dismissing all this he went onward home, and came to the front of
+his house. The blinds of Eustacia's bedroom were still closely drawn,
+for she was no early riser. All the life visible was in the shape of
+a solitary thrush cracking a small snail upon the door-stone for his
+breakfast, and his tapping seemed a loud noise in the general silence
+which prevailed; but on going to the door Clym found it unfastened, the
+young girl who attended upon Eustacia being astir in the back part of
+the premises. Yeobright entered and went straight to his wife's room.
+
+The noise of his arrival must have aroused her, for when he opened the
+door she was standing before the looking glass in her nightdress, the
+ends of her hair gathered into one hand, with which she was coiling the
+whole mass round her head, previous to beginning toilette operations.
+She was not a woman given to speaking first at a meeting, and she
+allowed Clym to walk across in silence, without turning her head.
+He came behind her, and she saw his face in the glass. It was ashy,
+haggard, and terrible. Instead of starting towards him in sorrowful
+surprise, as even Eustacia, undemonstrative wife as she was, would have
+done in days before she burdened herself with a secret, she remained
+motionless, looking at him in the glass. And while she looked the
+carmine flush with which warmth and sound sleep had suffused her cheeks
+and neck dissolved from view, and the deathlike pallor in his face
+flew across into hers. He was close enough to see this, and the sight
+instigated his tongue.
+
+“You know what is the matter,” he said huskily. “I see it in your face.”
+
+Her hand relinquished the rope of hair and dropped to her side, and the
+pile of tresses, no longer supported, fell from the crown of her head
+about her shoulders and over the white nightgown. She made no reply.
+
+“Speak to me,” said Yeobright peremptorily.
+
+The blanching process did not cease in her, and her lips now became as
+white as her face. She turned to him and said, “Yes, Clym, I'll speak to
+you. Why do you return so early? Can I do anything for you?”
+
+“Yes, you can listen to me. It seems that my wife is not very well?”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Your face, my dear; your face. Or perhaps it is the pale morning light
+which takes your colour away? Now I am going to reveal a secret to you.
+Ha-ha!”
+
+“O, that is ghastly!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“Your laugh.”
+
+“There's reason for ghastliness. Eustacia, you have held my happiness in
+the hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it down!”
+
+She started back from the dressing-table, retreated a few steps from
+him, and looked him in the face. “Ah! you think to frighten me,” she
+said, with a slight laugh. “Is it worth while? I am undefended, and
+alone.”
+
+“How extraordinary!”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“As there is ample time I will tell you, though you know well enough.
+I mean that it is extraordinary that you should be alone in my absence.
+Tell me, now, where is he who was with you on the afternoon of the
+thirty-first of August? Under the bed? Up the chimney?”
+
+A shudder overcame her and shook the light fabric of her nightdress
+throughout. “I do not remember dates so exactly,” she said. “I cannot
+recollect that anybody was with me besides yourself.”
+
+“The day I mean,” said Yeobright, his voice growing louder and harsher,
+“was the day you shut the door against my mother and killed her. O, it
+is too much--too bad!” He leant over the footpiece of the bedstead for
+a few moments, with his back towards her; then rising again--“Tell me,
+tell me! tell me--do you hear?” he cried, rushing up to her and seizing
+her by the loose folds of her sleeve.
+
+The superstratum of timidity which often overlies those who are daring
+and defiant at heart had been passed through, and the mettlesome
+substance of the woman was reached. The red blood inundated her face,
+previously so pale.
+
+“What are you going to do?” she said in a low voice, regarding him with
+a proud smile. “You will not alarm me by holding on so; but it would be
+a pity to tear my sleeve.”
+
+Instead of letting go he drew her closer to him. “Tell me the
+particulars of--my mother's death,” he said in a hard, panting whisper;
+“or--I'll--I'll--”
+
+“Clym,” she answered slowly, “do you think you dare do anything to me
+that I dare not bear? But before you strike me listen. You will get
+nothing from me by a blow, even though it should kill me, as it probably
+will. But perhaps you do not wish me to speak--killing may be all you
+mean?”
+
+“Kill you! Do you expect it?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“No less degree of rage against me will match your previous grief for
+her.”
+
+“Phew--I shall not kill you,” he said contemptuously, as if under a
+sudden change of purpose. “I did think of it; but--I shall not. That
+would be making a martyr of you, and sending you to where she is; and
+I would keep you away from her till the universe come to an end, if I
+could.”
+
+“I almost wish you would kill me,” said she with gloomy bitterness.
+“It is with no strong desire, I assure you, that I play the part I have
+lately played on earth. You are no blessing, my husband.”
+
+“You shut the door--you looked out of the window upon her--you had a
+man in the house with you--you sent her away to die. The inhumanity--the
+treachery--I will not touch you--stand away from me--and confess every
+word!”
+
+“Never! I'll hold my tongue like the very death that I don't mind
+meeting, even though I can clear myself of half you believe by speaking.
+Yes. I will! Who of any dignity would take the trouble to clear cobwebs
+from a wild man's mind after such language as this? No; let him go on,
+and think his narrow thoughts, and run his head into the mire. I have
+other cares.”
+
+“'Tis too much--but I must spare you.”
+
+“Poor charity.”
+
+“By my wretched soul you sting me, Eustacia! I can keep it up, and hotly
+too. Now, then, madam, tell me his name!”
+
+“Never, I am resolved.”
+
+“How often does he write to you? Where does he put his letters--when
+does he meet you? Ah, his letters! Do you tell me his name?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Then I'll find it myself.” His eyes had fallen upon a small desk that
+stood near, on which she was accustomed to write her letters. He went to
+it. It was locked.
+
+“Unlock this!”
+
+“You have no right to say it. That's mine.”
+
+Without another word he seized the desk and dashed it to the floor. The
+hinge burst open, and a number of letters tumbled out.
+
+“Stay!” said Eustacia, stepping before him with more excitement than she
+had hitherto shown.
+
+“Come, come! stand away! I must see them.”
+
+She looked at the letters as they lay, checked her feeling and moved
+indifferently aside; when he gathered them up, and examined them.
+
+By no stretch of meaning could any but a harmless construction be placed
+upon a single one of the letters themselves. The solitary exception was
+an empty envelope directed to her, and the handwriting was Wildeve's.
+Yeobright held it up. Eustacia was doggedly silent.
+
+“Can you read, madam? Look at this envelope. Doubtless we shall find
+more soon, and what was inside them. I shall no doubt be gratified by
+learning in good time what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a
+certain trade my lady is.”
+
+“Do you say it to me--do you?” she gasped.
+
+He searched further, but found nothing more. “What was in this letter?”
+ he said.
+
+“Ask the writer. Am I your hound that you should talk to me in this
+way?”
+
+“Do you brave me? do you stand me out, mistress? Answer. Don't look at
+me with those eyes if you would bewitch me again! Sooner than that I
+die. You refuse to answer?”
+
+“I wouldn't tell you after this, if I were as innocent as the sweetest
+babe in heaven!”
+
+“Which you are not.”
+
+“Certainly I am not absolutely,” she replied. “I have not done what
+you suppose; but if to have done no harm at all is the only innocence
+recognized, I am beyond forgiveness. But I require no help from your
+conscience.”
+
+“You can resist, and resist again! Instead of hating you I could, I
+think, mourn for and pity you, if you were contrite, and would confess
+all. Forgive you I never can. I don't speak of your lover--I will give
+you the benefit of the doubt in that matter, for it only affects me
+personally. But the other--had you half-killed me, had it been that you
+wilfully took the sight away from these feeble eyes of mine, I could
+have forgiven you. But THAT'S too much for nature!”
+
+“Say no more. I will do without your pity. But I would have saved you
+from uttering what you will regret.”
+
+“I am going away now. I shall leave you.”
+
+“You need not go, as I am going myself. You will keep just as far away
+from me by staying here.”
+
+“Call her to mind--think of her--what goodness there was in her--it
+showed in every line of her face! Most women, even when but slightly
+annoyed, show a flicker of evil in some curl of the mouth or some corner
+of the cheek; but as for her, never in her angriest moments was there
+anything malicious in her look. She was angered quickly, but she forgave
+just as readily, and underneath her pride there was the meekness of a
+child. What came of it?--what cared you? You hated her just as she was
+learning to love you. O! couldn't you see what was best for you, but
+must bring a curse upon me, and agony and death upon her, by doing that
+cruel deed! What was the fellow's name who was keeping you company and
+causing you to add cruelty to her to your wrong to me? Was it Wildeve?
+Was it poor Thomasin's husband? Heaven, what wickedness! Lost your
+voice, have you? It is natural after detection of that most noble
+trick.... Eustacia, didn't any tender thought of your own mother lead you
+to think of being gentle to mine at such a time of weariness? Did not
+one grain of pity enter your heart as she turned away? Think what a vast
+opportunity was then lost of beginning a forgiving and honest course.
+Why did not you kick him out, and let her in, and say I'll be an honest
+wife and a noble woman from this hour? Had I told you to go and quench
+eternally our last flickering chance of happiness here you could have
+done no worse. Well, she's asleep now; and have you a hundred gallants,
+neither they nor you can insult her any more.”
+
+“You exaggerate fearfully,” she said in a faint, weary voice; “but I
+cannot enter into my defence--it is not worth doing. You are nothing to
+me in future, and the past side of the story may as well remain untold.
+I have lost all through you, but I have not complained. Your blunders
+and misfortunes may have been a sorrow to you, but they have been a
+wrong to me. All persons of refinement have been scared away from me
+since I sank into the mire of marriage. Is this your cherishing--to
+put me into a hut like this, and keep me like the wife of a hind? You
+deceived me--not by words, but by appearances, which are less seen
+through than words. But the place will serve as well as any other--as
+somewhere to pass from--into my grave.” Her words were smothered in her
+throat, and her head drooped down.
+
+“I don't know what you mean by that. Am I the cause of your sin?”
+ (Eustacia made a trembling motion towards him.) “What, you can begin to
+shed tears and offer me your hand? Good God! can you? No, not I. I'll
+not commit the fault of taking that.” (The hand she had offered dropped
+nervelessly, but the tears continued flowing.) “Well, yes, I'll take
+it, if only for the sake of my own foolish kisses that were wasted there
+before I knew what I cherished. How bewitched I was! How could there be
+any good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?”
+
+“O, O, O!” she cried, breaking down at last; and, shaking with sobs
+which choked her, she sank upon her knees. “O, will you have done! O,
+you are too relentless--there's a limit to the cruelty of savages! I
+have held out long--but you crush me down. I beg for mercy--I cannot
+bear this any longer--it is inhuman to go further with this! If I
+had--killed your--mother with my own hand--I should not deserve such
+a scourging to the bone as this. O, O! God have mercy upon a miserable
+woman!... You have beaten me in this game--I beg you to stay your hand in
+pity!... I confess that I--wilfully did not undo the door the first time
+she knocked--but--I should have unfastened it the second--if I had
+not thought you had gone to do it yourself. When I found you had not I
+opened it, but she was gone. That's the extent of my crime--towards HER.
+Best natures commit bad faults sometimes, don't they?--I think they do.
+Now I will leave you--for ever and ever!”
+
+“Tell all, and I WILL pity you. Was the man in the house with you
+Wildeve?”
+
+“I cannot tell,” she said desperately through her sobbing. “Don't insist
+further--I cannot tell. I am going from this house. We cannot both stay
+here.”
+
+“You need not go--I will go. You can stay here.”
+
+“No, I will dress, and then I will go.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Where I came from, or ELSEWHERE.”
+
+She hastily dressed herself, Yeobright moodily walking up and down the
+room the whole of the time. At last all her things were on. Her little
+hands quivered so violently as she held them to her chin to fasten her
+bonnet that she could not tie the strings, and after a few moments she
+relinquished the attempt. Seeing this he moved forward and said, “Let me
+tie them.”
+
+She assented in silence, and lifted her chin. For once at least in her
+life she was totally oblivious of the charm of her attitude. But he
+was not, and he turned his eyes aside, that he might not be tempted to
+softness.
+
+The strings were tied; she turned from him. “Do you still prefer going
+away yourself to my leaving you?” he inquired again.
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Very well--let it be. And when you will confess to the man I may pity
+you.”
+
+She flung her shawl about her and went downstairs, leaving him standing
+in the room.
+
+
+Eustacia had not long been gone when there came a knock at the door of
+the bedroom; and Yeobright said, “Well?”
+
+It was the servant; and she replied, “Somebody from Mrs. Wildeve's
+have called to tell 'ee that the mis'ess and the baby are getting on
+wonderful well, and the baby's name is to be Eustacia Clementine.” And
+the girl retired.
+
+“What a mockery!” said Clym. “This unhappy marriage of mine to be
+perpetuated in that child's name!”
+
+
+
+
+4--The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One
+
+
+Eustacia's journey was at first as vague in direction as that of
+thistledown on the wind. She did not know what to do. She wished it had
+been night instead of morning, that she might at least have borne her
+misery without the possibility of being seen. Tracing mile after mile
+along between the dying ferns and the wet white spiders' webs, she at
+length turned her steps towards her grandfather's house. She found the
+front door closed and locked. Mechanically she went round to the end
+where the stable was, and on looking in at the stable door she saw
+Charley standing within.
+
+“Captain Vye is not at home?” she said.
+
+“No, ma'am,” said the lad in a flutter of feeling; “he's gone to
+Weatherbury, and won't be home till night. And the servant is gone home
+for a holiday. So the house is locked up.”
+
+Eustacia's face was not visible to Charley as she stood at the doorway,
+her back being to the sky, and the stable but indifferently lighted; but
+the wildness of her manner arrested his attention. She turned and walked
+away across the enclosure to the gate, and was hidden by the bank.
+
+When she had disappeared Charley, with misgiving in his eyes, slowly
+came from the stable door, and going to another point in the bank he
+looked over. Eustacia was leaning against it on the outside, her face
+covered with her hands, and her head pressing the dewy heather which
+bearded the bank's outer side. She appeared to be utterly indifferent to
+the circumstance that her bonnet, hair, and garments were becoming
+wet and disarranged by the moisture of her cold, harsh pillow. Clearly
+something was wrong.
+
+Charley had always regarded Eustacia as Eustacia had regarded Clym
+when she first beheld him--as a romantic and sweet vision, scarcely
+incarnate. He had been so shut off from her by the dignity of her look
+and the pride of her speech, except at that one blissful interval when
+he was allowed to hold her hand, that he had hardly deemed her a woman,
+wingless and earthly, subject to household conditions and domestic jars.
+The inner details of her life he had only conjectured. She had been a
+lovely wonder, predestined to an orbit in which the whole of his own was
+but a point; and this sight of her leaning like a helpless, despairing
+creature against a wild wet bank filled him with an amazed horror. He
+could no longer remain where he was. Leaping over, he came up, touched
+her with his finger, and said tenderly, “You are poorly, ma'am. What can
+I do?”
+
+Eustacia started up, and said, “Ah, Charley--you have followed me. You
+did not think when I left home in the summer that I should come back
+like this!”
+
+“I did not, dear ma'am. Can I help you now?”
+
+“I am afraid not. I wish I could get into the house. I feel
+giddy--that's all.”
+
+“Lean on my arm, ma'am, till we get to the porch, and I will try to open
+the door.”
+
+He supported her to the porch, and there depositing her on a seat
+hastened to the back, climbed to a window by the help of a ladder, and
+descending inside opened the door. Next he assisted her into the room,
+where there was an old-fashioned horsehair settee as large as a donkey
+wagon. She lay down here, and Charley covered her with a cloak he found
+in the hall.
+
+“Shall I get you something to eat and drink?” he said.
+
+“If you please, Charley. But I suppose there is no fire?”
+
+“I can light it, ma'am.”
+
+He vanished, and she heard a splitting of wood and a blowing of bellows;
+and presently he returned, saying, “I have lighted a fire in the
+kitchen, and now I'll light one here.”
+
+He lit the fire, Eustacia dreamily observing him from her couch. When it
+was blazing up he said, “Shall I wheel you round in front of it, ma'am,
+as the morning is chilly?”
+
+“Yes, if you like.”
+
+“Shall I go and bring the victuals now?”
+
+“Yes, do,” she murmured languidly.
+
+When he had gone, and the dull sounds occasionally reached her ears of
+his movements in the kitchen, she forgot where she was, and had for a
+moment to consider by an effort what the sounds meant. After an interval
+which seemed short to her whose thoughts were elsewhere, he came in with
+a tray on which steamed tea and toast, though it was nearly lunch-time.
+
+“Place it on the table,” she said. “I shall be ready soon.”
+
+He did so, and retired to the door; when, however, he perceived that she
+did not move he came back a few steps.
+
+“Let me hold it to you, if you don't wish to get up,” said Charley. He
+brought the tray to the front of the couch, where he knelt down, adding,
+“I will hold it for you.”
+
+Eustacia sat up and poured out a cup of tea. “You are very kind to me,
+Charley,” she murmured as she sipped.
+
+“Well, I ought to be,” said he diffidently, taking great trouble not
+to rest his eyes upon her, though this was their only natural position,
+Eustacia being immediately before him. “You have been kind to me.”
+
+“How have I?” said Eustacia.
+
+“You let me hold your hand when you were a maiden at home.”
+
+“Ah, so I did. Why did I do that? My mind is lost--it had to do with the
+mumming, had it not?”
+
+“Yes, you wanted to go in my place.”
+
+“I remember. I do indeed remember--too well!”
+
+She again became utterly downcast; and Charley, seeing that she was not
+going to eat or drink any more, took away the tray.
+
+Afterwards he occasionally came in to see if the fire was burning, to
+ask her if she wanted anything, to tell her that the wind had shifted
+from south to west, to ask her if she would like him to gather her some
+blackberries; to all which inquiries she replied in the negative or with
+indifference.
+
+She remained on the settee some time longer, when she aroused herself
+and went upstairs. The room in which she had formerly slept still
+remained much as she had left it, and the recollection that this forced
+upon her of her own greatly changed and infinitely worsened situation
+again set on her face the undetermined and formless misery which it
+had worn on her first arrival. She peeped into her grandfather's room,
+through which the fresh autumn air was blowing from the open window. Her
+eye was arrested by what was a familiar sight enough, though it broke
+upon her now with a new significance.
+
+It was a brace of pistols, hanging near the head of her grandfather's
+bed, which he always kept there loaded, as a precaution against possible
+burglars, the house being very lonely. Eustacia regarded them long, as
+if they were the page of a book in which she read a new and a strange
+matter. Quickly, like one afraid of herself, she returned downstairs and
+stood in deep thought.
+
+“If I could only do it!” she said. “It would be doing much good to
+myself and all connected with me, and no harm to a single one.”
+
+The idea seemed to gather force within her, and she remained in a fixed
+attitude nearly ten minutes, when a certain finality was expressed in
+her gaze, and no longer the blankness of indecision.
+
+She turned and went up the second time--softly and stealthily now--and
+entered her grandfather's room, her eyes at once seeking the head of the
+bed. The pistols were gone.
+
+The instant quashing of her purpose by their absence affected her brain
+as a sudden vacuum affects the body--she nearly fainted. Who had
+done this? There was only one person on the premises besides herself.
+Eustacia involuntarily turned to the open window which overlooked the
+garden as far as the bank that bounded it. On the summit of the latter
+stood Charley, sufficiently elevated by its height to see into the room.
+His gaze was directed eagerly and solicitously upon her.
+
+She went downstairs to the door and beckoned to him.
+
+“You have taken them away?”
+
+“Yes, ma'am.”
+
+“Why did you do it?”
+
+“I saw you looking at them too long.”
+
+“What has that to do with it?”
+
+“You have been heart-broken all the morning, as if you did not want to
+live.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“And I could not bear to leave them in your way. There was meaning in
+your look at them.”
+
+“Where are they now?”
+
+“Locked up.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“In the stable.”
+
+“Give them to me.”
+
+“No, ma'am.”
+
+“You refuse?”
+
+“I do. I care too much for you to give 'em up.”
+
+She turned aside, her face for the first time softening from the stony
+immobility of the earlier day, and the corners of her mouth resuming
+something of that delicacy of cut which was always lost in her moments
+of despair. At last she confronted him again.
+
+“Why should I not die if I wish?” she said tremulously. “I have made
+a bad bargain with life, and I am weary of it--weary. And now you have
+hindered my escape. O, why did you, Charley! What makes death painful
+except the thought of others' grief?--and that is absent in my case, for
+not a sigh would follow me!”
+
+“Ah, it is trouble that has done this! I wish in my very soul that he
+who brought it about might die and rot, even if 'tis transportation to
+say it!”
+
+“Charley, no more of that. What do you mean to do about this you have
+seen?”
+
+“Keep it close as night, if you promise not to think of it again.”
+
+“You need not fear. The moment has passed. I promise.” She then went
+away, entered the house, and lay down.
+
+Later in the afternoon her grandfather returned. He was about to
+question her categorically, but on looking at her he withheld his words.
+
+“Yes, it is too bad to talk of,” she slowly returned in answer to his
+glance. “Can my old room be got ready for me tonight, Grandfather? I
+shall want to occupy it again.”
+
+He did not ask what it all meant, or why she had left her husband, but
+ordered the room to be prepared.
+
+
+
+
+5--An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
+
+
+Charley's attentions to his former mistress were unbounded. The only
+solace to his own trouble lay in his attempts to relieve hers. Hour
+after hour he considered her wants; he thought of her presence there
+with a sort of gratitude, and, while uttering imprecations on the cause
+of her unhappiness, in some measure blessed the result. Perhaps she
+would always remain there, he thought, and then he would be as happy as
+he had been before. His dread was lest she should think fit to return to
+Alderworth, and in that dread his eyes, with all the inquisitiveness of
+affection, frequently sought her face when she was not observing him,
+as he would have watched the head of a stockdove to learn if it
+contemplated flight. Having once really succoured her, and possibly
+preserved her from the rashest of acts, he mentally assumed in addition
+a guardian's responsibility for her welfare.
+
+For this reason he busily endeavoured to provide her with pleasant
+distractions, bringing home curious objects which he found in the heath,
+such as white trumpet-shaped mosses, redheaded lichens, stone arrowheads
+used by the old tribes on Egdon, and faceted crystals from the hollows
+of flints. These he deposited on the premises in such positions that she
+should see them as if by accident.
+
+A week passed, Eustacia never going out of the house. Then she walked
+into the enclosed plot and looked through her grandfather's spyglass, as
+she had been in the habit of doing before her marriage. One day she
+saw, at a place where the highroad crossed the distant valley, a heavily
+laden wagon passing along. It was piled with household furniture. She
+looked again and again, and recognized it to be her own. In the evening
+her grandfather came indoors with a rumour that Yeobright had removed
+that day from Alderworth to the old house at Blooms-End.
+
+On another occasion when reconnoitring thus she beheld two female
+figures walking in the vale. The day was fine and clear; and the persons
+not being more than half a mile off she could see their every detail
+with the telescope. The woman walking in front carried a white bundle
+in her arms, from one end of which hung a long appendage of drapery; and
+when the walkers turned, so that the sun fell more directly upon them,
+Eustacia could see that the object was a baby. She called Charley, and
+asked him if he knew who they were, though she well guessed.
+
+“Mrs. Wildeve and the nurse-girl,” said Charley.
+
+“The nurse is carrying the baby?” said Eustacia.
+
+“No, 'tis Mrs. Wildeve carrying that,” he answered, “and the nurse walks
+behind carrying nothing.”
+
+The lad was in good spirits that day, for the Fifth of November had
+again come round, and he was planning yet another scheme to divert her
+from her too absorbing thoughts. For two successive years his
+mistress had seemed to take pleasure in lighting a bonfire on the bank
+overlooking the valley; but this year she had apparently quite forgotten
+the day and the customary deed. He was careful not to remind her, and
+went on with his secret preparations for a cheerful surprise, the more
+zealously that he had been absent last time and unable to assist. At
+every vacant minute he hastened to gather furze-stumps, thorn-tree
+roots, and other solid materials from the adjacent slopes, hiding them
+from cursory view.
+
+The evening came, and Eustacia was still seemingly unconscious of the
+anniversary. She had gone indoors after her survey through the glass,
+and had not been visible since. As soon as it was quite dark Charley
+began to build the bonfire, choosing precisely that spot on the bank
+which Eustacia had chosen at previous times.
+
+When all the surrounding bonfires had burst into existence Charley
+kindled his, and arranged its fuel so that it should not require tending
+for some time. He then went back to the house, and lingered round the
+door and windows till she should by some means or other learn of his
+achievement and come out to witness it. But the shutters were closed,
+the door remained shut, and no heed whatever seemed to be taken of his
+performance. Not liking to call her he went back and replenished the
+fire, continuing to do this for more than half an hour. It was not till
+his stock of fuel had greatly diminished that he went to the back door
+and sent in to beg that Mrs. Yeobright would open the window-shutters
+and see the sight outside.
+
+Eustacia, who had been sitting listlessly in the parlour, started up
+at the intelligence and flung open the shutters. Facing her on the bank
+blazed the fire, which at once sent a ruddy glare into the room where
+she was, and overpowered the candles.
+
+“Well done, Charley!” said Captain Vye from the chimney-corner. “But I
+hope it is not my wood that he's burning.... Ah, it was this time last
+year that I met with that man Venn, bringing home Thomasin Yeobright--to
+be sure it was! Well, who would have thought that girl's troubles would
+have ended so well? What a snipe you were in that matter, Eustacia! Has
+your husband written to you yet?”
+
+“No,” said Eustacia, looking vaguely through the window at the fire,
+which just then so much engaged her mind that she did not resent her
+grandfather's blunt opinion. She could see Charley's form on the bank,
+shovelling and stirring the fire; and there flashed upon her imagination
+some other form which that fire might call up.
+
+She left the room, put on her garden bonnet and cloak, and went out.
+Reaching the bank, she looked over with a wild curiosity and misgiving,
+when Charley said to her, with a pleased sense of himself, “I made it o'
+purpose for you, ma'am.”
+
+“Thank you,” she said hastily. “But I wish you to put it out now.”
+
+“It will soon burn down,” said Charley, rather disappointed. “Is it not
+a pity to knock it out?”
+
+“I don't know,” she musingly answered.
+
+They stood in silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames,
+till Charley, perceiving that she did not want to talk to him, moved
+reluctantly away.
+
+Eustacia remained within the bank looking at the fire, intending to go
+indoors, yet lingering still. Had she not by her situation been inclined
+to hold in indifference all things honoured of the gods and of men she
+would probably have come away. But her state was so hopeless that she
+could play with it. To have lost is less disturbing than to wonder if we
+may possibly have won; and Eustacia could now, like other people at such
+a stage, take a standing-point outside herself, observe herself as a
+disinterested spectator, and think what a sport for Heaven this woman
+Eustacia was.
+
+While she stood she heard a sound. It was the splash of a stone in the
+pond.
+
+Had Eustacia received the stone full in the bosom her heart could not
+have given a more decided thump. She had thought of the possibility
+of such a signal in answer to that which had been unwittingly given by
+Charley; but she had not expected it yet. How prompt Wildeve was! Yet
+how could he think her capable of deliberately wishing to renew their
+assignations now? An impulse to leave the spot, a desire to stay,
+struggled within her; and the desire held its own. More than that it did
+not do, for she refrained even from ascending the bank and looking over.
+She remained motionless, not disturbing a muscle of her face or raising
+her eyes; for were she to turn up her face the fire on the bank would
+shine upon it, and Wildeve might be looking down.
+
+There was a second splash into the pond.
+
+Why did he stay so long without advancing and looking over? Curiosity
+had its way--she ascended one or two of the earth-steps in the bank and
+glanced out.
+
+Wildeve was before her. He had come forward after throwing the last
+pebble, and the fire now shone into each of their faces from the bank
+stretching breast-high between them.
+
+“I did not light it!” cried Eustacia quickly. “It was lit without my
+knowledge. Don't, don't come over to me!”
+
+“Why have you been living here all these days without telling me? You
+have left your home. I fear I am something to blame in this?”
+
+“I did not let in his mother; that's how it is!”
+
+“You do not deserve what you have got, Eustacia; you are in great
+misery; I see it in your eyes, your mouth, and all over you. My poor,
+poor girl!” He stepped over the bank. “You are beyond everything
+unhappy!”
+
+“No, no; not exactly--”
+
+“It has been pushed too far--it is killing you--I do think it!”
+
+Her usually quiet breathing had grown quicker with his words. “I--I--”
+ she began, and then burst into quivering sobs, shaken to the very heart
+by the unexpected voice of pity--a sentiment whose existence in relation
+to herself she had almost forgotten.
+
+This outbreak of weeping took Eustacia herself so much by surprise that
+she could not leave off, and she turned aside from him in some shame,
+though turning hid nothing from him. She sobbed on desperately; then
+the outpour lessened, and she became quieter. Wildeve had resisted the
+impulse to clasp her, and stood without speaking.
+
+“Are you not ashamed of me, who used never to be a crying animal?” she
+asked in a weak whisper as she wiped her eyes. “Why didn't you go away?
+I wish you had not seen quite all that; it reveals too much by half.”
+
+“You might have wished it, because it makes me as sad as you,” he said
+with emotion and deference. “As for revealing--the word is impossible
+between us two.”
+
+“I did not send for you--don't forget it, Damon; I am in pain, but I did
+not send for you! As a wife, at least, I've been straight.”
+
+“Never mind--I came. O, Eustacia, forgive me for the harm I have done
+you in these two past years! I see more and more that I have been your
+ruin.”
+
+“Not you. This place I live in.”
+
+“Ah, your generosity may naturally make you say that. But I am the
+culprit. I should either have done more or nothing at all.”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“I ought never to have hunted you out, or, having done it, I ought to
+have persisted in retaining you. But of course I have no right to talk
+of that now. I will only ask this--can I do anything for you? Is there
+anything on the face of the earth that a man can do to make you happier
+than you are at present? If there is, I will do it. You may command
+me, Eustacia, to the limit of my influence; and don't forget that I am
+richer now. Surely something can be done to save you from this! Such
+a rare plant in such a wild place it grieves me to see. Do you want
+anything bought? Do you want to go anywhere? Do you want to escape the
+place altogether? Only say it, and I'll do anything to put an end to
+those tears, which but for me would never have been at all.”
+
+“We are each married to another person,” she said faintly; “and
+assistance from you would have an evil sound--after--after--”
+
+“Well, there's no preventing slanderers from having their fill at any
+time; but you need not be afraid. Whatever I may feel I promise you on
+my word of honour never to speak to you about--or act upon--until you
+say I may. I know my duty to Thomasin quite as well as I know my duty to
+you as a woman unfairly treated. What shall I assist you in?”
+
+“In getting away from here.”
+
+“Where do you wish to go to?”
+
+“I have a place in my mind. If you could help me as far as Budmouth I
+can do all the rest. Steamers sail from there across the Channel, and
+so I can get to Paris, where I want to be. Yes,” she pleaded earnestly,
+“help me to get to Budmouth harbour without my grandfather's or my
+husband's knowledge, and I can do all the rest.”
+
+“Will it be safe to leave you there alone?”
+
+“Yes, yes. I know Budmouth well.”
+
+“Shall I go with you? I am rich now.”
+
+She was silent.
+
+“Say yes, sweet!”
+
+She was silent still.
+
+“Well, let me know when you wish to go. We shall be at our present
+house till December; after that we remove to Casterbridge. Command me in
+anything till that time.”
+
+“I will think of this,” she said hurriedly. “Whether I can honestly make
+use of you as a friend, or must close with you as a lover--that is what
+I must ask myself. If I wish to go and decide to accept your company I
+will signal to you some evening at eight o'clock punctually, and this
+will mean that you are to be ready with a horse and trap at twelve
+o'clock the same night to drive me to Budmouth harbour in time for the
+morning boat.”
+
+“I will look out every night at eight, and no signal shall escape me.”
+
+“Now please go away. If I decide on this escape I can only meet you
+once more unless--I cannot go without you. Go--I cannot bear it longer.
+Go--go!”
+
+Wildeve slowly went up the steps and descended into the darkness on the
+other side; and as he walked he glanced back, till the bank blotted out
+her form from his further view.
+
+
+
+
+6--Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter
+
+
+Yeobright was at this time at Blooms-End, hoping that Eustacia would
+return to him. The removal of furniture had been accomplished only that
+day, though Clym had lived in the old house for more than a week. He had
+spent the time in working about the premises, sweeping leaves from the
+garden paths, cutting dead stalks from the flower beds, and nailing
+up creepers which had been displaced by the autumn winds. He took no
+particular pleasure in these deeds, but they formed a screen between
+himself and despair. Moreover, it had become a religion with him to
+preserve in good condition all that had lapsed from his mother's hands
+to his own.
+
+During these operations he was constantly on the watch for Eustacia.
+That there should be no mistake about her knowing where to find him
+he had ordered a notice board to be affixed to the garden gate at
+Alderworth, signifying in white letters whither he had removed. When a
+leaf floated to the earth he turned his head, thinking it might be her
+foot-fall. A bird searching for worms in the mould of the flower-beds
+sounded like her hand on the latch of the gate; and at dusk, when soft,
+strange ventriloquisms came from holes in the ground, hollow stalks,
+curled dead leaves, and other crannies wherein breezes, worms, and
+insects can work their will, he fancied that they were Eustacia,
+standing without and breathing wishes of reconciliation.
+
+Up to this hour he had persevered in his resolve not to invite her back.
+At the same time the severity with which he had treated her lulled
+the sharpness of his regret for his mother, and awoke some of his old
+solicitude for his mother's supplanter. Harsh feelings produce harsh
+usage, and this by reaction quenches the sentiments that gave it birth.
+The more he reflected the more he softened. But to look upon his wife
+as innocence in distress was impossible, though he could ask himself
+whether he had given her quite time enough--if he had not come a little
+too suddenly upon her on that sombre morning.
+
+Now that the first flush of his anger had paled he was disinclined to
+ascribe to her more than an indiscreet friendship with Wildeve, for
+there had not appeared in her manner the signs of dishonour. And this
+once admitted, an absolutely dark interpretation of her act towards his
+mother was no longer forced upon him.
+
+On the evening of the fifth November his thoughts of Eustacia were
+intense. Echoes from those past times when they had exchanged tender
+words all the day long came like the diffused murmur of a seashore left
+miles behind. “Surely,” he said, “she might have brought herself to
+communicate with me before now, and confess honestly what Wildeve was to
+her.”
+
+Instead of remaining at home that night he determined to go and see
+Thomasin and her husband. If he found opportunity he would allude to the
+cause of the separation between Eustacia and himself, keeping silence,
+however, on the fact that there was a third person in his house when his
+mother was turned away. If it proved that Wildeve was innocently there
+he would doubtless openly mention it. If he were there with unjust
+intentions Wildeve, being a man of quick feeling, might possibly say
+something to reveal the extent to which Eustacia was compromised.
+
+But on reaching his cousin's house he found that only Thomasin was
+at home, Wildeve being at that time on his way towards the bonfire
+innocently lit by Charley at Mistover. Thomasin then, as always, was
+glad to see Clym, and took him to inspect the sleeping baby, carefully
+screening the candlelight from the infant's eyes with her hand.
+
+“Tamsin, have you heard that Eustacia is not with me now?” he said when
+they had sat down again.
+
+“No,” said Thomasin, alarmed.
+
+“And not that I have left Alderworth?”
+
+“No. I never hear tidings from Alderworth unless you bring them. What is
+the matter?”
+
+Clym in a disturbed voice related to her his visit to Susan Nunsuch's
+boy, the revelation he had made, and what had resulted from his
+charging Eustacia with having wilfully and heartlessly done the deed. He
+suppressed all mention of Wildeve's presence with her.
+
+“All this, and I not knowing it!” murmured Thomasin in an awestruck
+tone, “Terrible! What could have made her--O, Eustacia! And when you
+found it out you went in hot haste to her? Were you too cruel?--or is
+she really so wicked as she seems?”
+
+“Can a man be too cruel to his mother's enemy?”
+
+“I can fancy so.”
+
+“Very well, then--I'll admit that he can. But now what is to be done?”
+
+“Make it up again--if a quarrel so deadly can ever be made up. I almost
+wish you had not told me. But do try to be reconciled. There are ways,
+after all, if you both wish to.”
+
+“I don't know that we do both wish to make it up,” said Clym. “If she
+had wished it, would she not have sent to me by this time?”
+
+“You seem to wish to, and yet you have not sent to her.”
+
+“True; but I have been tossed to and fro in doubt if I ought, after such
+strong provocation. To see me now, Thomasin, gives you no idea of what I
+have been; of what depths I have descended to in these few last days. O,
+it was a bitter shame to shut out my mother like that! Can I ever forget
+it, or even agree to see her again?”
+
+“She might not have known that anything serious would come of it, and
+perhaps she did not mean to keep Aunt out altogether.”
+
+“She says herself that she did not. But the fact remains that keep her
+out she did.”
+
+“Believe her sorry, and send for her.”
+
+“How if she will not come?”
+
+“It will prove her guilty, by showing that it is her habit to nourish
+enmity. But I do not think that for a moment.”
+
+“I will do this. I will wait for a day or two longer--not longer than
+two days certainly; and if she does not send to me in that time I will
+indeed send to her. I thought to have seen Wildeve here tonight. Is he
+from home?”
+
+Thomasin blushed a little. “No,” she said. “He is merely gone out for a
+walk.”
+
+“Why didn't he take you with him? The evening is fine. You want fresh
+air as well as he.”
+
+“Oh, I don't care for going anywhere; besides, there is baby.”
+
+“Yes, yes. Well, I have been thinking whether I should not consult your
+husband about this as well as you,” said Clym steadily.
+
+“I fancy I would not,” she quickly answered. “It can do no good.”
+
+Her cousin looked her in the face. No doubt Thomasin was ignorant that
+her husband had any share in the events of that tragic afternoon; but
+her countenance seemed to signify that she concealed some suspicion or
+thought of the reputed tender relations between Wildeve and Eustacia in
+days gone by.
+
+Clym, however, could make nothing of it, and he rose to depart, more in
+doubt than when he came.
+
+“You will write to her in a day or two?” said the young woman earnestly.
+“I do so hope the wretched separation may come to an end.”
+
+“I will,” said Clym; “I don't rejoice in my present state at all.”
+
+And he left her and climbed over the hill to Blooms-End. Before going to
+bed he sat down and wrote the following letter:--
+
+
+MY DEAR EUSTACIA,--I must obey my heart without consulting my reason too
+closely. Will you come back to me? Do so, and the past shall never be
+mentioned. I was too severe; but O, Eustacia, the provocation! You don't
+know, you never will know, what those words of anger cost me which
+you drew down upon yourself. All that an honest man can promise you I
+promise now, which is that from me you shall never suffer anything on
+this score again. After all the vows we have made, Eustacia, I think we
+had better pass the remainder of our lives in trying to keep them. Come
+to me, then, even if you reproach me. I have thought of your sufferings
+that morning on which I parted from you; I know they were genuine, and
+they are as much as you ought to bear. Our love must still continue.
+Such hearts as ours would never have been given us but to be concerned
+with each other. I could not ask you back at first, Eustacia, for I was
+unable to persuade myself that he who was with you was not there as a
+lover. But if you will come and explain distracting appearances I do
+not question that you can show your honesty to me. Why have you not
+come before? Do you think I will not listen to you? Surely not, when you
+remember the kisses and vows we exchanged under the summer moon. Return
+then, and you shall be warmly welcomed. I can no longer think of you
+to your prejudice--I am but too much absorbed in justifying you.--Your
+husband as ever,
+
+CLYM.
+
+
+“There,” he said, as he laid it in his desk, “that's a good thing done.
+If she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to her.”
+
+Meanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat sighing uneasily.
+Fidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to conceal all
+suspicion that Wildeve's interest in Eustacia had not ended with
+his marriage. But she knew nothing positive; and though Clym was her
+well-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still.
+
+When, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk to Mistover,
+Thomasin said, “Damon, where have you been? I was getting quite
+frightened, and thought you had fallen into the river. I dislike being
+in the house by myself.”
+
+“Frightened?” he said, touching her cheek as if she were some domestic
+animal. “Why, I thought nothing could frighten you. It is that you are
+getting proud, I am sure, and don't like living here since we have risen
+above our business. Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting a new
+house; but I couldn't have set about it sooner, unless our ten thousand
+pounds had been a hundred thousand, when we could have afforded to
+despise caution.”
+
+“No--I don't mind waiting--I would rather stay here twelve months longer
+than run any risk with baby. But I don't like your vanishing so in the
+evenings. There's something on your mind--I know there is, Damon. You go
+about so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it were somebody's gaol
+instead of a nice wild place to walk in.”
+
+He looked towards her with pitying surprise. “What, do you like Egdon
+Heath?” he said.
+
+“I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face.”
+
+“Pooh, my dear. You don't know what you like.”
+
+“I am sure I do. There's only one thing unpleasant about Egdon.”
+
+“What's that?”
+
+“You never take me with you when you walk there. Why do you wander so
+much in it yourself if you so dislike it?”
+
+The inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting, and he sat
+down before replying. “I don't think you often see me there. Give an
+instance.”
+
+“I will,” she answered triumphantly. “When you went out this evening I
+thought that as baby was asleep I would see where you were going to so
+mysteriously without telling me. So I ran out and followed behind you.
+You stopped at the place where the road forks, looked round at the
+bonfires, and then said, 'Damn it, I'll go!' And you went quickly up the
+left-hand road. Then I stood and watched you.”
+
+Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, “Well, what
+wonderful discovery did you make?”
+
+“There--now you are angry, and we won't talk of this any more.” She went
+across to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his face.
+
+“Nonsense!” he said, “that's how you always back out. We will go on
+with it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly want to
+know.”
+
+“Don't be like that, Damon!” she murmured. “I didn't see anything. You
+vanished out of sight, and then I looked round at the bonfires and came
+in.”
+
+“Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you
+trying to find out something bad about me?”
+
+“Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn't have
+done it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you.”
+
+“What DO you mean?” he impatiently asked.
+
+“They say--they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and it
+puts into my mind what I have heard about--”
+
+Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. “Now,” he said,
+flourishing his hand in the air, “just out with it, madam! I demand to
+know what remarks you have heard.”
+
+“Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia--nothing more
+than that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be
+angry!”
+
+He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. “Well,” he said,
+“there is nothing new in that, and of course I don't mean to be rough
+towards you, so you need not cry. Now, don't let us speak of the subject
+any more.”
+
+And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason for not
+mentioning Clym's visit to her that evening, and his story.
+
+
+
+
+7--The Night of the Sixth of November
+
+
+Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that
+something should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event that
+could really change her position was the appearance of Clym. The glory
+which had encircled him as her lover was departed now; yet some good
+simple quality of his would occasionally return to her memory and stir a
+momentary throb of hope that he would again present himself before her.
+But calmly considered it was not likely that such a severance as now
+existed would ever close up--she would have to live on as a painful
+object, isolated, and out of place. She had used to think of the heath
+alone as an uncongenial spot to be in; she felt it now of the whole
+world.
+
+Towards evening on the sixth her determination to go away again revived.
+About four o'clock she packed up anew the few small articles she had
+brought in her flight from Alderworth, and also some belonging to her
+which had been left here; the whole formed a bundle not too large to be
+carried in her hand for a distance of a mile or two. The scene without
+grew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied downwards from the sky like
+vast hammocks slung across it, and with the increase of night a stormy
+wind arose; but as yet there was no rain.
+
+Eustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more to do, and she
+wandered to and fro on the hill, not far from the house she was soon
+to leave. In these desultory ramblings she passed the cottage of Susan
+Nunsuch, a little lower down than her grandfather's. The door was
+ajar, and a riband of bright firelight fell over the ground without. As
+Eustacia crossed the firebeams she appeared for an instant as distinct
+as a figure in a phantasmagoria--a creature of light surrounded by
+an area of darkness; the moment passed, and she was absorbed in night
+again.
+
+A woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and recognized
+her in that momentary irradiation. This was Susan herself, occupied
+in preparing a posset for her little boy, who, often ailing, was
+now seriously unwell. Susan dropped the spoon, shook her fist at the
+vanished figure, and then proceeded with her work in a musing, absent
+way.
+
+At eight o'clock, the hour at which Eustacia had promised to signal
+Wildeve if ever she signalled at all, she looked around the premises to
+learn if the coast was clear, went to the furze-rick, and pulled thence
+a long-stemmed bough of that fuel. This she carried to the corner of the
+bank, and, glancing behind to see if the shutters were all closed, she
+struck a light, and kindled the furze. When it was thoroughly ablaze
+Eustacia took it by the stem and waved it in the air above her head till
+it had burned itself out.
+
+She was gratified, if gratification were possible to such a mood, by
+seeing a similar light in the vicinity of Wildeve's residence a minute
+or two later. Having agreed to keep watch at this hour every night, in
+case she should require assistance, this promptness proved how strictly
+he had held to his word. Four hours after the present time, that is, at
+midnight, he was to be ready to drive her to Budmouth, as prearranged.
+
+Eustacia returned to the house. Supper having been got over she retired
+early, and sat in her bedroom waiting for the time to go by. The night
+being dark and threatening, Captain Vye had not strolled out to gossip
+in any cottage or to call at the inn, as was sometimes his custom on
+these long autumn nights; and he sat sipping grog alone downstairs.
+About ten o'clock there was a knock at the door. When the servant opened
+it the rays of the candle fell upon the form of Fairway.
+
+“I was a-forced to go to Lower Mistover tonight,” he said, “and Mr.
+Yeobright asked me to leave this here on my way; but, faith, I put it in
+the lining of my hat, and thought no more about it till I got back and
+was hasping my gate before going to bed. So I have run back with it at
+once.”
+
+He handed in a letter and went his way. The girl brought it to the
+captain, who found that it was directed to Eustacia. He turned it over
+and over, and fancied that the writing was her husband's, though he
+could not be sure. However, he decided to let her have it at once if
+possible, and took it upstairs for that purpose; but on reaching the
+door of her room and looking in at the keyhole he found there was no
+light within, the fact being that Eustacia, without undressing, had
+flung herself upon the bed, to rest and gather a little strength for her
+coming journey. Her grandfather concluded from what he saw that he ought
+not to disturb her; and descending again to the parlour he placed the
+letter on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning.
+
+At eleven o'clock he went to bed himself, smoked for some time in his
+bedroom, put out his light at half-past eleven, and then, as was his
+invariable custom, pulled up the blind before getting into bed, that he
+might see which way the wind blew on opening his eyes in the morning,
+his bedroom window commanding a view of the flagstaff and vane. Just as
+he had lain down he was surprised to observe the white pole of the staff
+flash into existence like a streak of phosphorus drawn downwards across
+the shade of night without. Only one explanation met this--a light had
+been suddenly thrown upon the pole from the direction of the house. As
+everybody had retired to rest the old man felt it necessary to get
+out of bed, open the window softly, and look to the right and left.
+Eustacia's bedroom was lighted up, and it was the shine from her window
+which had lighted the pole. Wondering what had aroused her, he remained
+undecided at the window, and was thinking of fetching the letter to slip
+it under her door, when he heard a slight brushing of garments on the
+partition dividing his room from the passage.
+
+The captain concluded that Eustacia, feeling wakeful, had gone for a
+book, and would have dismissed the matter as unimportant if he had not
+also heard her distinctly weeping as she passed.
+
+“She is thinking of that husband of hers,” he said to himself. “Ah, the
+silly goose! she had no business to marry him. I wonder if that letter
+is really his?”
+
+He arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door, and said,
+“Eustacia!” There was no answer. “Eustacia!” he repeated louder, “there
+is a letter on the mantelpiece for you.”
+
+But no response was made to this statement save an imaginary one from
+the wind, which seemed to gnaw at the corners of the house, and the
+stroke of a few drops of rain upon the windows.
+
+He went on to the landing, and stood waiting nearly five minutes. Still
+she did not return. He went back for a light, and prepared to follow
+her; but first he looked into her bedroom. There, on the outside of the
+quilt, was the impression of her form, showing that the bed had not
+been opened; and, what was more significant, she had not taken her
+candlestick downstairs. He was now thoroughly alarmed; and hastily
+putting on his clothes he descended to the front door, which he himself
+had bolted and locked. It was now unfastened. There was no longer
+any doubt that Eustacia had left the house at this midnight hour; and
+whither could she have gone? To follow her was almost impossible. Had
+the dwelling stood in an ordinary road, two persons setting out, one
+in each direction, might have made sure of overtaking her; but it was
+a hopeless task to seek for anybody on a heath in the dark, the
+practicable directions for flight across it from any point being as
+numerous as the meridians radiating from the pole. Perplexed what to do,
+he looked into the parlour, and was vexed to find that the letter still
+lay there untouched.
+
+
+At half-past eleven, finding that the house was silent, Eustacia had
+lighted her candle, put on some warm outer wrappings, taken her bag in
+her hand, and, extinguishing the light again, descended the staircase.
+When she got into the outer air she found that it had begun to rain, and
+as she stood pausing at the door it increased, threatening to come on
+heavily. But having committed herself to this line of action there was
+no retreating for bad weather. Even the receipt of Clym's letter would
+not have stopped her now. The gloom of the night was funereal; all
+nature seemed clothed in crape. The spiky points of the fir trees behind
+the house rose into the sky like the turrets and pinnacles of an abbey.
+Nothing below the horizon was visible save a light which was still
+burning in the cottage of Susan Nunsuch.
+
+Eustacia opened her umbrella and went out from the enclosure by the
+steps over the bank, after which she was beyond all danger of being
+perceived. Skirting the pool, she followed the path towards Rainbarrow,
+occasionally stumbling over twisted furze roots, tufts of rushes, or
+oozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at this season lay scattered about
+the heath like the rotten liver and lungs of some colossal animal.
+The moon and stars were closed up by cloud and rain to the degree
+of extinction. It was a night which led the traveller's thoughts
+instinctively to dwell on nocturnal scenes of disaster in the
+chronicles of the world, on all that is terrible and dark in history and
+legend--the last plague of Egypt, the destruction of Sennacherib's host,
+the agony in Gethsemane.
+
+Eustacia at length reached Rainbarrow, and stood still there to think.
+Never was harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind
+and the chaos of the world without. A sudden recollection had flashed
+on her this moment--she had not money enough for undertaking a long
+journey. Amid the fluctuating sentiments of the day her unpractical mind
+had not dwelt on the necessity of being well-provided, and now that she
+thoroughly realized the conditions she sighed bitterly and ceased to
+stand erect, gradually crouching down under the umbrella as if she were
+drawn into the Barrow by a hand from beneath. Could it be that she was
+to remain a captive still? Money--she had never felt its value before.
+Even to efface herself from the country means were required. To ask
+Wildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him to accompany her was
+impossible to a woman with a shadow of pride left in her; to fly as
+his mistress--and she knew that he loved her--was of the nature of
+humiliation.
+
+Anyone who had stood by now would have pitied her, not so much on
+account of her exposure to weather, and isolation from all of humanity
+except the mouldered remains inside the tumulus; but for that other form
+of misery which was denoted by the slightly rocking movement that her
+feelings imparted to her person. Extreme unhappiness weighed visibly
+upon her. Between the drippings of the rain from her umbrella to her
+mantle, from her mantle to the heather, from the heather to the earth,
+very similar sounds could be heard coming from her lips; and the
+tearfulness of the outer scene was repeated upon her face. The wings of
+her soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all about her; and
+even had she seen herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth,
+entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port, she would have
+been but little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant were other things.
+She uttered words aloud. When a woman in such a situation, neither old,
+deaf, crazed, nor whimsical, takes upon herself to sob and soliloquize
+aloud there is something grievous the matter.
+
+“Can I go, can I go?” she moaned. “He's not GREAT enough for me to give
+myself to--he does not suffice for my desire!... If he had been a Saul or
+a Bonaparte--ah! But to break my marriage vow for him--it is too poor a
+luxury!... And I have no money to go alone! And if I could, what comfort
+to me? I must drag on next year, as I have dragged on this year, and the
+year after that as before. How I have tried and tried to be a splendid
+woman, and how destiny has been against me!... I do not deserve my lot!”
+ she cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. “O, the cruelty of putting me
+into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been
+injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how
+hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no
+harm to Heaven at all!”
+
+
+The distant light which Eustacia had cursorily observed in leaving
+the house came, as she had divined, from the cottage window of Susan
+Nunsuch. What Eustacia did not divine was the occupation of the woman
+within at that moment. Susan's sight of her passing figure earlier in
+the evening, not five minutes after the sick boy's exclamation, “Mother,
+I do feel so bad!” persuaded the matron that an evil influence was
+certainly exercised by Eustacia's propinquity.
+
+On this account Susan did not go to bed as soon as the evening's work
+was over, as she would have done at ordinary times. To counteract the
+malign spell which she imagined poor Eustacia to be working, the
+boy's mother busied herself with a ghastly invention of superstition,
+calculated to bring powerlessness, atrophy, and annihilation on any
+human being against whom it was directed. It was a practice well known
+on Egdon at that date, and one that is not quite extinct at the present
+day.
+
+She passed with her candle into an inner room, where, among other
+utensils, were two large brown pans, containing together perhaps a
+hundredweight of liquid honey, the produce of the bees during the
+foregoing summer. On a shelf over the pans was a smooth and solid yellow
+mass of a hemispherical form, consisting of beeswax from the same take
+of honey. Susan took down the lump, and cutting off several thin
+slices, heaped them in an iron ladle, with which she returned to the
+living-room, and placed the vessel in the hot ashes of the fireplace. As
+soon as the wax had softened to the plasticity of dough she kneaded the
+pieces together. And now her face became more intent. She began moulding
+the wax; and it was evident from her manner of manipulation that she was
+endeavouring to give it some preconceived form. The form was human.
+
+By warming and kneading, cutting and twisting, dismembering and
+re-joining the incipient image she had in about a quarter of an hour
+produced a shape which tolerably well resembled a woman, and was
+about six inches high. She laid it on the table to get cold and hard.
+Meanwhile she took the candle and went upstairs to where the little boy
+was lying.
+
+“Did you notice, my dear, what Mrs. Eustacia wore this afternoon besides
+the dark dress?”
+
+“A red ribbon round her neck.”
+
+“Anything else?”
+
+“No--except sandal-shoes.”
+
+“A red ribbon and sandal-shoes,” she said to herself.
+
+Mrs. Nunsuch went and searched till she found a fragment of the
+narrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs and tied round the neck
+of the image. Then fetching ink and a quilt from the rickety bureau by
+the window, she blackened the feet of the image to the extent presumably
+covered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot marked cross-lines in
+the shape taken by the sandalstrings of those days. Finally she tied
+a bit of black thread round the upper part of the head, in faint
+resemblance to a snood worn for confining the hair.
+
+Susan held the object at arm's length and contemplated it with a
+satisfaction in which there was no smile. To anybody acquainted with
+the inhabitants of Egdon Heath the image would have suggested Eustacia
+Yeobright.
+
+From her workbasket in the window-seat the woman took a paper of pins,
+of the old long and yellow sort, whose heads were disposed to come off
+at their first usage. These she began to thrust into the image in all
+directions, with apparently excruciating energy. Probably as many as
+fifty were thus inserted, some into the head of the wax model, some into
+the shoulders, some into the trunk, some upwards through the soles of
+the feet, till the figure was completely permeated with pins.
+
+She turned to the fire. It had been of turf; and though the high heap
+of ashes which turf fires produce was somewhat dark and dead on the
+outside, upon raking it abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass
+showed a glow of red heat. She took a few pieces of fresh turf from the
+chimney-corner and built them together over the glow, upon which the
+fire brightened. Seizing with the tongs the image that she had made of
+Eustacia, she held it in the heat, and watched it as it began to waste
+slowly away. And while she stood thus engaged there came from between
+her lips a murmur of words.
+
+It was a strange jargon--the Lord's Prayer repeated backwards--the
+incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed assistance
+against an enemy. Susan uttered the lugubrious discourse three times
+slowly, and when it was completed the image had considerably diminished.
+As the wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from the spot,
+and curling its tongue round the figure ate still further into its
+substance. A pin occasionally dropped with the wax, and the embers
+heated it red as it lay.
+
+
+
+
+8--Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
+
+
+While the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing, and the fair woman
+herself was standing on Rainbarrow, her soul in an abyss of desolation
+seldom plumbed by one so young, Yeobright sat lonely at Blooms-End.
+He had fulfilled his word to Thomasin by sending off Fairway with the
+letter to his wife, and now waited with increased impatience for some
+sound or signal of her return. Were Eustacia still at Mistover the very
+least he expected was that she would send him back a reply tonight by
+the same hand; though, to leave all to her inclination, he had cautioned
+Fairway not to ask for an answer. If one were handed to him he was
+to bring it immediately; if not, he was to go straight home without
+troubling to come round to Blooms-End again that night.
+
+But secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope. Eustacia might possibly
+decline to use her pen--it was rather her way to work silently--and
+surprise him by appearing at his door. How fully her mind was made up to
+do otherwise he did not know.
+
+To Clym's regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening advanced.
+The wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house, and filliped
+the eavesdroppings like peas against the panes. He walked restlessly
+about the untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises in windows and
+doors by jamming splinters of wood into the casements and crevices,
+and pressing together the leadwork of the quarries where it had become
+loosened from the glass. It was one of those nights when cracks in the
+walls of old churches widen, when ancient stains on the ceilings of
+decayed manor houses are renewed and enlarged from the size of a man's
+hand to an area of many feet. The little gate in the palings before
+his dwelling continually opened and clicked together again, but when he
+looked out eagerly nobody was there; it was as if invisible shapes of
+the dead were passing in on their way to visit him.
+
+Between ten and eleven o'clock, finding that neither Fairway nor anybody
+else came to him, he retired to rest, and despite his anxieties soon
+fell asleep. His sleep, however, was not very sound, by reason of the
+expectancy he had given way to, and he was easily awakened by a knocking
+which began at the door about an hour after. Clym arose and looked out
+of the window. Rain was still falling heavily, the whole expanse of
+heath before him emitting a subdued hiss under the downpour. It was too
+dark to see anything at all.
+
+“Who's there?” he cried.
+
+Light footsteps shifted their position in the porch, and he could just
+distinguish in a plaintive female voice the words, “O Clym, come down
+and let me in!”
+
+He flushed hot with agitation. “Surely it is Eustacia!” he murmured. If
+so, she had indeed come to him unawares.
+
+He hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. On his flinging
+open the door the rays of the candle fell upon a woman closely wrapped
+up, who at once came forward.
+
+“Thomasin!” he exclaimed in an indescribable tone of disappointment. “It
+is Thomasin, and on such a night as this! O, where is Eustacia?”
+
+Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting.
+
+“Eustacia? I don't know, Clym; but I can think,” she said with much
+perturbation. “Let me come in and rest--I will explain this. There is a
+great trouble brewing--my husband and Eustacia!”
+
+“What, what?”
+
+“I think my husband is going to leave me or do something dreadful--I
+don't know what--Clym, will you go and see? I have nobody to help me but
+you; Eustacia has not yet come home?”
+
+“No.”
+
+She went on breathlessly: “Then they are going to run off together! He
+came indoors tonight about eight o'clock and said in an off-hand way,
+'Tamsie, I have just found that I must go a journey.' 'When?' I
+said. 'Tonight,' he said. 'Where?' I asked him. 'I cannot tell you at
+present,' he said; 'I shall be back again tomorrow.' He then went and
+busied himself in looking up his things, and took no notice of me at
+all. I expected to see him start, but he did not, and then it came to
+be ten o'clock, when he said, 'You had better go to bed.' I didn't know
+what to do, and I went to bed. I believe he thought I fell asleep, for
+half an hour after that he came up and unlocked the oak chest we keep
+money in when we have much in the house and took out a roll of something
+which I believe was banknotes, though I was not aware that he had 'em
+there. These he must have got from the bank when he went there the other
+day. What does he want banknotes for, if he is only going off for a day?
+When he had gone down I thought of Eustacia, and how he had met her the
+night before--I know he did meet her, Clym, for I followed him part of
+the way; but I did not like to tell you when you called, and so make you
+think ill of him, as I did not think it was so serious. Then I could not
+stay in bed; I got up and dressed myself, and when I heard him out in
+the stable I thought I would come and tell you. So I came downstairs
+without any noise and slipped out.”
+
+“Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?”
+
+“No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade him not to go?
+He takes no notice of what I say, and puts me off with the story of his
+going on a journey, and will be home tomorrow, and all that; but I don't
+believe it. I think you could influence him.”
+
+“I'll go,” said Clym. “O, Eustacia!”
+
+Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time
+seated herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the
+kernel to the husks--dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough
+weather. Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to begin
+crying as she said, “I brought baby, for I was afraid what might happen
+to her. I suppose it will be her death, but I couldn't leave her with
+Rachel!”
+
+Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the
+embers, which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the
+bellows.
+
+“Dry yourself,” he said. “I'll go and get some more wood.”
+
+“No, no--don't stay for that. I'll make up the fire. Will you go at
+once--please will you?”
+
+Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. While he was gone
+another rapping came to the door. This time there was no delusion that
+it might be Eustacia's--the footsteps just preceding it had been heavy
+and slow. Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note in
+answer, descended again and opened the door.
+
+“Captain Vye?” he said to a dripping figure.
+
+“Is my granddaughter here?” said the captain.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then where is she?”.
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+“But you ought to know--you are her husband.”
+
+“Only in name apparently,” said Clym with rising excitement. “I believe
+she means to elope tonight with Wildeve. I am just going to look to it.”
+
+“Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago. Who's
+sitting there?”
+
+“My cousin Thomasin.”
+
+The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. “I only hope it is no
+worse than an elopement,” he said.
+
+“Worse? What's worse than the worst a wife can do?”
+
+“Well, I have been told a strange tale. Before starting in search of her
+I called up Charley, my stable lad. I missed my pistols the other day.”
+
+“Pistols?”
+
+“He said at the time that he took them down to clean. He has now owned
+that he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at them; and
+she afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking her life,
+but bound him to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a thing
+again. I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado enough to use one
+of them; but it shows what has been lurking in her mind; and people who
+think of that sort of thing once think of it again.”
+
+“Where are the pistols?”
+
+“Safely locked up. O no, she won't touch them again. But there are
+more ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole. What did you
+quarrel about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this? You must
+have treated her badly indeed. Well, I was always against the marriage,
+and I was right.”
+
+“Are you going with me?” said Yeobright, paying no attention to the
+captain's latter remark. “If so I can tell you what we quarrelled about
+as we walk along.”
+
+“Where to?”
+
+“To Wildeve's--that was her destination, depend upon it.”
+
+Thomasin here broke in, still weeping: “He said he was only going on a
+sudden short journey; but if so why did he want so much money? O, Clym,
+what do you think will happen? I am afraid that you, my poor baby, will
+soon have no father left to you!”
+
+“I am off now,” said Yeobright, stepping into the porch.
+
+“I would fain go with 'ee,” said the old man doubtfully. “But I begin to
+be afraid that my legs will hardly carry me there such a night as this.
+I am not so young as I was. If they are interrupted in their flight
+she will be sure to come back to me, and I ought to be at the house to
+receive her. But be it as 'twill I can't walk to the Quiet Woman, and
+that's an end on't. I'll go straight home.”
+
+“It will perhaps be best,” said Clym. “Thomasin, dry yourself, and be as
+comfortable as you can.”
+
+With this he closed the door upon her, and left the house in company
+with Captain Vye, who parted from him outside the gate, taking the
+middle path, which led to Mistover. Clym crossed by the right-hand track
+towards the inn.
+
+Thomasin, being left alone, took off some of her wet garments, carried
+the baby upstairs to Clym's bed, and then came down to the sitting-room
+again, where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire
+soon flared up the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort
+that was doubled by contrast with the drumming of the storm without,
+which snapped at the windowpanes and breathed into the chimney strange
+low utterances that seemed to be the prologue to some tragedy.
+
+But the least part of Thomasin was in the house, for her heart being at
+ease about the little girl upstairs she was mentally following Clym on
+his journey. Having indulged in this imaginary peregrination for
+some considerable interval, she became impressed with a sense of the
+intolerable slowness of time. But she sat on. The moment then came when
+she could scarcely sit longer, and it was like a satire on her patience
+to remember that Clym could hardly have reached the inn as yet. At last
+she went to the baby's bedside. The child was sleeping soundly; but her
+imagination of possibly disastrous events at her home, the predominance
+within her of the unseen over the seen, agitated her beyond endurance.
+She could not refrain from going down and opening the door. The rain
+still continued, the candlelight falling upon the nearest drops and
+making glistening darts of them as they descended across the throng of
+invisible ones behind. To plunge into that medium was to plunge into
+water slightly diluted with air. But the difficulty of returning to
+her house at this moment made her all the more desirous of doing
+so--anything was better than suspense. “I have come here well enough,”
+ she said, “and why shouldn't I go back again? It is a mistake for me to
+be away.”
+
+She hastily fetched the infant, wrapped it up, cloaked herself as
+before, and shoveling the ashes over the fire, to prevent accidents,
+went into the open air. Pausing first to put the door key in its
+old place behind the shutter, she resolutely turned her face to the
+confronting pile of firmamental darkness beyond the palings, and stepped
+into its midst. But Thomasin's imagination being so actively engaged
+elsewhere, the night and the weather had for her no terror beyond that
+of their actual discomfort and difficulty.
+
+She was soon ascending Blooms-End valley and traversing the undulations
+on the side of the hill. The noise of the wind over the heath was
+shrill, and as if it whistled for joy at finding a night so congenial as
+this. Sometimes the path led her to hollows between thickets of tall
+and dripping bracken, dead, though not yet prostrate, which enclosed her
+like a pool. When they were more than usually tall she lifted the baby
+to the top of her head, that it might be out of the reach of their
+drenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind was brisk and
+sustained, the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent, so
+that it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness of the point
+at which it left the bosoms of the clouds. Here self-defence was
+impossible, and individual drops stuck into her like the arrows into
+Saint Sebastian. She was enabled to avoid puddles by the nebulous
+paleness which signified their presence, though beside anything less
+dark than the heath they themselves would have appeared as blackness.
+
+Yet in spite of all this Thomasin was not sorry that she had started.
+To her there were not, as to Eustacia, demons in the air, and malice
+in every bush and bough. The drops which lashed her face were not
+scorpions, but prosy rain; Egdon in the mass was no monster whatever,
+but impersonal open ground. Her fears of the place were rational, her
+dislikes of its worst moods reasonable. At this time it was in her view
+a windy, wet place, in which a person might experience much discomfort,
+lose the path without care, and possibly catch cold.
+
+If the path is well known the difficulty at such times of keeping
+therein is not altogether great, from its familiar feel to the feet; but
+once lost it is irrecoverable. Owing to her baby, who somewhat impeded
+Thomasin's view forward and distracted her mind, she did at last lose
+the track. This mishap occurred when she was descending an open slope
+about two-thirds home. Instead of attempting, by wandering hither and
+thither, the hopeless task of finding such a mere thread, she went
+straight on, trusting for guidance to her general knowledge of the
+contours, which was scarcely surpassed by Clym's or by that of the
+heath-croppers themselves.
+
+At length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to discern through the
+rain a faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form
+of an open door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon
+aware of the nature of the door by its height above the ground.
+
+“Why, it is Diggory Venn's van, surely!” she said.
+
+A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn's
+chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at
+once that she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat. The question
+arose in her mind whether or not she should ask him to guide her into
+the path. In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would appeal
+to him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing before his eyes at
+this place and season. But when, in pursuance of this resolve, Thomasin
+reached the van and looked in she found it to be untenanted; though
+there was no doubt that it was the reddleman's. The fire was burning in
+the stove, the lantern hung from the nail. Round the doorway the floor
+was merely sprinkled with rain, and not saturated, which told her that
+the door had not long been opened.
+
+While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep
+advancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the
+well-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams
+falling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.
+
+“I thought you went down the slope,” he said, without noticing her face.
+“How do you come back here again?”
+
+“Diggory?” said Thomasin faintly.
+
+“Who are you?” said Venn, still unperceiving. “And why were you crying
+so just now?”
+
+“O, Diggory! don't you know me?” said she. “But of course you don't,
+wrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been crying here, and
+I have not been here before.”
+
+Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her
+form.
+
+“Mrs. Wildeve!” he exclaimed, starting. “What a time for us to meet!
+And the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such a
+night as this?”
+
+She could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he
+hopped into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.
+
+“What is it?” he continued when they stood within.
+
+“I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry to
+get home. Please show me as quickly as you can! It is so silly of me not
+to know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the path.
+Show me quickly, Diggory, please.”
+
+“Yes, of course. I will go with 'ee. But you came to me before this,
+Mrs. Wildeve?”
+
+“I only came this minute.”
+
+“That's strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago,
+with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a
+woman's clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up, for I
+don't sleep heavy, and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying from
+the same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and just as
+far as the light would reach I saw a woman; she turned her head when
+the light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill. I hung up the
+lantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and dog her a few
+steps, but I could see nothing of her any more. That was where I had
+been when you came up; and when I saw you I thought you were the same
+one.”
+
+“Perhaps it was one of the heathfolk going home?”
+
+“No, it couldn't be. 'Tis too late. The noise of her gown over the he'th
+was of a whistling sort that nothing but silk will make.”
+
+“It wasn't I, then. My dress is not silk, you see.... Are we anywhere in
+a line between Mistover and the inn?”
+
+“Well, yes; not far out.”
+
+“Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!”
+
+She jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked the
+lantern and leaped down after her. “I'll take the baby, ma'am,” he said.
+“You must be tired out by the weight.”
+
+Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn's
+hands. “Don't squeeze her, Diggory,” she said, “or hurt her little arm;
+and keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain may not
+drop in her face.”
+
+“I will,” said Venn earnestly. “As if I could hurt anything belonging to
+you!”
+
+“I only meant accidentally,” said Thomasin.
+
+“The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet,” said the reddleman
+when, in closing the door of his cart to padlock it, he noticed on the
+floor a ring of water drops where her cloak had hung from her.
+
+Thomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid the larger
+bushes, stopping occasionally and covering the lantern, while he looked
+over his shoulder to gain some idea of the position of Rainbarrow above
+them, which it was necessary to keep directly behind their backs to
+preserve a proper course.
+
+“You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?”
+
+“Quite sure. May I ask how old he is, ma'am?”
+
+“He!” said Thomasin reproachfully. “Anybody can see better than that in
+a moment. She is nearly two months old. How far is it now to the inn?”
+
+“A little over a quarter of a mile.”
+
+“Will you walk a little faster?”
+
+“I was afraid you could not keep up.”
+
+“I am very anxious to get there. Ah, there is a light from the window!”
+
+“'Tis not from the window. That's a gig-lamp, to the best of my belief.”
+
+“O!” said Thomasin in despair. “I wish I had been there sooner--give me
+the baby, Diggory--you can go back now.”
+
+“I must go all the way,” said Venn. “There is a quag between us and
+that light, and you will walk into it up to your neck unless I take you
+round.”
+
+“But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag in front of that.”
+
+“No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards.”
+
+“Never mind,” said Thomasin hurriedly. “Go towards the light, and not
+towards the inn.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and, after a pause,
+“I wish you would tell me what this great trouble is. I think you have
+proved that I can be trusted.”
+
+“There are some things that cannot be--cannot be told to--” And then her
+heart rose into her throat, and she could say no more.
+
+
+
+
+9--Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
+
+
+Having seen Eustacia's signal from the hill at eight o'clock, Wildeve
+immediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,
+accompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informing
+Thomasin that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient to
+rouse her suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the few
+articles he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest, whence
+he took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes, which had been advanced
+to him on the property he was so soon to have in possession, to defray
+expenses incidental to the removal.
+
+He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that the
+horse, gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive. Nearly
+half an hour was spent thus, and on returning to the house Wildeve had
+no thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He had told the stable
+lad not to stay up, leading the boy to understand that his departure
+would be at three or four in the morning; for this, though an
+exceptional hour, was less strange than midnight, the time actually
+agreed on, the packet from Budmouth sailing between one and two.
+
+At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. By no
+effort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he had
+experienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hoped
+there was that in his situation which money could cure. He had persuaded
+himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle wife by settling
+on her the half of his property, and with chivalrous devotion towards
+another and greater woman by sharing her fate, was possible. And though
+he meant to adhere to Eustacia's instructions to the letter, to deposit
+her where she wished and to leave her, should that be her will, the
+spell that she had cast over him intensified, and his heart was beating
+fast in the anticipated futility of such commands in the face of a
+mutual wish that they should throw in their lot together.
+
+He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures, maxims,
+and hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he again went softly to the
+stable, harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence, taking the horse
+by the head, he led him with the covered car out of the yard to a spot
+by the roadside some quarter of a mile below the inn.
+
+Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a high
+bank that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface of the road
+where lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones scudded and
+clicked together before the wind, which, leaving them in heaps, plunged
+into the heath and boomed across the bushes into darkness. Only one
+sound rose above this din of weather, and that was the roaring of a
+ten-hatch weir to the southward, from a river in the meads which formed
+the boundary of the heath in this direction.
+
+He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that the
+midnight hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen in
+his mind if Eustacia would venture down the hill in such weather; yet
+knowing her nature he felt that she might. “Poor thing! 'tis like her
+ill-luck,” he murmured.
+
+At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his surprise
+it was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he had driven
+up the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted because of the
+enormous length of the route in proportion to that of the pedestrian's
+path down the open hillside, and the consequent increase of labour for
+the horse.
+
+At this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps being
+in a different direction the comer was not visible. The step paused,
+then came on again.
+
+“Eustacia?” said Wildeve.
+
+The person came forward, and the light fell upon the form of Clym,
+glistening with wet, whom Wildeve immediately recognized; but Wildeve,
+who stood behind the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.
+
+He stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could have
+anything to do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight of
+Yeobright at once banished Wildeve's sober feelings, who saw him again
+as the deadly rival from whom Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards.
+Hence Wildeve did not speak, in the hope that Clym would pass by without
+particular inquiry.
+
+While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audible
+above the storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable--it was the fall
+of a body into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently at a point
+near the weir.
+
+Both started. “Good God! can it be she?” said Clym.
+
+“Why should it be she?” said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that he
+had hitherto screened himself.
+
+“Ah!--that's you, you traitor, is it?” cried Yeobright. “Why should it
+be she? Because last week she would have put an end to her life if she
+had been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of the lamps and
+come with me.”
+
+Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on; Wildeve did not
+wait to unfasten the other, but followed at once along the meadow track
+to the weir, a little in the rear of Clym.
+
+Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet in
+diameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raised
+and lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of the
+pool were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away the bank;
+but the force of the stream in winter was sometimes such as to undermine
+the retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole. Clym reached the
+hatches, the framework of which was shaken to its foundations by the
+velocity of the current. Nothing but the froth of the waves could be
+discerned in the pool below. He got upon the plank bridge over the race,
+and holding to the rail, that the wind might not blow him off, crossed
+to the other side of the river. There he leant over the wall and lowered
+the lamp, only to behold the vortex formed at the curl of the returning
+current.
+
+Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light from
+Yeobright's lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across the weir
+pool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of the currents
+from the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckered mirror a dark
+body was slowly borne by one of the backward currents.
+
+“O, my darling!” exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and, without
+showing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat, he
+leaped into the boiling caldron.
+
+Yeobright could now also discern the floating body, though but
+indistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve's plunge that there was life to
+be saved he was about to leap after. Bethinking himself of a wiser plan,
+he placed the lamp against a post to make it stand upright, and running
+round to the lower part of the pool, where there was no wall, he sprang
+in and boldly waded upwards towards the deeper portion. Here he was
+taken off his legs, and in swimming was carried round into the centre of
+the basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling.
+
+While these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin had
+been toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the direction
+of the light. They had not been near enough to the river to hear the
+plunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage lamp, and watched its
+motion into the mead. As soon as they reached the car and horse Venn
+guessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the
+course of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and came
+to the weir alone.
+
+The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the
+water, and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Being
+encumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
+
+“Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve,” he said hastily. “Run home with
+her, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who may
+be living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir.”
+
+Thomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car the
+horse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, as
+if conscious of misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was. She
+nearly fainted, and would have been unable to proceed another step but
+that the necessity of preserving the little girl from harm nerved her
+to an amazing self-control. In this agony of suspense she entered the
+house, put the baby in a place of safety, woke the lad and the female
+domestic, and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage.
+
+Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that the
+small upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. He found one of these
+lying upon the grass, and taking it under one arm, and with his lantern
+in his hand, entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym had done. As soon
+as he began to be in deep water he flung himself across the hatch; thus
+supported he was able to keep afloat as long as he chose, holding
+the lantern aloft with his disengaged hand. Propelled by his feet, he
+steered round and round the pool, ascending each time by one of the back
+streams and descending in the middle of the current.
+
+At first he could see nothing. Then amidst the glistening of the
+whirlpools and the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman's bonnet
+floating alone. His search was now under the left wall, when something
+came to the surface almost close beside him. It was not, as he had
+expected, a woman, but a man. The reddleman put the ring of the lantern
+between his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar, and, holding
+on to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out into the strongest
+race, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and himself were carried
+down the stream. As soon as Venn found his feet dragging over the
+pebbles of the shallower part below he secured his footing and waded
+towards the brink. There, where the water stood at about the height of
+his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag forth the man.
+This was a matter of great difficulty, and he found as the reason that
+the legs of the unfortunate stranger were tightly embraced by the arms
+of another man, who had hitherto been entirely beneath the surface.
+
+At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards him,
+and two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above. They ran
+to where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out the apparently drowned
+persons, separating them, and laying them out upon the grass. Venn
+turned the light upon their faces. The one who had been uppermost was
+Yeobright; he who had been completely submerged was Wildeve.
+
+“Now we must search the hole again,” said Venn. “A woman is in there
+somewhere. Get a pole.”
+
+One of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail. The
+reddleman and the two others then entered the water together from below
+as before, and with their united force probed the pool forwards to where
+it sloped down to its central depth. Venn was not mistaken in supposing
+that any person who had sunk for the last time would be washed down to
+this point, for when they had examined to about halfway across something
+impeded their thrust.
+
+“Pull it forward,” said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole till it
+was close to their feet.
+
+Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wet
+drapery enclosing a woman's cold form, which was all that remained of
+the desperate Eustacia.
+
+When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief,
+bending over the two unconscious ones who already lay there. The horse
+and cart were brought to the nearest point in the road, and it was the
+work of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle. Venn
+led on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm, and the two men
+followed, till they reached the inn.
+
+The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastily
+dressed herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left to
+snore on in peace at the back of the house. The insensible forms of
+Eustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the carpet,
+with their feet to the fire, when such restorative processes as could
+be thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being in the meantime
+sent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a whiff of life in either
+of the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief had been thrust
+off awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle of hartshorn to Clym's
+nostrils, having tried it in vain upon the other two. He sighed.
+
+“Clym's alive!” she exclaimed.
+
+He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt to
+revive her husband by the same means; but Wildeve gave no sign. There
+was too much reason to think that he and Eustacia both were for ever
+beyond the reach of stimulating perfumes. Their exertions did not relax
+till the doctor arrived, when one by one, the senseless three were taken
+upstairs and put into warm beds.
+
+Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and went to
+the door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophe that
+had befallen the family in which he took so great an interest. Thomasin
+surely would be broken down by the sudden and overwhelming nature of
+this event. No firm and sensible Mrs. Yeobright lived now to support the
+gentle girl through the ordeal; and, whatever an unimpassioned spectator
+might think of her loss of such a husband as Wildeve, there could be no
+doubt that for the moment she was distracted and horrified by the blow.
+As for himself, not being privileged to go to her and comfort her, he
+saw no reason for waiting longer in a house where he remained only as a
+stranger.
+
+He returned across the heath to his van. The fire was not yet out, and
+everything remained as he had left it. Venn now bethought himself of
+his clothes, which were saturated with water to the weight of lead. He
+changed them, spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep. But
+it was more than he could do to rest here while excited by a vivid
+imagination of the turmoil they were in at the house he had quitted,
+and, blaming himself for coming away, he dressed in another suit,
+locked up the door, and again hastened across to the inn. Rain was still
+falling heavily when he entered the kitchen. A bright fire was shining
+from the hearth, and two women were bustling about, one of whom was Olly
+Dowden.
+
+“Well, how is it going on now?” said Venn in a whisper.
+
+“Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright and Mr. Wildeve are dead
+and cold. The doctor says they were quite gone before they were out of
+the water.”
+
+“Ah! I thought as much when I hauled 'em up. And Mrs. Wildeve?”
+
+“She is as well as can be expected. The doctor had her put between
+blankets, for she was almost as wet as they that had been in the river,
+poor young thing. You don't seem very dry, reddleman.”
+
+“Oh, 'tis not much. I have changed my things. This is only a little
+dampness I've got coming through the rain again.”
+
+“Stand by the fire. Mis'ess says you be to have whatever you want, and
+she was sorry when she was told that you'd gone away.”
+
+Venn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames in an absent
+mood. The steam came from his leggings and ascended the chimney with the
+smoke, while he thought of those who were upstairs. Two were corpses,
+one had barely escaped the jaws of death, another was sick and a widow.
+The last occasion on which he had lingered by that fireplace was when
+the raffle was in progress; when Wildeve was alive and well; Thomasin
+active and smiling in the next room; Yeobright and Eustacia just made
+husband and wife, and Mrs. Yeobright living at Blooms-End. It had seemed
+at that time that the then position of affairs was good for at least
+twenty years to come. Yet, of all the circle, he himself was the only
+one whose situation had not materially changed.
+
+While he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. It was the nurse,
+who brought in her hand a rolled mass of wet paper. The woman was so
+engrossed with her occupation that she hardly saw Venn. She took from a
+cupboard some pieces of twine, which she strained across the fireplace,
+tying the end of each piece to the firedog, previously pulled forward
+for the purpose, and, unrolling the wet papers, she began pinning them
+one by one to the strings in a manner of clothes on a line.
+
+“What be they?” said Venn.
+
+“Poor master's banknotes,” she answered. “They were found in his pocket
+when they undressed him.”
+
+“Then he was not coming back again for some time?” said Venn.
+
+“That we shall never know,” said she.
+
+Venn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested him lay under
+this roof. As nobody in the house had any more sleep that night, except
+the two who slept for ever, there was no reason why he should not
+remain. So he retired into the niche of the fireplace where he had used
+to sit, and there he continued, watching the steam from the double row
+of banknotes as they waved backwards and forwards in the draught of the
+chimney till their flaccidity was changed to dry crispness throughout.
+Then the woman came and unpinned them, and, folding them together,
+carried the handful upstairs. Presently the doctor appeared from above
+with the look of a man who could do no more, and, pulling on his gloves,
+went out of the house, the trotting of his horse soon dying away upon
+the road.
+
+At four o'clock there was a gentle knock at the door. It was from
+Charley, who had been sent by Captain Vye to inquire if anything had
+been heard of Eustacia. The girl who admitted him looked in his face as
+if she did not know what answer to return, and showed him in to where
+Venn was seated, saying to the reddleman, “Will you tell him, please?”
+
+Venn told. Charley's only utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound. He
+stood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, “I shall see her
+once more?”
+
+“I dare say you may see her,” said Diggory gravely. “But hadn't you
+better run and tell Captain Vye?”
+
+“Yes, yes. Only I do hope I shall see her just once again.”
+
+“You shall,” said a low voice behind; and starting round they beheld
+by the dim light, a thin, pallid, almost spectral form, wrapped in a
+blanket, and looking like Lazarus coming from the tomb.
+
+It was Yeobright. Neither Venn nor Charley spoke, and Clym continued,
+“You shall see her. There will be time enough to tell the captain when
+it gets daylight. You would like to see her too--would you not, Diggory?
+She looks very beautiful now.”
+
+Venn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley he followed Clym
+to the foot of the staircase, where he took off his boots; Charley did
+the same. They followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, where there
+was a candle burning, which Yeobright took in his hand, and with it led
+the way into an adjoining room. Here he went to the bedside and folded
+back the sheet.
+
+They stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay there still
+in death, eclipsed all her living phases. Pallor did not include all
+the quality of her complexion, which seemed more than whiteness; it was
+almost light. The expression of her finely carved mouth was pleasant,
+as if a sense of dignity had just compelled her to leave off speaking.
+Eternal rigidity had seized upon it in a momentary transition between
+fervour and resignation. Her black hair was looser now than either of
+them had ever seen it before, and surrounded her brow like a forest. The
+stateliness of look which had been almost too marked for a dweller in a
+country domicile had at last found an artistically happy background.
+
+Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. “Now
+come here,” he said.
+
+They went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed,
+lay another figure--Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face than
+in Eustacia's, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, and the
+least sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him now that he
+was born for a higher destiny than this. The only sign upon him of his
+recent struggle for life was in his fingertips, which were worn and
+sacrificed in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on the face of the
+weir-wall.
+
+Yeobright's manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllables
+since his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was only
+when they had left the room and stood upon the landing that the true
+state of his mind was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile,
+inclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay, “She is
+the second woman I have killed this year. I was a great cause of my
+mother's death, and I am the chief cause of hers.”
+
+“How?” said Venn.
+
+“I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not invite her
+back till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drowned myself. It
+would have been a charity to the living had the river overwhelmed me and
+borne her up. But I cannot die. Those who ought to have lived lie dead;
+and here am I alive!”
+
+“But you can't charge yourself with crimes in that way,” said Venn. “You
+may as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by the child,
+for without the parents the child would never have been begot.”
+
+“Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don't know all the circumstances.
+If it had pleased God to put an end to me it would have been a good
+thing for all. But I am getting used to the horror of my existence. They
+say that a time comes when men laugh at misery through long acquaintance
+with it. Surely that time will soon come to me!”
+
+“Your aim has always been good,” said Venn. “Why should you say such
+desperate things?”
+
+“No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my great regret
+is that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!”
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SIX -- AFTERCOURSES
+
+
+
+
+1--The Inevitable Movement Onward
+
+
+The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout
+Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known
+incidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and
+modified, till the original reality bore but a slight resemblance to the
+counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues. Yet, upon the whole,
+neither the man nor the woman lost dignity by sudden death. Misfortune
+had struck them gracefully, cutting off their erratic histories with a
+catastrophic dash, instead of, as with many, attenuating each life to an
+uninteresting meagreness, through long years of wrinkles, neglect, and
+decay.
+
+On those most nearly concerned the effect was somewhat different.
+Strangers who had heard of many such cases now merely heard of one more;
+but immediately where a blow falls no previous imaginings amount to
+appreciable preparation for it. The very suddenness of her bereavement
+dulled, to some extent, Thomasin's feelings; yet irrationally enough, a
+consciousness that the husband she had lost ought to have been a better
+man did not lessen her mourning at all. On the contrary, this fact
+seemed at first to set off the dead husband in his young wife's eyes,
+and to be the necessary cloud to the rainbow.
+
+But the horrors of the unknown had passed. Vague misgivings about her
+future as a deserted wife were at an end. The worst had once been matter
+of trembling conjecture; it was now matter of reason only, a limited
+badness. Her chief interest, the little Eustacia, still remained. There
+was humility in her grief, no defiance in her attitude; and when this is
+the case a shaken spirit is apt to be stilled.
+
+Could Thomasin's mournfulness now and Eustacia's serenity during life
+have been reduced to common measure, they would have touched the same
+mark nearly. But Thomasin's former brightness made shadow of that which
+in a sombre atmosphere was light itself.
+
+The spring came and calmed her; the summer came and soothed her; the
+autumn arrived, and she began to be comforted, for her little girl
+was strong and happy, growing in size and knowledge every day. Outward
+events flattered Thomasin not a little. Wildeve had died intestate, and
+she and the child were his only relatives. When administration had been
+granted, all the debts paid, and the residue of her husband's uncle's
+property had come into her hands, it was found that the sum waiting to
+be invested for her own and the child's benefit was little less than ten
+thousand pounds.
+
+Where should she live? The obvious place was Blooms-End. The old rooms,
+it is true, were not much higher than the between-decks of a frigate,
+necessitating a sinking in the floor under the new clock-case she
+brought from the inn, and the removal of the handsome brass knobs on its
+head, before there was height for it to stand; but, such as the rooms
+were, there were plenty of them, and the place was endeared to her by
+every early recollection. Clym very gladly admitted her as a tenant,
+confining his own existence to two rooms at the top of the back
+staircase, where he lived on quietly, shut off from Thomasin and the
+three servants she had thought fit to indulge in now that she was a
+mistress of money, going his own ways, and thinking his own thoughts.
+
+His sorrows had made some change in his outward appearance; and yet the
+alteration was chiefly within. It might have been said that he had a
+wrinkled mind. He had no enemies, and he could get nobody to reproach
+him, which was why he so bitterly reproached himself.
+
+He did sometimes think he had been ill-used by fortune, so far as to say
+that to be born is a palpable dilemma, and that instead of men aiming to
+advance in life with glory they should calculate how to retreat out
+of it without shame. But that he and his had been sarcastically and
+pitilessly handled in having such irons thrust into their souls he did
+not maintain long. It is usually so, except with the sternest of men.
+Human beings, in their generous endeavour to construct a hypothesis that
+shall not degrade a First Cause, have always hesitated to conceive a
+dominant power of lower moral quality than their own; and, even while
+they sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon, invent excuses for the
+oppression which prompts their tears.
+
+Thus, though words of solace were vainly uttered in his presence, he
+found relief in a direction of his own choosing when left to himself.
+For a man of his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a
+year which he had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all
+worldly needs. Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the
+proportion of spendings to takings.
+
+He frequently walked the heath alone, when the past seized upon him
+with its shadowy hand, and held him there to listen to its tale.
+His imagination would then people the spot with its ancient
+inhabitants--forgotten Celtic tribes trod their tracks about him, and he
+could almost live among them, look in their faces, and see them standing
+beside the barrows which swelled around, untouched and perfect as at the
+time of their erection. Those of the dyed barbarians who had chosen
+the cultivable tracts were, in comparison with those who had left their
+marks here, as writers on paper beside writers on parchment. Their
+records had perished long ago by the plough, while the works of these
+remained. Yet they all had lived and died unconscious of the different
+fates awaiting their relics. It reminded him that unforeseen factors
+operate in the evolution of immortality.
+
+Winter again came round, with its winds, frosts, tame robins, and
+sparkling starlight. The year previous Thomasin had hardly been
+conscious of the season's advance; this year she laid her heart open to
+external influences of every kind. The life of this sweet cousin, her
+baby, and her servants, came to Clym's senses only in the form of sounds
+through a wood partition as he sat over books of exceptionally large
+type; but his ear became at last so accustomed to these slight noises
+from the other part of the house that he almost could witness the
+scenes they signified. A faint beat of half-seconds conjured up Thomasin
+rocking the cradle, a wavering hum meant that she was singing the baby
+to sleep, a crunching of sand as between millstones raised the picture
+of Humphrey's, Fairway's, or Sam's heavy feet crossing the stone floor
+of the kitchen; a light boyish step, and a gay tune in a high key,
+betokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden break-off in the
+Grandfer's utterances implied the application to his lips of a mug of
+small beer, a bustling and slamming of doors meant starting to go to
+market; for Thomasin, in spite of her added scope of gentility, led a
+ludicrously narrow life, to the end that she might save every possible
+pound for her little daughter.
+
+One summer day Clym was in the garden, immediately outside the parlour
+window, which was as usual open. He was looking at the pot-flowers on
+the sill; they had been revived and restored by Thomasin to the state in
+which his mother had left them. He heard a slight scream from Thomasin,
+who was sitting inside the room.
+
+“O, how you frightened me!” she said to someone who had entered. “I
+thought you were the ghost of yourself.”
+
+Clym was curious enough to advance a little further and look in at the
+window. To his astonishment there stood within the room Diggory Venn,
+no longer a reddleman, but exhibiting the strangely altered hues of
+an ordinary Christian countenance, white shirt-front, light flowered
+waistcoat, blue-spotted neckerchief, and bottle-green coat. Nothing in
+this appearance was at all singular but the fact of its great difference
+from what he had formerly been. Red, and all approach to red, was
+carefully excluded from every article of clothes upon him; for what is
+there that persons just out of harness dread so much as reminders of the
+trade which has enriched them?
+
+Yeobright went round to the door and entered.
+
+“I was so alarmed!” said Thomasin, smiling from one to the other. “I
+couldn't believe that he had got white of his own accord! It seemed
+supernatural.”
+
+“I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas,” said Venn. “It was a
+profitable trade, and I found that by that time I had made enough to
+take the dairy of fifty cows that my father had in his lifetime. I
+always thought of getting to that place again if I changed at all, and
+now I am there.”
+
+“How did you manage to become white, Diggory?” Thomasin asked.
+
+“I turned so by degrees, ma'am.”
+
+“You look much better than ever you did before.”
+
+Venn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how inadvertently she had
+spoken to a man who might possibly have tender feelings for her still,
+blushed a little. Clym saw nothing of this, and added good-humouredly--
+
+“What shall we have to frighten Thomasin's baby with, now you have
+become a human being again?”
+
+“Sit down, Diggory,” said Thomasin, “and stay to tea.”
+
+Venn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen, when Thomasin said with
+pleasant pertness as she went on with some sewing, “Of course you must
+sit down here. And where does your fifty-cow dairy lie, Mr. Venn?”
+
+“At Stickleford--about two miles to the right of Alderworth, ma'am,
+where the meads begin. I have thought that if Mr. Yeobright would like
+to pay me a visit sometimes he shouldn't stay away for want of asking.
+I'll not bide to tea this afternoon, thank'ee, for I've got something on
+hand that must be settled. 'Tis Maypole-day tomorrow, and the Shadwater
+folk have clubbed with a few of your neighbours here to have a pole just
+outside your palings in the heath, as it is a nice green place.” Venn
+waved his elbow towards the patch in front of the house. “I have been
+talking to Fairway about it,” he continued, “and I said to him that
+before we put up the pole it would be as well to ask Mrs. Wildeve.”
+
+“I can say nothing against it,” she answered. “Our property does not
+reach an inch further than the white palings.”
+
+“But you might not like to see a lot of folk going crazy round a stick,
+under your very nose?”
+
+“I shall have no objection at all.”
+
+Venn soon after went away, and in the evening Yeobright strolled as far
+as Fairway's cottage. It was a lovely May sunset, and the birch trees
+which grew on this margin of the vast Egdon wilderness had put on their
+new leaves, delicate as butterflies' wings, and diaphanous as amber.
+Beside Fairway's dwelling was an open space recessed from the road, and
+here were now collected all the young people from within a radius of a
+couple of miles. The pole lay with one end supported on a trestle,
+and women were engaged in wreathing it from the top downwards with
+wild-flowers. The instincts of merry England lingered on here with
+exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has
+attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed,
+the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still--in these
+spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of
+Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way
+or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.
+
+Yeobright did not interrupt the preparations, and went home again. The
+next morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom window,
+there stood the Maypole in the middle of the green, its top cutting into
+the sky. It had sprung up in the night, or rather early morning, like
+Jack's bean-stalk. She opened the casement to get a better view of the
+garlands and posies that adorned it. The sweet perfume of the flowers
+had already spread into the surrounding air, which, being free from
+every taint, conducted to her lips a full measure of the fragrance
+received from the spire of blossom in its midst. At the top of the
+pole were crossed hoops decked with small flowers; beneath these came a
+milk-white zone of Maybloom; then a zone of bluebells, then of cowslips,
+then of lilacs, then of ragged-robins, daffodils, and so on, till the
+lowest stage was reached. Thomasin noticed all these, and was delighted
+that the May revel was to be so near.
+
+When afternoon came people began to gather on the green, and Yeobright
+was interested enough to look out upon them from the open window of
+his room. Soon after this Thomasin walked out from the door immediately
+below and turned her eyes up to her cousin's face. She was dressed
+more gaily than Yeobright had ever seen her dressed since the time of
+Wildeve's death, eighteen months before; since the day of her marriage
+even she had not exhibited herself to such advantage.
+
+“How pretty you look today, Thomasin!” he said. “Is it because of the
+Maypole?”
+
+“Not altogether.” And then she blushed and dropped her eyes, which he
+did not specially observe, though her manner seemed to him to be rather
+peculiar, considering that she was only addressing himself. Could it be
+possible that she had put on her summer clothes to please him?
+
+He recalled her conduct towards him throughout the last few weeks, when
+they had often been working together in the garden, just as they had
+formerly done when they were boy and girl under his mother's eye. What
+if her interest in him were not so entirely that of a relative as it had
+formerly been? To Yeobright any possibility of this sort was a serious
+matter; and he almost felt troubled at the thought of it. Every pulse of
+loverlike feeling which had not been stilled during Eustacia's lifetime
+had gone into the grave with her. His passion for her had occurred too
+far on in his manhood to leave fuel enough on hand for another fire
+of that sort, as may happen with more boyish loves. Even supposing him
+capable of loving again, that love would be a plant of slow and laboured
+growth, and in the end only small and sickly, like an autumn-hatched
+bird.
+
+He was so distressed by this new complexity that when the enthusiastic
+brass band arrived and struck up, which it did about five o'clock, with
+apparently wind enough among its members to blow down his house, he
+withdrew from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden, through
+the gate in the hedge, and away out of sight. He could not bear to
+remain in the presence of enjoyment today, though he had tried hard.
+
+Nothing was seen of him for four hours. When he came back by the same
+path it was dusk, and the dews were coating every green thing. The
+boisterous music had ceased; but, entering the premises as he did from
+behind, he could not see if the May party had all gone till he had
+passed through Thomasin's division of the house to the front door.
+Thomasin was standing within the porch alone.
+
+She looked at him reproachfully. “You went away just when it began,
+Clym,” she said.
+
+“Yes. I felt I could not join in. You went out with them, of course?”
+
+“No, I did not.”
+
+“You appeared to be dressed on purpose.”
+
+“Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there. One is
+there now.”
+
+Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the
+paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy
+figure, sauntering idly up and down. “Who is it?” he said.
+
+“Mr. Venn,” said Thomasin.
+
+“You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. He has been very
+kind to you first and last.”
+
+“I will now,” she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through the
+wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.
+
+“It is Mr. Venn, I think?” she inquired.
+
+Venn started as if he had not seen her--artful man that he was--and
+said, “Yes.”
+
+“Will you come in?”
+
+“I am afraid that I--”
+
+“I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had the very best of the
+girls for your partners. Is it that you won't come in because you wish
+to stand here, and think over the past hours of enjoyment?”
+
+“Well, that's partly it,” said Mr. Venn, with ostentatious sentiment.
+“But the main reason why I am biding here like this is that I want to
+wait till the moon rises.”
+
+“To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?”
+
+“No. To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens.”
+
+Thomasin was speechless with surprise. That a man who had to walk
+some four or five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason
+pointed to only one conclusion--the man must be amazingly interested in
+that glove's owner.
+
+“Were you dancing with her, Diggory?” she asked, in a voice which
+revealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her
+by this disclosure.
+
+“No,” he sighed.
+
+“And you will not come in, then?”
+
+“Not tonight, thank you, ma'am.”
+
+“Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person's glove, Mr.
+Venn?”
+
+“O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. The moon will rise
+in a few minutes.”
+
+Thomasin went back to the porch. “Is he coming in?” said Clym, who had
+been waiting where she had left him.
+
+“He would rather not tonight,” she said, and then passed by him into the
+house; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms.
+
+When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just
+listening by the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she
+went to the window, gently lifted the corner of the white curtain, and
+looked out. Venn was still there. She watched the growth of the faint
+radiance appearing in the sky by the eastern hill, till presently
+the edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley with light.
+Diggory's form was now distinct on the green; he was moving about in a
+bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the precious missing
+article, walking in zigzags right and left till he should have passed
+over every foot of the ground.
+
+“How very ridiculous!” Thomasin murmured to herself, in a tone which was
+intended to be satirical. “To think that a man should be so silly as to
+go mooning about like that for a girl's glove! A respectable dairyman,
+too, and a man of money as he is now. What a pity!”
+
+At last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood up and raised it to
+his lips. Then placing it in his breastpocket--the nearest receptacle to
+a man's heart permitted by modern raiment--he ascended the valley in a
+mathematically direct line towards his distant home in the meadows.
+
+
+
+2--Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road
+
+
+Clym saw little of Thomasin for several days after this; and when they
+met she was more silent than usual. At length he asked her what she was
+thinking of so intently.
+
+“I am thoroughly perplexed,” she said candidly. “I cannot for my life
+think who it is that Diggory Venn is so much in love with. None of the
+girls at the Maypole were good enough for him, and yet she must have
+been there.”
+
+Clym tried to imagine Venn's choice for a moment; but ceasing to be
+interested in the question he went on again with his gardening.
+
+No clearing up of the mystery was granted her for some time. But one
+afternoon Thomasin was upstairs getting ready for a walk, when she had
+occasion to come to the landing and call “Rachel.” Rachel was a girl
+about thirteen, who carried the baby out for airings; and she came
+upstairs at the call.
+
+“Have you seen one of my last new gloves about the house, Rachel?”
+ inquired Thomasin. “It is the fellow to this one.”
+
+Rachel did not reply.
+
+“Why don't you answer?” said her mistress.
+
+“I think it is lost, ma'am.”
+
+“Lost? Who lost it? I have never worn them but once.”
+
+Rachel appeared as one dreadfully troubled, and at last began to cry.
+“Please, ma'am, on the day of the Maypole I had none to wear, and I seed
+yours on the table, and I thought I would borrow 'em. I did not mean to
+hurt 'em at all, but one of them got lost. Somebody gave me some money
+to buy another pair for you, but I have not been able to go anywhere to
+get 'em.”
+
+“Who's somebody?”
+
+“Mr. Venn.”
+
+“Did he know it was my glove?”
+
+“Yes. I told him.”
+
+Thomasin was so surprised by the explanation that she quite forgot
+to lecture the girl, who glided silently away. Thomasin did not move
+further than to turn her eyes upon the grass-plat where the Maypole had
+stood. She remained thinking, then said to herself that she would not go
+out that afternoon, but would work hard at the baby's unfinished lovely
+plaid frock, cut on the cross in the newest fashion. How she managed to
+work hard, and yet do no more than she had done at the end of two hours,
+would have been a mystery to anyone not aware that the recent incident
+was of a kind likely to divert her industry from a manual to a mental
+channel.
+
+Next day she went her ways as usual, and continued her custom of walking
+in the heath with no other companion than little Eustacia, now of the
+age when it is a matter of doubt with such characters whether they are
+intended to walk through the world on their hands or on their feet; so
+that they get into painful complications by trying both. It was very
+pleasant to Thomasin, when she had carried the child to some lonely
+place, to give her a little private practice on the green turf and
+shepherd's-thyme, which formed a soft mat to fall headlong upon them
+when equilibrium was lost.
+
+Once, when engaged in this system of training, and stooping to remove
+bits of stick, fern-stalks, and other such fragments from the child's
+path, that the journey might not be brought to an untimely end by
+some insuperable barrier a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by
+discovering that a man on horseback was almost close beside her, the
+soft natural carpet having muffled the horse's tread. The rider, who was
+Venn, waved his hat in the air and bowed gallantly.
+
+“Diggory, give me my glove,” said Thomasin, whose manner it was under
+any circumstances to plunge into the midst of a subject which engrossed
+her.
+
+Venn immediately dismounted, put his hand in his breastpocket, and
+handed the glove.
+
+“Thank you. It was very good of you to take care of it.”
+
+“It is very good of you to say so.”
+
+“O no. I was quite glad to find you had it. Everybody gets so
+indifferent that I was surprised to know you thought of me.”
+
+“If you had remembered what I was once you wouldn't have been
+surprised.”
+
+“Ah, no,” she said quickly. “But men of your character are mostly so
+independent.”
+
+“What is my character?” he asked.
+
+“I don't exactly know,” said Thomasin simply, “except it is to cover up
+your feelings under a practical manner, and only to show them when you
+are alone.”
+
+“Ah, how do you know that?” said Venn strategically.
+
+“Because,” said she, stopping to put the little girl, who had managed to
+get herself upside down, right end up again, “because I do.”
+
+“You mustn't judge by folks in general,” said Venn. “Still I don't know
+much what feelings are nowadays. I have got so mixed up with business
+of one sort and t'other that my soft sentiments are gone off in vapour
+like. Yes, I am given up body and soul to the making of money. Money is
+all my dream.”
+
+“O Diggory, how wicked!” said Thomasin reproachfully, and looking at him
+in exact balance between taking his words seriously and judging them as
+said to tease her.
+
+“Yes, 'tis rather a rum course,” said Venn, in the bland tone of one
+comfortably resigned to sins he could no longer overcome.
+
+“You, who used to be so nice!”
+
+“Well, that's an argument I rather like, because what a man has once
+been he may be again.” Thomasin blushed. “Except that it is rather
+harder now,” Venn continued.
+
+“Why?” she asked.
+
+“Because you be richer than you were at that time.”
+
+“O no--not much. I have made it nearly all over to the baby, as it was
+my duty to do, except just enough to live on.”
+
+“I am rather glad of that,” said Venn softly, and regarding her from the
+corner of his eye, “for it makes it easier for us to be friendly.”
+
+Thomasin blushed again, and, when a few more words had been said of a
+not unpleasing kind, Venn mounted his horse and rode on.
+
+This conversation had passed in a hollow of the heath near the old
+Roman road, a place much frequented by Thomasin. And it might have been
+observed that she did not in future walk that way less often from having
+met Venn there now. Whether or not Venn abstained from riding thither
+because he had met Thomasin in the same place might easily have been
+guessed from her proceedings about two months later in the same year.
+
+
+
+
+3--The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin
+
+
+Throughout this period Yeobright had more or less pondered on his duty
+to his cousin Thomasin. He could not help feeling that it would be a
+pitiful waste of sweet material if the tender-natured thing should be
+doomed from this early stage of her life onwards to dribble away her
+winsome qualities on lonely gorse and fern. But he felt this as an
+economist merely, and not as a lover. His passion for Eustacia had been
+a sort of conserve of his whole life, and he had nothing more of that
+supreme quality left to bestow. So far the obvious thing was not to
+entertain any idea of marriage with Thomasin, even to oblige her.
+
+But this was not all. Years ago there had been in his mother's mind a
+great fancy about Thomasin and himself. It had not positively amounted
+to a desire, but it had always been a favourite dream. That they
+should be man and wife in good time, if the happiness of neither were
+endangered thereby, was the fancy in question. So that what course save
+one was there now left for any son who reverenced his mother's memory
+as Yeobright did? It is an unfortunate fact that any particular whim of
+parents, which might have been dispersed by half an hour's conversation
+during their lives, becomes sublimated by their deaths into a fiat the
+most absolute, with such results to conscientious children as those
+parents, had they lived, would have been the first to decry.
+
+Had only Yeobright's own future been involved he would have proposed to
+Thomasin with a ready heart. He had nothing to lose by carrying out a
+dead mother's hope. But he dreaded to contemplate Thomasin wedded to the
+mere corpse of a lover that he now felt himself to be. He had but three
+activities alive in him. One was his almost daily walk to the little
+graveyard wherein his mother lay; another, his just as frequent visits
+by night to the more distant enclosure which numbered his Eustacia among
+its dead; the third was self-preparation for a vocation which alone
+seemed likely to satisfy his cravings--that of an itinerant preacher
+of the eleventh commandment. It was difficult to believe that Thomasin
+would be cheered by a husband with such tendencies as these.
+
+Yet he resolved to ask her, and let her decide for herself. It was even
+with a pleasant sense of doing his duty that he went downstairs to her
+one evening for this purpose, when the sun was printing on the valley
+the same long shadow of the housetop that he had seen lying there times
+out of number while his mother lived.
+
+Thomasin was not in her room, and he found her in the front garden. “I
+have long been wanting, Thomasin,” he began, “to say something about a
+matter that concerns both our futures.”
+
+“And you are going to say it now?” she remarked quickly, colouring as
+she met his gaze. “Do stop a minute, Clym, and let me speak first, for
+oddly enough, I have been wanting to say something to you.”
+
+“By all means say on, Tamsie.”
+
+“I suppose nobody can overhear us?” she went on, casting her eyes around
+and lowering her voice. “Well, first you will promise me this--that you
+won't be angry and call me anything harsh if you disagree with what I
+propose?”
+
+Yeobright promised, and she continued: “What I want is your advice,
+for you are my relation--I mean, a sort of guardian to me--aren't you,
+Clym?”
+
+“Well, yes, I suppose I am; a sort of guardian. In fact, I am, of
+course,” he said, altogether perplexed as to her drift.
+
+“I am thinking of marrying,” she then observed blandly. “But I shall not
+marry unless you assure me that you approve of such a step. Why don't
+you speak?”
+
+“I was taken rather by surprise. But, nevertheless, I am very glad to
+hear such news. I shall approve, of course, dear Tamsie. Who can it be?
+I am quite at a loss to guess. No I am not--'tis the old doctor!--not
+that I mean to call him old, for he is not very old after all. Ah--I
+noticed when he attended you last time!”
+
+“No, no,” she said hastily. “'Tis Mr. Venn.”
+
+Clym's face suddenly became grave.
+
+“There, now, you don't like him, and I wish I hadn't mentioned him!” she
+exclaimed almost petulantly. “And I shouldn't have done it, either, only
+he keeps on bothering me so till I don't know what to do!”
+
+Clym looked at the heath. “I like Venn well enough,” he answered at
+last. “He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is clever
+too, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But really,
+Thomasin, he is not quite--”
+
+“Gentleman enough for me? That is just what I feel. I am sorry now that
+I asked you, and I won't think any more of him. At the same time I must
+marry him if I marry anybody--that I WILL say!”
+
+“I don't see that,” said Clym, carefully concealing every clue to his
+own interrupted intention, which she plainly had not guessed. “You might
+marry a professional man, or somebody of that sort, by going into the
+town to live and forming acquaintances there.”
+
+“I am not fit for town life--so very rural and silly as I always have
+been. Do not you yourself notice my countrified ways?”
+
+“Well, when I came home from Paris I did, a little; but I don't now.”
+
+“That's because you have got countrified too. O, I couldn't live in a
+street for the world! Egdon is a ridiculous old place; but I have got
+used to it, and I couldn't be happy anywhere else at all.”
+
+“Neither could I,” said Clym.
+
+“Then how could you say that I should marry some town man? I am sure,
+say what you will, that I must marry Diggory, if I marry at all. He has
+been kinder to me than anybody else, and has helped me in many ways that
+I don't know of!” Thomasin almost pouted now.
+
+“Yes, he has,” said Clym in a neutral tone. “Well, I wish with all my
+heart that I could say, marry him. But I cannot forget what my mother
+thought on that matter, and it goes rather against me not to respect her
+opinion. There is too much reason why we should do the little we can to
+respect it now.”
+
+“Very well, then,” sighed Thomasin. “I will say no more.”
+
+“But you are not bound to obey my wishes. I merely say what I think.”
+
+“O no--I don't want to be rebellious in that way,” she said sadly. “I
+had no business to think of him--I ought to have thought of my family.
+What dreadfully bad impulses there are in me!” Her lips trembled, and
+she turned away to hide a tear.
+
+Clym, though vexed at what seemed her unaccountable taste, was in a
+measure relieved to find that at any rate the marriage question in
+relation to himself was shelved. Through several succeeding days he saw
+her at different times from the window of his room moping disconsolately
+about the garden. He was half angry with her for choosing Venn; then he
+was grieved at having put himself in the way of Venn's happiness, who
+was, after all, as honest and persevering a young fellow as any on
+Egdon, since he had turned over a new leaf. In short, Clym did not know
+what to do.
+
+When next they met she said abruptly, “He is much more respectable now
+than he was then!”
+
+“Who? O yes--Diggory Venn.”
+
+“Aunt only objected because he was a reddleman.”
+
+“Well, Thomasin, perhaps I don't know all the particulars of my mother's
+wish. So you had better use your own discretion.”
+
+“You will always feel that I slighted your mother's memory.”
+
+“No, I will not. I shall think you are convinced that, had she seen
+Diggory in his present position, she would have considered him a fitting
+husband for you. Now, that's my real feeling. Don't consult me any more,
+but do as you like, Thomasin. I shall be content.”
+
+It is to be supposed that Thomasin was convinced; for a few days after
+this, when Clym strayed into a part of the heath that he had not lately
+visited, Humphrey, who was at work there, said to him, “I am glad to see
+that Mrs. Wildeve and Venn have made it up again, seemingly.”
+
+“Have they?” said Clym abstractedly.
+
+“Yes; and he do contrive to stumble upon her whenever she walks out on
+fine days with the chiel. But, Mr. Yeobright, I can't help feeling
+that your cousin ought to have married you. 'Tis a pity to make two
+chimleycorners where there need be only one. You could get her away from
+him now, 'tis my belief, if you were only to set about it.”
+
+“How can I have the conscience to marry after having driven two women to
+their deaths? Don't think such a thing, Humphrey. After my experience
+I should consider it too much of a burlesque to go to church and take a
+wife. In the words of Job, 'I have made a covenant with mine eyes; when
+then should I think upon a maid?'”
+
+“No, Mr. Clym, don't fancy that about driving two women to their deaths.
+You shouldn't say it.”
+
+“Well, we'll leave that out,” said Yeobright. “But anyhow God has set a
+mark upon me which wouldn't look well in a love-making scene. I have two
+ideas in my head, and no others. I am going to keep a night-school;
+and I am going to turn preacher. What have you got to say to that,
+Humphrey?”
+
+“I'll come and hear 'ee with all my heart.”
+
+“Thanks. 'Tis all I wish.”
+
+As Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came down by the other path,
+and met him at the gate. “What do you think I have to tell you, Clym?”
+ she said, looking archly over her shoulder at him.
+
+“I can guess,” he replied.
+
+She scrutinized his face. “Yes, you guess right. It is going to be after
+all. He thinks I may as well make up my mind, and I have got to think
+so too. It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you don't
+object.”
+
+“Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you see your way
+clear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the treatment
+you received in days gone by.” *
+
+     * The writer may state here that the original conception of
+     the story did not design a marriage between Thomasin and
+     Venn. He was to have retained his isolated and weird
+     character to the last, and to have disappeared mysteriously
+     from the heath, nobody knowing whither--Thomasin remaining a
+     widow. But certain circumstances of serial publication led
+     to a change of intent.
+
+     Readers can therefore choose between the endings, and those with an
+     austere artistic code can assume the more consistent conclusion to be
+     the true one.
+
+
+
+
+4--Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His
+Vocation
+
+
+Anybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven o'clock on the
+morning fixed for the wedding would have found that, while Yeobright's
+house was comparatively quiet, sounds denoting great activity came from
+the dwelling of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway. It was chiefly
+a noise of feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over the sanded
+floor within. One man only was visible outside, and he seemed to be
+later at an appointment than he had intended to be, for he hastened up
+to the door, lifted the latch, and walked in without ceremony.
+
+The scene within was not quite the customary one. Standing about the
+room was the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the Egdon
+coterie, there being present Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle, Humphrey,
+Christian, and one or two turf-cutters. It was a warm day, and the men
+were as a matter of course in their shirtsleeves, except Christian, who
+had always a nervous fear of parting with a scrap of his clothing when
+in anybody's house but his own. Across the stout oak table in the middle
+of the room was thrown a mass of striped linen, which Grandfer Cantle
+held down on one side, and Humphrey on the other, while Fairway rubbed
+its surface with a yellow lump, his face being damp and creased with the
+effort of the labour.
+
+“Waxing a bed-tick, souls?” said the newcomer.
+
+“Yes, Sam,” said Grandfer Cantle, as a man too busy to waste words.
+“Shall I stretch this corner a shade tighter, Timothy?”
+
+Fairway replied, and the waxing went on with unabated vigour. “'Tis
+going to be a good bed, by the look o't,” continued Sam, after an
+interval of silence. “Who may it be for?”
+
+“'Tis a present for the new folks that's going to set up housekeeping,”
+ said Christian, who stood helpless and overcome by the majesty of the
+proceedings.
+
+“Ah, to be sure; and a valuable one, 'a b'lieve.”
+
+“Beds be dear to fokes that don't keep geese, bain't they, Mister
+Fairway?” said Christian, as to an omniscient being.
+
+“Yes,” said the furze-dealer, standing up, giving his forehead a
+thorough mopping, and handing the beeswax to Humphrey, who succeeded
+at the rubbing forthwith. “Not that this couple be in want of one, but
+'twas well to show 'em a bit of friendliness at this great racketing
+vagary of their lives. I set up both my own daughters in one when they
+was married, and there have been feathers enough for another in the
+house the last twelve months. Now then, neighbours, I think we have
+laid on enough wax. Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right way
+outwards, and then I'll begin to shake in the feathers.”
+
+When the bed was in proper trim Fairway and Christian brought forward
+vast paper bags, stuffed to the full, but light as balloons, and began
+to turn the contents of each into the receptacle just prepared. As bag
+after bag was emptied, airy tufts of down and feathers floated about the
+room in increasing quantity till, through a mishap of Christian's, who
+shook the contents of one bag outside the tick, the atmosphere of the
+room became dense with gigantic flakes, which descended upon the workers
+like a windless snowstorm.
+
+“I never saw such a clumsy chap as you, Christian,” said Grandfer
+Cantle severely. “You might have been the son of a man that's never been
+outside Blooms-End in his life for all the wit you have. Really all the
+soldiering and smartness in the world in the father seems to count for
+nothing in forming the nater of the son. As far as that chief Christian
+is concerned I might as well have stayed at home and seed nothing,
+like all the rest of ye here. Though, as far as myself is concerned, a
+dashing spirit has counted for sommat, to be sure!”
+
+“Don't ye let me down so, Father; I feel no bigger than a ninepin after
+it. I've made but a bruckle hit, I'm afeard.”
+
+“Come, come. Never pitch yerself in such a low key as that, Christian;
+you should try more,” said Fairway.
+
+“Yes, you should try more,” echoed the Grandfer with insistence, as
+if he had been the first to make the suggestion. “In common conscience
+every man ought either to marry or go for a soldier. 'Tis a scandal to
+the nation to do neither one nor t'other. I did both, thank God! Neither
+to raise men nor to lay 'em low--that shows a poor do-nothing spirit
+indeed.”
+
+“I never had the nerve to stand fire,” faltered Christian. “But as to
+marrying, I own I've asked here and there, though without much fruit
+from it. Yes, there's some house or other that might have had a man for
+a master--such as he is--that's now ruled by a woman alone. Still it
+might have been awkward if I had found her; for, d'ye see, neighbours,
+there'd have been nobody left at home to keep down Father's spirits to
+the decent pitch that becomes a old man.”
+
+“And you've your work cut out to do that, my son,” said Grandfer Cantle
+smartly. “I wish that the dread of infirmities was not so strong in
+me!--I'd start the very first thing tomorrow to see the world over
+again! But seventy-one, though nothing at home, is a high figure for a
+rover.... Ay, seventy-one, last Candlemasday. Gad, I'd sooner have it in
+guineas than in years!” And the old man sighed.
+
+“Don't you be mournful, Grandfer,” said Fairway. “Empt some more
+feathers into the bed-tick, and keep up yer heart. Though rather lean in
+the stalks you be a green-leaved old man still. There's time enough left
+to ye yet to fill whole chronicles.”
+
+“Begad, I'll go to 'em, Timothy--to the married pair!” said Granfer
+Cantle in an encouraged voice, and starting round briskly. “I'll go to
+'em tonight and sing a wedding song, hey? 'Tis like me to do so, you
+know; and they'd see it as such. My 'Down in Cupid's Gardens' was well
+liked in four; still, I've got others as good, and even better. What do
+you say to my
+
+     She cal'-led to' her love'
+     From the lat'-tice a-bove,
+     'O come in' from the fog-gy fog'-gy dew'.'
+
+'Twould please 'em well at such a time! Really, now I come to think of
+it, I haven't turned my tongue in my head to the shape of a real good
+song since Old Midsummer night, when we had the 'Barley Mow' at the
+Woman; and 'tis a pity to neglect your strong point where there's few
+that have the compass for such things!”
+
+“So 'tis, so 'tis,” said Fairway. “Now gie the bed a shake down. We've
+put in seventy pounds of best feathers, and I think that's as many as
+the tick will fairly hold. A bit and a drap wouldn't be amiss now, I
+reckon. Christian, maul down the victuals from corner-cupboard if canst
+reach, man, and I'll draw a drap o' sommat to wet it with.”
+
+They sat down to a lunch in the midst of their work, feathers around,
+above, and below them; the original owners of which occasionally came
+to the open door and cackled begrudgingly at sight of such a quantity of
+their old clothes.
+
+“Upon my soul I shall be chokt,” said Fairway when, having extracted a
+feather from his mouth, he found several others floating on the mug as
+it was handed round.
+
+“I've swallered several; and one had a tolerable quill,” said Sam
+placidly from the corner.
+
+“Hullo--what's that--wheels I hear coming?” Grandfer Cantle exclaimed,
+jumping up and hastening to the door. “Why, 'tis they back again--I
+didn't expect 'em yet this half-hour. To be sure, how quick marrying can
+be done when you are in the mind for't!”
+
+“O yes, it can soon be DONE,” said Fairway, as if something should be
+added to make the statement complete.
+
+He arose and followed the Grandfer, and the rest also went to the door.
+In a moment an open fly was driven past, in which sat Venn and Mrs.
+Venn, Yeobright, and a grand relative of Venn's who had come from
+Budmouth for the occasion. The fly had been hired at the nearest town,
+regardless of distance and cost, there being nothing on Egdon Heath, in
+Venn's opinion, dignified enough for such an event when such a woman
+as Thomasin was the bride; and the church was too remote for a walking
+bridal-party.
+
+As the fly passed the group which had run out from the homestead they
+shouted “Hurrah!” and waved their hands; feathers and down floating
+from their hair, their sleeves, and the folds of their garments at every
+motion, and Grandfer Cantle's seals dancing merrily in the sunlight as
+he twirled himself about. The driver of the fly turned a supercilious
+gaze upon them; he even treated the wedded pair themselves with
+something like condescension; for in what other state than heathen could
+people, rich or poor, exist who were doomed to abide in such a world's
+end as Egdon? Thomasin showed no such superiority to the group at the
+door, fluttering her hand as quickly as a bird's wing towards them, and
+asking Diggory, with tears in her eyes, if they ought not to alight and
+speak to these kind neighbours. Venn, however, suggested that, as they
+were all coming to the house in the evening, this was hardly necessary.
+
+After this excitement the saluting party returned to their occupation,
+and the stuffing and sewing were soon afterwards finished, when Fairway
+harnessed a horse, wrapped up the cumbrous present, and drove off with
+it in the cart to Venn's house at Stickleford.
+
+
+Yeobright, having filled the office at the wedding service which
+naturally fell to his hands, and afterwards returned to the house with
+the husband and wife, was indisposed to take part in the feasting and
+dancing that wound up the evening. Thomasin was disappointed.
+
+“I wish I could be there without dashing your spirits,” he said. “But I
+might be too much like the skull at the banquet.”
+
+“No, no.”
+
+“Well, dear, apart from that, if you would excuse me, I should be glad.
+I know it seems unkind; but, dear Thomasin, I fear I should not be happy
+in the company--there, that's the truth of it. I shall always be coming
+to see you at your new home, you know, so that my absence now will not
+matter.”
+
+“Then I give in. Do whatever will be most comfortable to yourself.”
+
+Clym retired to his lodging at the housetop much relieved, and occupied
+himself during the afternoon in noting down the heads of a sermon, with
+which he intended to initiate all that really seemed practicable of the
+scheme that had originally brought him hither, and that he had so long
+kept in view under various modifications, and through evil and good
+report. He had tested and weighed his convictions again and again, and
+saw no reason to alter them, though he had considerably lessened his
+plan. His eyesight, by long humouring in his native air, had grown
+stronger, but not sufficiently strong to warrant his attempting his
+extensive educational project. Yet he did not repine--there was still
+more than enough of an unambitious sort to tax all his energies and
+occupy all his hours.
+
+Evening drew on, and sounds of life and movement in the lower part of
+the domicile became more pronounced, the gate in the palings clicking
+incessantly. The party was to be an early one, and all the guests
+were assembled long before it was dark. Yeobright went down the back
+staircase and into the heath by another path than that in front,
+intending to walk in the open air till the party was over, when he would
+return to wish Thomasin and her husband good-bye as they departed. His
+steps were insensibly bent towards Mistover by the path that he had
+followed on that terrible morning when he learnt the strange news from
+Susan's boy.
+
+He did not turn aside to the cottage, but pushed on to an eminence,
+whence he could see over the whole quarter that had once been Eustacia's
+home. While he stood observing the darkening scene somebody came up.
+Clym, seeing him but dimly, would have let him pass silently, had not
+the pedestrian, who was Charley, recognized the young man and spoken to
+him.
+
+“Charley, I have not seen you for a length of time,” said Yeobright. “Do
+you often walk this way?”
+
+“No,” the lad replied. “I don't often come outside the bank.”
+
+“You were not at the Maypole.”
+
+“No,” said Charley, in the same listless tone. “I don't care for that
+sort of thing now.”
+
+“You rather liked Miss Eustacia, didn't you?” Yeobright gently asked.
+Eustacia had frequently told him of Charley's romantic attachment.
+
+“Yes, very much. Ah, I wish--”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I wish, Mr. Yeobright, you could give me something to keep that once
+belonged to her--if you don't mind.”
+
+“I shall be very happy to. It will give me very great pleasure, Charley.
+Let me think what I have of hers that you would like. But come with me
+to the house, and I'll see.”
+
+They walked towards Blooms-End together. When they reached the front it
+was dark, and the shutters were closed, so that nothing of the interior
+could be seen.
+
+“Come round this way,” said Clym. “My entrance is at the back for the
+present.”
+
+The two went round and ascended the crooked stair in darkness till
+Clym's sitting-room on the upper floor was reached, where he lit a
+candle, Charley entering gently behind. Yeobright searched his desk,
+and taking out a sheet of tissue-paper unfolded from it two or three
+undulating locks of raven hair, which fell over the paper like black
+streams. From these he selected one, wrapped it up, and gave it to the
+lad, whose eyes had filled with tears. He kissed the packet, put it in
+his pocket, and said in a voice of emotion, “O, Mr. Clym, how good you
+are to me!”
+
+“I will go a little way with you,” said Clym. And amid the noise of
+merriment from below they descended. Their path to the front led them
+close to a little side window, whence the rays of candles streamed
+across the shrubs. The window, being screened from general observation
+by the bushes, had been left unblinded, so that a person in this private
+nook could see all that was going on within the room which contained
+the wedding guests, except in so far as vision was hindered by the green
+antiquity of the panes.
+
+“Charley, what are they doing?” said Clym. “My sight is weaker again
+tonight, and the glass of this window is not good.”
+
+Charley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred with moisture, and
+stepped closer to the casement. “Mr. Venn is asking Christian Cantle to
+sing,” he replied, “and Christian is moving about in his chair as if
+he were much frightened at the question, and his father has struck up a
+stave instead of him.”
+
+“Yes, I can hear the old man's voice,” said Clym. “So there's to be no
+dancing, I suppose. And is Thomasin in the room? I see something moving
+in front of the candles that resembles her shape, I think.”
+
+“Yes. She do seem happy. She is red in the face, and laughing at
+something Fairway has said to her. O my!”
+
+“What noise was that?” said Clym.
+
+“Mr. Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against the beam in gieing
+a skip as he passed under. Mrs. Venn has run up quite frightened and now
+she's put her hand to his head to feel if there's a lump. And now they
+be all laughing again as if nothing had happened.”
+
+“Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?” Clym asked.
+
+“No, not a bit in the world. Now they are all holding up their glasses
+and drinking somebody's health.”
+
+“I wonder if it is mine?”
+
+“No, 'tis Mr. and Mrs. Venn's, because he is making a hearty sort of
+speech. There--now Mrs. Venn has got up, and is going away to put on her
+things, I think.”
+
+“Well, they haven't concerned themselves about me, and it is quite right
+they should not. It is all as it should be, and Thomasin at least is
+happy. We will not stay any longer now, as they will soon be coming out
+to go home.”
+
+He accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home, and, returning
+alone to the house a quarter of an hour later, found Venn and Thomasin
+ready to start, all the guests having departed in his absence. The
+wedded pair took their seats in the four-wheeled dogcart which Venn's
+head milker and handy man had driven from Stickleford to fetch them in;
+little Eustacia and the nurse were packed securely upon the open flap
+behind; and the milker, on an ancient overstepping pony, whose shoes
+clashed like cymbals at every tread, rode in the rear, in the manner of
+a body-servant of the last century.
+
+“Now we leave you in absolute possession of your own house again,” said
+Thomasin as she bent down to wish her cousin good night. “It will be
+rather lonely for you, Clym, after the hubbub we have been making.”
+
+“O, that's no inconvenience,” said Clym, smiling rather sadly. And then
+the party drove off and vanished in the night shades, and Yeobright
+entered the house. The ticking of the clock was the only sound that
+greeted him, for not a soul remained; Christian, who acted as cook,
+valet, and gardener to Clym, sleeping at his father's house. Yeobright
+sat down in one of the vacant chairs, and remained in thought a long
+time. His mother's old chair was opposite; it had been sat in that
+evening by those who had scarcely remembered that it ever was hers. But
+to Clym she was almost a presence there, now as always. Whatever she
+was in other people's memories, in his she was the sublime saint whose
+radiance even his tenderness for Eustacia could not obscure. But his
+heart was heavy, that Mother had NOT crowned him in the day of his
+espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart. And events had
+borne out the accuracy of her judgment, and proved the devotedness of
+her care. He should have heeded her for Eustacia's sake even more than
+for his own. “It was all my fault,” he whispered. “O, my mother, my
+mother! would to God that I could live my life again, and endure for you
+what you endured for me!”
+
+
+On the Sunday after this wedding an unusual sight was to be seen on
+Rainbarrow. From a distance there simply appeared to be a motionless
+figure standing on the top of the tumulus, just as Eustacia had stood on
+that lonely summit some two years and a half before. But now it was fine
+warm weather, with only a summer breeze blowing, and early afternoon
+instead of dull twilight. Those who ascended to the immediate
+neighbourhood of the Barrow perceived that the erect form in the centre,
+piercing the sky, was not really alone. Round him upon the slopes of the
+Barrow a number of heathmen and women were reclining or sitting at their
+ease. They listened to the words of the man in their midst, who was
+preaching, while they abstractedly pulled heather, stripped ferns, or
+tossed pebbles down the slope. This was the first of a series of moral
+lectures or Sermons on the Mount, which were to be delivered from the
+same place every Sunday afternoon as long as the fine weather lasted.
+
+The commanding elevation of Rainbarrow had been chosen for two reasons:
+first, that it occupied a central position among the remote cottages
+around; secondly, that the preacher thereon could be seen from all
+adjacent points as soon as he arrived at his post, the view of him being
+thus a convenient signal to those stragglers who wished to draw near.
+The speaker was bareheaded, and the breeze at each waft gently lifted
+and lowered his hair, somewhat too thin for a man of his years, these
+still numbering less than thirty-three. He wore a shade over his eyes,
+and his face was pensive and lined; but, though these bodily features
+were marked with decay there was no defect in the tones of his voice,
+which were rich, musical, and stirring. He stated that his discourses to
+people were to be sometimes secular, and sometimes religious, but never
+dogmatic; and that his texts would be taken from all kinds of books.
+This afternoon the words were as follows:--
+
+“'And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat
+down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king's mother;
+and she sat on his right hand. Then she said, I desire one small
+petition of thee; I pray thee say me not nay. And the king said unto
+her, Ask, on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay.'”
+
+
+Yeobright had, in fact, found his vocation in the career of an itinerant
+open-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable subjects; and
+from this day he laboured incessantly in that office, speaking not only
+in simple language on Rainbarrow and in the hamlets round, but in a more
+cultivated strain elsewhere--from the steps and porticoes of town halls,
+from market-crosses, from conduits, on esplanades and on wharves, from
+the parapets of bridges, in barns and outhouses, and all other such
+places in the neighbouring Wessex towns and villages. He left alone
+creeds and systems of philosophy, finding enough and more than enough
+to occupy his tongue in the opinions and actions common to all good men.
+Some believed him, and some believed not; some said that his words were
+commonplace, others complained of his want of theological doctrine;
+while others again remarked that it was well enough for a man to take to
+preaching who could not see to do anything else. But everywhere he was
+kindly received, for the story of his life had become generally known.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RETURN OF THE NATIVE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 122-0.txt or 122-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/122/
+
+Produced by John Hamm and David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/old/122.txt b/old/old/122.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bfef6e8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/122.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,16880 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Return of the Native
+
+Author: Thomas Hardy
+
+Release Date: March 8, 2006 [EBook #122]
+[Last Updated: June 18, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RETURN OF THE NATIVE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hamm and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
+
+by Thomas Hardy
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The date at which the following events are assumed to have occurred may
+be set down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old watering place herein
+called "Budmouth" still retained sufficient afterglow from its Georgian
+gaiety and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to the
+romantic and imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland.
+
+Under the general name of "Egdon Heath," which has been given to the
+sombre scene of the story, are united or typified heaths of various real
+names, to the number of at least a dozen; these being virtually one in
+character and aspect, though their original unity, or partial unity, is
+now somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and slices brought under the
+plough with varying degrees of success, or planted to woodland.
+
+It is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract whose
+southwestern quarter is here described, may be the heath of that
+traditionary King of Wessex--Lear.
+
+
+July, 1895.
+
+
+
+
+              "To sorrow
+               I bade good morrow,
+     And thought to leave her far away behind;
+               But cheerly, cheerly,
+               She loves me dearly;
+     She is so constant to me, and so kind.
+               I would deceive her,
+               And so leave her,
+     But ah! she is so constant and so kind."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE -- THE THREE WOMEN
+
+
+
+
+1--A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression
+
+
+A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight,
+and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned
+itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud
+shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its
+floor.
+
+The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with
+the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly
+marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment
+of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was
+come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood
+distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would have been
+inclined to continue work; looking down, he would have decided to
+finish his faggot and go home. The distant rims of the world and of the
+firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in
+matter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an
+hour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon,
+anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the
+opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.
+
+In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into
+darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and
+nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at
+such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen,
+its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding
+hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true
+tale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night
+showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could be
+perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds and
+hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the
+heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it.
+And so the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed
+together in a black fraternization towards which each advanced halfway.
+
+The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other
+things sank brooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and
+listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it
+had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises
+of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last
+crisis--the final overthrow.
+
+It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who loved it
+with an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity. Smiling champaigns of
+flowers and fruit hardly do this, for they are permanently harmonious
+only with an existence of better reputation as to its issues than the
+present. Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a
+thing majestic without severity, impressive without showiness, emphatic
+in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity. The qualifications which
+frequently invest the facade of a prison with far more dignity than is
+found in the facade of a palace double its size lent to this heath a
+sublimity in which spots renowned for beauty of the accepted kind are
+utterly wanting. Fair prospects wed happily with fair times; but alas,
+if times be not fair! Men have oftener suffered from, the mockery of
+a place too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of
+surroundings oversadly tinged. Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler and
+scarcer instinct, to a more recently learnt emotion, than that which
+responds to the sort of beauty called charming and fair.
+
+Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this orthodox beauty
+is not approaching its last quarter. The new Vale of Tempe may be a
+gaunt waste in Thule; human souls may find themselves in closer and
+closer harmony with external things wearing a sombreness distasteful to
+our race when it was young. The time seems near, if it has not actually
+arrived, when the chastened sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a mountain
+will be all of nature that is absolutely in keeping with the moods
+of the more thinking among mankind. And ultimately, to the commonest
+tourist, spots like Iceland may become what the vineyards and myrtle
+gardens of South Europe are to him now; and Heidelberg and Baden
+be passed unheeded as he hastens from the Alps to the sand dunes of
+Scheveningen.
+
+The most thoroughgoing ascetic could feel that he had a natural right to
+wander on Egdon--he was keeping within the line of legitimate indulgence
+when he laid himself open to influences such as these. Colours and
+beauties so far subdued were, at least, the birthright of all. Only in
+summer days of highest feather did its mood touch the level of gaiety.
+Intensity was more usually reached by way of the solemn than by way of
+the brilliant, and such a sort of intensity was often arrived at
+during winter darkness, tempests, and mists. Then Egdon was aroused to
+reciprocity; for the storm was its lover, and the wind its friend.
+Then it became the home of strange phantoms; and it was found to be the
+hitherto unrecognized original of those wild regions of obscurity which
+are vaguely felt to be compassing us about in midnight dreams of flight
+and disaster, and are never thought of after the dream till revived by
+scenes like this.
+
+It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man's nature--neither
+ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame;
+but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and
+mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some persons who have long
+lived apart, solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It had a
+lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.
+
+This obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in Domesday.
+Its condition is recorded therein as that of heathy, furzy, briary
+wilderness--"Bruaria." Then follows the length and breadth in leagues;
+and, though some uncertainty exists as to the exact extent of this
+ancient lineal measure, it appears from the figures that the area of
+Egdon down to the present day has but little diminished. "Turbaria
+Bruaria"--the right of cutting heath-turf--occurs in charters relating
+to the district. "Overgrown with heth and mosse," says Leland of the
+same dark sweep of country.
+
+Here at least were intelligible facts regarding landscape--far-reaching
+proofs productive of genuine satisfaction. The untameable, Ishmaelitish
+thing that Egdon now was it always had been. Civilization was its enemy;
+and ever since the beginning of vegetation its soil had worn the
+same antique brown dress, the natural and invariable garment of the
+particular formation. In its venerable one coat lay a certain vein of
+satire on human vanity in clothes. A person on a heath in raiment of
+modern cut and colours has more or less an anomalous look. We seem to
+want the oldest and simplest human clothing where the clothing of the
+earth is so primitive.
+
+To recline on a stump of thorn in the central valley of Egdon, between
+afternoon and night, as now, where the eye could reach nothing of the
+world outside the summits and shoulders of heathland which filled the
+whole circumference of its glance, and to know that everything around
+and underneath had been from prehistoric times as unaltered as the stars
+overhead, gave ballast to the mind adrift on change, and harassed by the
+irrepressible New. The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence
+which the sea cannot claim. Who can say of a particular sea that it is
+old? Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon, it is renewed in a
+year, in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed, the fields changed, the
+rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained. Those
+surfaces were neither so steep as to be destructible by weather, nor so
+flat as to be the victims of floods and deposits. With the exception of
+an aged highway, and a still more aged barrow presently to be referred
+to--themselves almost crystallized to natural products by long
+continuance--even the trifling irregularities were not caused by
+pickaxe, plough, or spade, but remained as the very finger-touches of
+the last geological change.
+
+The above-mentioned highway traversed the lower levels of the heath,
+from one horizon to another. In many portions of its course it overlaid
+an old vicinal way, which branched from the great Western road of the
+Romans, the Via Iceniana, or Ikenild Street, hard by. On the evening
+under consideration it would have been noticed that, though the gloom
+had increased sufficiently to confuse the minor features of the heath,
+the white surface of the road remained almost as clear as ever.
+
+
+
+
+2--Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble
+
+
+Along the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a mountain,
+bowed in the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He wore a glazed
+hat, an ancient boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons bearing an
+anchor upon their face. In his hand was a silver-headed walking stick,
+which he used as a veritable third leg, perseveringly dotting the ground
+with its point at every few inches' interval. One would have said that
+he had been, in his day, a naval officer of some sort or other.
+
+Before him stretched the long, laborious road, dry, empty, and white.
+It was quite open to the heath on each side, and bisected that vast dark
+surface like the parting-line on a head of black hair, diminishing and
+bending away on the furthest horizon.
+
+The old man frequently stretched his eyes ahead to gaze over the tract
+that he had yet to traverse. At length he discerned, a long distance
+in front of him, a moving spot, which appeared to be a vehicle, and
+it proved to be going the same way as that in which he himself was
+journeying. It was the single atom of life that the scene contained, and
+it only served to render the general loneliness more evident. Its rate
+of advance was slow, and the old man gained upon it sensibly.
+
+When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van, ordinary in
+shape, but singular in colour, this being a lurid red. The driver walked
+beside it; and, like his van, he was completely red. One dye of that
+tincture covered his clothes, the cap upon his head, his boots, his
+face, and his hands. He was not temporarily overlaid with the colour; it
+permeated him.
+
+The old man knew the meaning of this. The traveller with the cart was a
+reddleman--a person whose vocation it was to supply farmers with redding
+for their sheep. He was one of a class rapidly becoming extinct in
+Wessex, filling at present in the rural world the place which, during
+the last century, the dodo occupied in the world of animals. He is a
+curious, interesting, and nearly perished link between obsolete forms of
+life and those which generally prevail.
+
+The decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his fellow-wayfarer,
+and wished him good evening. The reddleman turned his head, and replied
+in sad and occupied tones. He was young, and his face, if not exactly
+handsome, approached so near to handsome that nobody would have
+contradicted an assertion that it really was so in its natural colour.
+His eye, which glared so strangely through his stain, was in itself
+attractive--keen as that of a bird of prey, and blue as autumn mist. He
+had neither whisker nor moustache, which allowed the soft curves of the
+lower part of his face to be apparent. His lips were thin, and though,
+as it seemed, compressed by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at
+their corners now and then. He was clothed throughout in a tight-fitting
+suit of corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn, and well-chosen
+for its purpose, but deprived of its original colour by his trade. It
+showed to advantage the good shape of his figure. A certain well-to-do
+air about the man suggested that he was not poor for his degree.
+The natural query of an observer would have been, Why should such
+a promising being as this have hidden his prepossessing exterior by
+adopting that singular occupation?
+
+After replying to the old man's greeting he showed no inclination to
+continue in talk, although they still walked side by side, for the elder
+traveller seemed to desire company. There were no sounds but that of
+the booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around them, the
+crackling wheels, the tread of the men, and the footsteps of the two
+shaggy ponies which drew the van. They were small, hardy animals, of a
+breed between Galloway and Exmoor, and were known as "heath-croppers"
+here.
+
+Now, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman occasionally left his
+companion's side, and, stepping behind the van, looked into its interior
+through a small window. The look was always anxious. He would then
+return to the old man, who made another remark about the state of the
+country and so on, to which the reddleman again abstractedly replied,
+and then again they would lapse into silence. The silence conveyed to
+neither any sense of awkwardness; in these lonely places wayfarers,
+after a first greeting, frequently plod on for miles without speech;
+contiguity amounts to a tacit conversation where, otherwise than in
+cities, such contiguity can be put an end to on the merest inclination,
+and where not to put an end to it is intercourse in itself.
+
+Possibly these two might not have spoken again till their parting, had
+it not been for the reddleman's visits to his van. When he returned
+from his fifth time of looking in the old man said, "You have something
+inside there besides your load?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Somebody who wants looking after?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Not long after this a faint cry sounded from the interior. The reddleman
+hastened to the back, looked in, and came away again.
+
+"You have a child there, my man?"
+
+"No, sir, I have a woman."
+
+"The deuce you have! Why did she cry out?"
+
+"Oh, she has fallen asleep, and not being used to traveling, she's
+uneasy, and keeps dreaming."
+
+"A young woman?"
+
+"Yes, a young woman."
+
+"That would have interested me forty years ago. Perhaps she's your
+wife?"
+
+"My wife!" said the other bitterly. "She's above mating with such as I.
+But there's no reason why I should tell you about that."
+
+"That's true. And there's no reason why you should not. What harm can I
+do to you or to her?"
+
+The reddleman looked in the old man's face. "Well, sir," he said at
+last, "I knew her before today, though perhaps it would have been better
+if I had not. But she's nothing to me, and I am nothing to her; and she
+wouldn't have been in my van if any better carriage had been there to
+take her."
+
+"Where, may I ask?"
+
+"At Anglebury."
+
+"I know the town well. What was she doing there?"
+
+"Oh, not much--to gossip about. However, she's tired to death now, and
+not at all well, and that's what makes her so restless. She dropped off
+into a nap about an hour ago, and 'twill do her good."
+
+"A nice-looking girl, no doubt?"
+
+"You would say so."
+
+The other traveller turned his eyes with interest towards the van
+window, and, without withdrawing them, said, "I presume I might look in
+upon her?"
+
+"No," said the reddleman abruptly. "It is getting too dark for you to
+see much of her; and, more than that, I have no right to allow you.
+Thank God she sleeps so well, I hope she won't wake till she's home."
+
+"Who is she? One of the neighbourhood?"
+
+"'Tis no matter who, excuse me."
+
+"It is not that girl of Blooms-End, who has been talked about more or
+less lately? If so, I know her; and I can guess what has happened."
+
+"'Tis no matter.... Now, sir, I am sorry to say that we shall soon have
+to part company. My ponies are tired, and I have further to go, and I am
+going to rest them under this bank for an hour."
+
+The elder traveller nodded his head indifferently, and the reddleman
+turned his horses and van in upon the turf, saying, "Good night." The
+old man replied, and proceeded on his way as before.
+
+The reddleman watched his form as it diminished to a speck on the road
+and became absorbed in the thickening films of night. He then took
+some hay from a truss which was slung up under the van, and, throwing a
+portion of it in front of the horses, made a pad of the rest, which he
+laid on the ground beside his vehicle. Upon this he sat down, leaning
+his back against the wheel. From the interior a low soft breathing came
+to his ear. It appeared to satisfy him, and he musingly surveyed the
+scene, as if considering the next step that he should take.
+
+To do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed, to be a
+duty in the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour, for there was that
+in the condition of the heath itself which resembled protracted and
+halting dubiousness. It was the quality of the repose appertaining
+to the scene. This was not the repose of actual stagnation, but the
+apparent repose of incredible slowness. A condition of healthy life so
+nearly resembling the torpor of death is a noticeable thing of its
+sort; to exhibit the inertness of the desert, and at the same time to be
+exercising powers akin to those of the meadow, and even of the forest,
+awakened in those who thought of it the attentiveness usually engendered
+by understatement and reserve.
+
+The scene before the reddleman's eyes was a gradual series of ascents
+from the level of the road backward into the heart of the heath. It
+embraced hillocks, pits, ridges, acclivities, one behind the other, till
+all was finished by a high hill cutting against the still light sky.
+The traveller's eye hovered about these things for a time, and finally
+settled upon one noteworthy object up there. It was a barrow. This bossy
+projection of earth above its natural level occupied the loftiest ground
+of the loneliest height that the heath contained. Although from the
+vale it appeared but as a wart on an Atlantean brow, its actual bulk was
+great. It formed the pole and axis of this heathery world.
+
+As the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware that its summit,
+hitherto the highest object in the whole prospect round, was surmounted
+by something higher. It rose from the semiglobular mound like a spike
+from a helmet. The first instinct of an imaginative stranger might have
+been to suppose it the person of one of the Celts who built the barrow,
+so far had all of modern date withdrawn from the scene. It seemed a sort
+of last man among them, musing for a moment before dropping into eternal
+night with the rest of his race.
+
+There the form stood, motionless as the hill beneath. Above the plain
+rose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow rose
+the figure. Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped elsewhere
+than on a celestial globe.
+
+Such a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did the figure give
+to the dark pile of hills that it seemed to be the only obvious
+justification of their outline. Without it, there was the dome without
+the lantern; with it the architectural demands of the mass were
+satisfied. The scene was strangely homogeneous, in that the vale, the
+upland, the barrow, and the figure above it amounted only to unity.
+Looking at this or that member of the group was not observing a complete
+thing, but a fraction of a thing.
+
+The form was so much like an organic part of the entire motionless
+structure that to see it move would have impressed the mind as a strange
+phenomenon. Immobility being the chief characteristic of that whole
+which the person formed portion of, the discontinuance of immobility in
+any quarter suggested confusion.
+
+Yet that is what happened. The figure perceptibly gave up its fixity,
+shifted a step or two, and turned round. As if alarmed, it descended on
+the right side of the barrow, with the glide of a water-drop down a bud,
+and then vanished. The movement had been sufficient to show more clearly
+the characteristics of the figure, and that it was a woman's.
+
+The reason of her sudden displacement now appeared. With her dropping
+out of sight on the right side, a newcomer, bearing a burden, protruded
+into the sky on the left side, ascended the tumulus, and deposited the
+burden on the top. A second followed, then a third, a fourth, a fifth,
+and ultimately the whole barrow was peopled with burdened figures.
+
+The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of
+silhouettes was that the woman had no relation to the forms who had
+taken her place, was sedulously avoiding these, and had come thither
+for another object than theirs. The imagination of the observer clung
+by preference to that vanished, solitary figure, as to something more
+interesting, more important, more likely to have a history worth knowing
+than these newcomers, and unconsciously regarded them as intruders. But
+they remained, and established themselves; and the lonely person who
+hitherto had been queen of the solitude did not at present seem likely
+to return.
+
+
+
+
+3--The Custom of the Country
+
+
+Had a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity of the barrow,
+he would have learned that these persons were boys and men of the
+neighbouring hamlets. Each, as he ascended the barrow, had been heavily
+laden with furze faggots, carried upon the shoulder by means of a long
+stake sharpened at each end for impaling them easily--two in front and
+two behind. They came from a part of the heath a quarter of a mile to
+the rear, where furze almost exclusively prevailed as a product.
+
+Every individual was so involved in furze by his method of carrying the
+faggots that he appeared like a bush on legs till he had thrown them
+down. The party had marched in trail, like a travelling flock of sheep;
+that is to say, the strongest first, the weak and young behind.
+
+The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze thirty feet in
+circumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus, which was known as
+Rainbarrow for many miles round. Some made themselves busy with matches,
+and in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in loosening the
+bramble bonds which held the faggots together. Others, again, while this
+was in progress, lifted their eyes and swept the vast expanse of country
+commanded by their position, now lying nearly obliterated by shade. In
+the valleys of the heath nothing save its own wild face was visible at
+any time of day; but this spot commanded a horizon enclosing a tract of
+far extent, and in many cases lying beyond the heath country. None of
+its features could be seen now, but the whole made itself felt as a
+vague stretch of remoteness.
+
+While the men and lads were building the pile, a change took place in
+the mass of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red suns and
+tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country
+round. They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were
+engaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and stood
+in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale straw-like beams radiated
+around them in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near, glowing
+scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. Some were
+Maenades, with winy faces and blown hair. These tinctured the silent
+bosom of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which
+seemed thenceforth to become scalding caldrons. Perhaps as many
+as thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole bounds of the
+district; and as the hour may be told on a clock-face when the figures
+themselves are invisible, so did the men recognize the locality of each
+fire by its angle and direction, though nothing of the scenery could be
+viewed.
+
+The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting all
+eyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to their own
+attempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface
+of the human circle--now increased by other stragglers, male and
+female--with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark turf around
+with a lively luminousness, which softened off into obscurity where the
+barrow rounded downwards out of sight. It showed the barrow to be the
+segment of a globe, as perfect as on the day when it was thrown up, even
+the little ditch remaining from which the earth was dug. Not a plough
+had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn soil. In the heath's
+barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility to the historian. There had
+been no obliteration, because there had been no tending.
+
+It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some radiant upper
+story of the world, detached from and independent of the dark stretches
+below. The heath down there was now a vast abyss, and no longer a
+continuation of what they stood on; for their eyes, adapted to
+the blaze, could see nothing of the deeps beyond its influence.
+Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than usual from their
+faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp down the inclines to some
+distant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling these to replies
+of the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again. Then the whole
+black phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the brink by
+the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered articulations of
+the wind in the hollows were as complaints and petitions from the "souls
+of mighty worth" suspended therein.
+
+It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into past ages, and
+fetched therefrom an hour and deed which had before been familiar with
+this spot. The ashes of the original British pyre which blazed from that
+summit lay fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their tread. The
+flames from funeral piles long ago kindled there had shone down upon the
+lowlands as these were shining now. Festival fires to Thor and Woden had
+followed on the same ground and duly had their day. Indeed, it is pretty
+well known that such blazes as this the heathmen were now enjoying are
+rather the lineal descendants from jumbled Druidical rites and Saxon
+ceremonies than the invention of popular feeling about Gunpowder Plot.
+
+Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man
+when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature.
+It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against that fiat
+that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery
+and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say,
+Let there be light.
+
+The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled upon the skin
+and clothes of the persons standing round caused their lineaments and
+general contours to be drawn with Dureresque vigour and dash. Yet the
+permanent moral expression of each face it was impossible to discover,
+for as the nimble flames towered, nodded, and swooped through the
+surrounding air, the blots of shade and flakes of light upon the
+countenances of the group changed shape and position endlessly. All
+was unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning. Shadowy
+eye-sockets, deep as those of a death's head, suddenly turned into pits
+of lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining; wrinkles
+were emphasized to ravines, or obliterated entirely by a changed ray.
+Nostrils were dark wells; sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings;
+things with no particular polish on them were glazed; bright objects,
+such as the tip of a furze-hook one of the men carried, were as glass;
+eyeballs glowed like little lanterns. Those whom Nature had depicted as
+merely quaint became grotesque, the grotesque became preternatural; for
+all was in extremity.
+
+Hence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like others been
+called to the heights by the rising flames, was not really the mere nose
+and chin that it appeared to be, but an appreciable quantity of human
+countenance. He stood complacently sunning himself in the heat. With
+a speaker, or stake, he tossed the outlying scraps of fuel into the
+conflagration, looking at the midst of the pile, occasionally lifting
+his eyes to measure the height of the flame, or to follow the great
+sparks which rose with it and sailed away into darkness. The beaming
+sight, and the penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a cumulative
+cheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight. With his stick in his hand
+he began to jig a private minuet, a bunch of copper seals shining and
+swinging like a pendulum from under his waistcoat: he also began to
+sing, in the voice of a bee up a flue--
+
+       "The king' call'd down' his no-bles all',
+          By one', by two', by three';
+       Earl Mar'-shal, I'll' go shrive'-the queen',
+          And thou' shalt wend' with me'.
+
+       "A boon', a boon', quoth Earl' Mar-shal',
+          And fell' on his bend'-ded knee',
+       That what'-so-e'er' the queen' shall say',
+          No harm' there-of' may be'."
+
+Want of breath prevented a continuance of the song; and the breakdown
+attracted the attention of a firm-standing man of middle age, who kept
+each corner of his crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back into his
+cheek, as if to do away with any suspicion of mirthfulness which might
+erroneously have attached to him.
+
+"A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard 'tis too much for
+the mouldy weasand of such a old man as you," he said to the wrinkled
+reveller. "Dostn't wish th' wast three sixes again, Grandfer, as you was
+when you first learnt to sing it?"
+
+"Hey?" said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his dance.
+
+"Dostn't wish wast young again, I say? There's a hole in thy poor
+bellows nowadays seemingly."
+
+"But there's good art in me? If I couldn't make a little wind go a
+long ways I should seem no younger than the most aged man, should I,
+Timothy?"
+
+"And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet Woman Inn?"
+the other inquired, pointing towards a dim light in the direction of the
+distant highway, but considerably apart from where the reddleman was
+at that moment resting. "What's the rights of the matter about 'em? You
+ought to know, being an understanding man."
+
+"But a little rakish, hey? I own to it. Master Cantle is that, or he's
+nothing. Yet 'tis a gay fault, neigbbour Fairway, that age will cure."
+
+"I heard that they were coming home tonight. By this time they must have
+come. What besides?"
+
+"The next thing is for us to go and wish 'em joy, I suppose?"
+
+"Well, no."
+
+"No? Now, I thought we must. I must, or 'twould be very unlike me--the
+first in every spree that's going!
+
+       "Do thou' put on' a fri'-ar's coat',
+          And I'll' put on' a-no'-ther,
+       And we' will to' Queen Ele'anor go',
+          Like Fri'ar and' his bro'ther.
+
+I met Mis'ess Yeobright, the young bride's aunt, last night, and she
+told me that her son Clym was coming home a' Christmas. Wonderful
+clever, 'a believe--ah, I should like to have all that's under that
+young man's hair. Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry
+way, and she said, 'O that what's shaped so venerable should talk like a
+fool!'--that's what she said to me. I don't care for her, be jowned if I
+do, and so I told her. 'Be jowned if I care for 'ee,' I said. I had her
+there--hey?"
+
+"I rather think she had you," said Fairway.
+
+"No," said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly flagging. "'Tisn't
+so bad as that with me?"
+
+"Seemingly 'tis, however, is it because of the wedding that Clym is
+coming home a' Christmas--to make a new arrangement because his mother
+is now left in the house alone?"
+
+"Yes, yes--that's it. But, Timothy, hearken to me," said the Grandfer
+earnestly. "Though known as such a joker, I be an understanding man if
+you catch me serious, and I am serious now. I can tell 'ee lots about
+the married couple. Yes, this morning at six o'clock they went up the
+country to do the job, and neither vell nor mark have been seen of 'em
+since, though I reckon that this afternoon has brought 'em home again
+man and woman--wife, that is. Isn't it spoke like a man, Timothy, and
+wasn't Mis'ess Yeobright wrong about me?"
+
+"Yes, it will do. I didn't know the two had walked together since last
+fall, when her aunt forbad the banns. How long has this new set-to been
+in mangling then? Do you know, Humphrey?"
+
+"Yes, how long?" said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise turning to
+Humphrey. "I ask that question."
+
+"Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might have the man
+after all," replied Humphrey, without removing his eyes from the fire.
+He was a somewhat solemn young fellow, and carried the hook and leather
+gloves of a furze-cutter, his legs, by reason of that occupation, being
+sheathed in bulging leggings as stiff as the Philistine's greaves of
+brass. "That's why they went away to be married, I count. You see, after
+kicking up such a nunny-watch and forbidding the banns 'twould have made
+Mis'ess Yeobright seem foolish-like to have a banging wedding in the
+same parish all as if she'd never gainsaid it."
+
+"Exactly--seem foolish-like; and that's very bad for the poor things
+that be so, though I only guess as much, to be sure," said Grandfer
+Cantle, still strenuously preserving a sensible bearing and mien.
+
+"Ah, well, I was at church that day," said Fairway, "which was a very
+curious thing to happen."
+
+"If 'twasn't my name's Simple," said the Grandfer emphatically. "I
+ha'n't been there to-year; and now the winter is a-coming on I won't say
+I shall."
+
+"I ha'n't been these three years," said Humphrey; "for I'm so dead
+sleepy of a Sunday; and 'tis so terrible far to get there; and when you
+do get there 'tis such a mortal poor chance that you'll be chose for up
+above, when so many bain't, that I bide at home and don't go at all."
+
+"I not only happened to be there," said Fairway, with a fresh collection
+of emphasis, "but I was sitting in the same pew as Mis'ess Yeobright.
+And though you may not see it as such, it fairly made my blood run cold
+to hear her. Yes, it is a curious thing; but it made my blood run
+cold, for I was close at her elbow." The speaker looked round upon
+the bystanders, now drawing closer to hear him, with his lips gathered
+tighter than ever in the rigorousness of his descriptive moderation.
+
+"'Tis a serious job to have things happen to 'ee there," said a woman
+behind.
+
+"'Ye are to declare it,' was the parson's words," Fairway continued.
+"And then up stood a woman at my side--a-touching of me. 'Well, be
+damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I said to
+myself. Yes, neighbours, though I was in the temple of prayer that's
+what I said. 'Tis against my conscience to curse and swear in company,
+and I hope any woman here will overlook it. Still what I did say I did
+say, and 'twould be a lie if I didn't own it."
+
+"So 'twould, neighbour Fairway."
+
+"'Be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I said,"
+the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the same passionless
+severity of face as before, which proved how entirely necessity and not
+gusto had to do with the iteration. "And the next thing I heard was, 'I
+forbid the banns,' from her. 'I'll speak to you after the service,'
+said the parson, in quite a homely way--yes, turning all at once into a
+common man no holier than you or I. Ah, her face was pale! Maybe you
+can call to mind that monument in Weatherbury church--the cross-legged
+soldier that have had his arm knocked away by the schoolchildren? Well,
+he would about have matched that woman's face, when she said, 'I forbid
+the banns.'"
+
+The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into the
+fire, not because these deeds were urgent, but to give themselves time
+to weigh the moral of the story.
+
+"I'm sure when I heard they'd been forbid I felt as glad as if anybody
+had gied me sixpence," said an earnest voice--that of Olly Dowden, a
+woman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms. Her nature was to be
+civil to enemies as well as to friends, and grateful to all the world
+for letting her remain alive.
+
+"And now the maid have married him just the same," said Humphrey.
+
+"After that Mis'ess Yeobright came round and was quite agreeable,"
+Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that his words were no
+appendage to Humphrey's, but the result of independent reflection.
+
+"Supposing they were ashamed, I don't see why they shouldn't have done
+it here-right," said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked like
+shoes whenever she stooped or turned. "'Tis well to call the neighbours
+together and to hae a good racket once now and then; and it may as
+well be when there's a wedding as at tide-times. I don't care for close
+ways."
+
+"Ah, now, you'd hardly believe it, but I don't care for gay weddings,"
+said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round. "I hardly blame
+Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet, if I must
+own it. A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by the hour;
+and they do a man's legs no good when he's over forty."
+
+"True. Once at the woman's house you can hardly say nay to being one in
+a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself worth
+your victuals."
+
+"You be bound to dance at Christmas because 'tis the time o' year; you
+must dance at weddings because 'tis the time o' life. At christenings
+folk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if 'tis no further on than the
+first or second chiel. And this is not naming the songs you've got to
+sing.... For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as anything.
+You've as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties, and even
+better. And it don't wear your legs to stumps in talking over a poor
+fellow's ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes."
+
+"Nine folks out of ten would own 'twas going too far to dance then, I
+suppose?" suggested Grandfer Cantle.
+
+"'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the mug
+have been round a few times."
+
+"Well, I can't understand a quiet ladylike little body like Tamsin
+Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way," said Susan Nunsuch,
+the wide woman, who preferred the original subject. "'Tis worse than the
+poorest do. And I shouldn't have cared about the man, though some may
+say he's good-looking."
+
+"To give him his due he's a clever, learned fellow in his way--a'most as
+clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought up to better things
+than keeping the Quiet Woman. An engineer--that's what the man was, as
+we know; but he threw away his chance, and so 'a took a public house to
+live. His learning was no use to him at all."
+
+"Very often the case," said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet how people
+do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use to
+make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names
+now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot--what
+do I say?--why, almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and elbows
+upon."
+
+"True--'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to," said
+Humphrey.
+
+"Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called),
+in the year four," chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, "I didn't know no
+more what the world was like than the commonest man among ye. And now,
+jown it all, I won't say what I bain't fit for, hey?"
+
+"Couldst sign the book, no doubt," said Fairway, "if wast young enough
+to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and Mis'ess Tamsin,
+which is more than Humph there could do, for he follows his father in
+learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy
+father's mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name. He
+and your mother were the couple married just afore we were and there
+stood they father's cross with arms stretched out like a great banging
+scarecrow. What a terrible black cross that was--thy father's very
+likeness in en! To save my soul I couldn't help laughing when I zid en,
+though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the marrying,
+and what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack Changley
+and a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window. But the next
+moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I called to mind
+that if thy father and mother had had high words once, they'd been at
+it twenty times since they'd been man and wife, and I zid myself as the
+next poor stunpoll to get into the same mess.... Ah--well, what a day
+'twas!"
+
+"Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few summers. A pretty
+maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to tear her
+smock for a man like that."
+
+The speaker, a peat- or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group,
+carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large
+dimensions used in that species of labour, and its well-whetted edge
+gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.
+
+"A hundred maidens would have had him if he'd asked 'em," said the wide
+woman.
+
+"Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would marry?"
+inquired Humphrey.
+
+"I never did," said the turf-cutter.
+
+"Nor I," said another.
+
+"Nor I," said Grandfer Cantle.
+
+"Well, now, I did once," said Timothy Fairway, adding more firmness to
+one of his legs. "I did know of such a man. But only once, mind." He
+gave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it were the duty of every
+person not to be mistaken through thickness of voice. "Yes, I knew of
+such a man," he said.
+
+"And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been like, Master
+Fairway?" asked the turf-cutter.
+
+"Well, 'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man. What
+'a was I don't say."
+
+"Is he known in these parts?" said Olly Dowden.
+
+"Hardly," said Timothy; "but I name no name.... Come, keep the fire up
+there, youngsters."
+
+"Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?" said a boy from
+amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze. "Be ye a-cold,
+Christian?"
+
+A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, "No, not at all."
+
+"Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn't know you were
+here," said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that quarter.
+
+Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a
+great quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes, advanced a step or
+two by his own will, and was pushed by the will of others half a dozen
+steps more. He was Grandfer Cantle's youngest son.
+
+"What be ye quaking for, Christian?" said the turf-cutter kindly.
+
+"I'm the man."
+
+"What man?"
+
+"The man no woman will marry."
+
+"The deuce you be!" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to cover
+Christian's whole surface and a great deal more, Grandfer Cantle
+meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.
+
+"Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard," said Christian. "D'ye think
+'twill hurt me? I shall always say I don't care, and swear to it, though
+I do care all the while."
+
+"Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever I know'd," said
+Mr. Fairway. "I didn't mean you at all. There's another in the country,
+then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune, Christian?"
+
+"'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose. I can't help it, can I?" He turned
+upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by concentric lines
+like targets.
+
+"No, that's true. But 'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran cold
+when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had
+thought only one. 'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How'st know the
+women won't hae thee?"
+
+"I've asked 'em."
+
+"Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what did
+the last one say to ye? Nothing that can't be got over, perhaps, after
+all?"
+
+"'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
+fool,' was the woman's words to me."
+
+"Not encouraging, I own," said Fairway. "'Get out of my sight, you
+slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way of
+saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as
+to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head. How old be
+you, Christian?"
+
+"Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway."
+
+"Not a boy--not a boy. Still there's hope yet."
+
+"That's my age by baptism, because that's put down in the great book of
+the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but Mother told me I was
+born some time afore I was christened."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"But she couldn't tell when, to save her life, except that there was no
+moon."
+
+"No moon--that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!"
+
+"Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.
+
+"Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another woman that had
+an almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the
+saying, 'No moon, no man,' which made her afeard every man-child she
+had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no
+moon?"
+
+"Yes. 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings ever spit out.
+The boy never comes to anything that's born at new moon. A bad job for
+thee, Christian, that you should have showed your nose then of all days
+in the month."
+
+"I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?" said
+Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.
+
+"Well, 'a was not new," Mr. Fairway replied, with a disinterested gaze.
+
+"I'd sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of no moon,"
+continued Christian, in the same shattered recitative. "'Tis said I be
+only the rames of a man, and no good for my race at all; and I suppose
+that's the cause o't."
+
+"Ay," said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; "and yet his
+mother cried for scores of hours when 'a was a boy, for fear he should
+outgrow hisself and go for a soldier."
+
+"Well, there's many just as bad as he." said Fairway.
+
+"Wethers must live their time as well as other sheep, poor soul."
+
+"So perhaps I shall rub on? Ought I to be afeared o' nights, Master
+Fairway?"
+
+"You'll have to lie alone all your life; and 'tis not to married couples
+but to single sleepers that a ghost shows himself when 'a do come. One
+has been seen lately, too. A very strange one."
+
+"No--don't talk about it if 'tis agreeable of ye not to! 'Twill make my
+skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. But you will--ah, you will,
+I know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night o't! A very strange one?
+What sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye said, a very strange one,
+Timothy?--no, no--don't tell me."
+
+"I don't half believe in spirits myself. But I think it ghostly
+enough--what I was told. 'Twas a little boy that zid it."
+
+"What was it like?--no, don't--"
+
+"A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if it had been
+dipped in blood."
+
+Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand his body, and
+Humphrey said, "Where has it been seen?"
+
+"Not exactly here; but in this same heth. But 'tisn't a thing to talk
+about. What do ye say," continued Fairway in brisker tones, and turning
+upon them as if the idea had not been Grandfer Cantle's--"what do you
+say to giving the new man and wife a bit of a song tonight afore we go
+to bed--being their wedding-day? When folks are just married 'tis as
+well to look glad o't, since looking sorry won't unjoin 'em. I am no
+drinker, as we know, but when the womenfolk and youngsters have gone
+home we can drop down across to the Quiet Woman, and strike up a ballet
+in front of the married folks' door. 'Twill please the young wife, and
+that's what I should like to do, for many's the skinful I've had at her
+hands when she lived with her aunt at Blooms-End."
+
+"Hey? And so we will!" said Grandfer Cantle, turning so briskly that his
+copper seals swung extravagantly. "I'm as dry as a kex with biding up
+here in the wind, and I haven't seen the colour of drink since
+nammet-time today. 'Tis said that the last brew at the Woman is very
+pretty drinking. And, neighbours, if we should be a little late in the
+finishing, why, tomorrow's Sunday, and we can sleep it off?"
+
+"Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless for an old man," said
+the wide woman.
+
+"I take things careless; I do--too careless to please the women! Klk!
+I'll sing the 'Jovial Crew,' or any other song, when a weak old man
+would cry his eyes out. Jown it; I am up for anything.
+
+       "The king' look'd o'-ver his left' shoul-der',
+         And a grim' look look'-ed hee',
+       Earl Mar'-shal, he said', but for' my oath'
+         Or hang'-ed thou' shouldst bee'."
+
+"Well, that's what we'll do," said Fairway. "We'll give 'em a song, an'
+it please the Lord. What's the good of Thomasin's cousin Clym a-coming
+home after the deed's done? He should have come afore, if so be he
+wanted to stop it, and marry her himself."
+
+"Perhaps he's coming to bide with his mother a little time, as she must
+feel lonely now the maid's gone."
+
+"Now, 'tis very odd, but I never feel lonely--no, not at all," said
+Grandfer Cantle. "I am as brave in the nighttime as a' admiral!"
+
+The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for the fuel had not
+been of that substantial sort which can support a blaze long. Most
+of the other fires within the wide horizon were also dwindling weak.
+Attentive observation of their brightness, colour, and length of
+existence would have revealed the quality of the material burnt, and
+through that, to some extent the natural produce of the district in
+which each bonfire was situate. The clear, kingly effulgence that had
+characterized the majority expressed a heath and furze country like
+their own, which in one direction extended an unlimited number of miles;
+the rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the compass showed
+the lightest of fuel--straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste from
+arable land. The most enduring of all--steady unaltering eyes like
+Planets--signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots, and
+stout billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare, and
+though comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient blazes, now
+began to get the best of them by mere long continuance. The great ones
+had perished, but these remained. They occupied the remotest visible
+positions--sky-backed summits rising out of rich coppice and plantation
+districts to the north, where the soil was different, and heath foreign
+and strange.
+
+Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the whole shining
+throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to that of the little
+window in the vale below. Its nearness was such that, notwithstanding
+its actual smallness, its glow infinitely transcended theirs.
+
+This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and when their
+own fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more; some even of
+the wood fires more recently lighted had reached their decline, but no
+change was perceptible here.
+
+"To be sure, how near that fire is!" said Fairway. "Seemingly. I can see
+a fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and good must be said of
+that fire, surely."
+
+"I can throw a stone there," said the boy.
+
+"And so can I!" said Grandfer Cantle.
+
+"No, no, you can't, my sonnies. That fire is not much less than a mile
+off, for all that 'a seems so near."
+
+"'Tis in the heath, but no furze," said the turf-cutter.
+
+"'Tis cleft-wood, that's what 'tis," said Timothy Fairway. "Nothing
+would burn like that except clean timber. And 'tis on the knap afore the
+old captain's house at Mistover. Such a queer mortal as that man is! To
+have a little fire inside your own bank and ditch, that nobody else may
+enjoy it or come anigh it! And what a zany an old chap must be, to light
+a bonfire when there's no youngsters to please."
+
+"Cap'n Vye has been for a long walk today, and is quite tired out," said
+Grandfer Cantle, "so 'tisn't likely to be he."
+
+"And he would hardly afford good fuel like that," said the wide woman.
+
+"Then it must be his granddaughter," said Fairway. "Not that a body of
+her age can want a fire much."
+
+"She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and such
+things please her," said Susan.
+
+"She's a well-favoured maid enough," said Humphrey the furze-cutter,
+"especially when she's got one of her dandy gowns on."
+
+"That's true," said Fairway. "Well, let her bonfire burn an't will. Ours
+is well-nigh out by the look o't."
+
+"How dark 'tis now the fire's gone down!" said Christian Cantle,
+looking behind him with his hare eyes. "Don't ye think we'd better get
+home-along, neighbours? The heth isn't haunted, I know; but we'd better
+get home.... Ah, what was that?"
+
+"Only the wind," said the turf-cutter.
+
+"I don't think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by night except in
+towns. It should be by day in outstep, ill-accounted places like this!"
+
+"Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy, dear, you
+and I will have a jig--hey, my honey?--before 'tis quite too dark to see
+how well-favoured you be still, though so many summers have passed since
+your husband, a son of a witch, snapped you up from me."
+
+This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of which
+the beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron's broad form
+whisking off towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled. She
+was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway's arm, which had been flung round her
+waist before she had become aware of his intention. The site of the fire
+was now merely a circle of ashes flecked with red embers and sparks, the
+furze having burnt completely away. Once within the circle he whirled
+her round and round in a dance. She was a woman noisily constructed;
+in addition to her enclosing framework of whalebone and lath, she wore
+pattens summer and winter, in wet weather and in dry, to preserve her
+boots from wear; and when Fairway began to jump about with her, the
+clicking of the pattens, the creaking of the stays, and her screams of
+surprise, formed a very audible concert.
+
+"I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!" said Mrs. Nunsuch,
+as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like
+drumsticks among the sparks. "My ankles were all in a fever before, from
+walking through that prickly furze, and now you must make 'em worse with
+these vlankers!"
+
+The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter seized old
+Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with her likewise.
+The young men were not slow to imitate the example of their elders, and
+seized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in the form of a
+three-legged object among the rest; and in half a minute all that could
+be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling of dark shapes amid a boiling
+confusion of sparks, which leapt around the dancers as high as their
+waists. The chief noises were women's shrill cries, men's laughter,
+Susan's stays and pattens, Olly Dowden's "heu-heu-heu!" and the
+strumming of the wind upon the furze-bushes, which formed a kind of tune
+to the demoniac measure they trod. Christian alone stood aloof, uneasily
+rocking himself as he murmured, "They ought not to do it--how the
+vlankers do fly! 'tis tempting the Wicked one, 'tis."
+
+"What was that?" said one of the lads, stopping.
+
+"Ah--where?" said Christian, hastily closing up to the rest.
+
+The dancers all lessened their speed.
+
+"'Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it--down here."
+
+"Yes--'tis behind me!" Christian said. "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
+bless the bed that I lie on; four angels guard--"
+
+"Hold your tongue. What is it?" said Fairway.
+
+"Hoi-i-i-i!" cried a voice from the darkness.
+
+"Halloo-o-o-o!" said Fairway.
+
+"Is there any cart track up across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's, of
+Blooms-End?" came to them in the same voice, as a long, slim indistinct
+figure approached the barrow.
+
+"Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as 'tis getting
+late?" said Christian. "Not run away from one another, you know; run
+close together, I mean."
+
+"Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze, so that we can
+see who the man is," said Fairway.
+
+When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight raiment, and red
+from top to toe. "Is there a track across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's
+house?" he repeated.
+
+"Ay--keep along the path down there."
+
+"I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?"
+
+"Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The track is
+rough, but if you've got a light your horses may pick along wi' care.
+Have ye brought your cart far up, neighbour reddleman?"
+
+"I've left it in the bottom, about half a mile back, I stepped on in
+front to make sure of the way, as 'tis night-time, and I han't been here
+for so long."
+
+"Oh, well you can get up," said Fairway. "What a turn it did give me
+when I saw him!" he added to the whole group, the reddleman included.
+"Lord's sake, I thought, whatever fiery mommet is this come to trouble
+us? No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain't bad-looking in the
+groundwork, though the finish is queer. My meaning is just to say how
+curious I felt. I half thought it 'twas the devil or the red ghost the
+boy told of."
+
+"It gied me a turn likewise," said Susan Nunsuch, "for I had a dream
+last night of a death's head."
+
+"Don't ye talk o't no more," said Christian. "If he had a handkerchief
+over his head he'd look for all the world like the Devil in the picture
+of the Temptation."
+
+"Well, thank you for telling me," said the young reddleman, smiling
+faintly. "And good night t'ye all."
+
+He withdrew from their sight down the barrow.
+
+"I fancy I've seen that young man's face before," said Humphrey. "But
+where, or how, or what his name is, I don't know."
+
+The reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when another
+person approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to be a
+well-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing which
+can only be expressed by the word genteel. Her face, encompassed by
+the blackness of the receding heath, showed whitely, and with-out
+half-lights, like a cameo.
+
+She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of the type
+usually found where perspicacity is the chief quality enthroned within.
+At moments she seemed to be regarding issues from a Nebo denied to
+others around. She had something of an estranged mien; the solitude
+exhaled from the heath was concentrated in this face that had risen from
+it. The air with which she looked at the heathmen betokened a certain
+unconcern at their presence, or at what might be their opinions of
+her for walking in that lonely spot at such an hour, thus indirectly
+implying that in some respect or other they were not up to her level.
+The explanation lay in the fact that though her husband had been a small
+farmer she herself was a curate's daughter, who had once dreamt of doing
+better things.
+
+Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their
+atmospheres along with them in their orbits; and the matron who entered
+now upon the scene could, and usually did, bring her own tone into a
+company. Her normal manner among the heathfolk had that reticence which
+results from the consciousness of superior communicative power. But
+the effect of coming into society and light after lonely wandering in
+darkness is a sociability in the comer above its usual pitch, expressed
+in the features even more than in words.
+
+"Why, 'tis Mis'ess Yeobright," said Fairway. "Mis'ess Yeobright, not ten
+minutes ago a man was here asking for you--a reddleman."
+
+"What did he want?" said she.
+
+"He didn't tell us."
+
+"Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss to
+understand."
+
+"I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home at Christmas,
+ma'am," said Sam, the turf-cutter. "What a dog he used to be for
+bonfires!"
+
+"Yes. I believe he is coming," she said.
+
+"He must be a fine fellow by this time," said Fairway.
+
+"He is a man now," she replied quietly.
+
+"'Tis very lonesome for 'ee in the heth tonight, mis'ess," said
+Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto maintained. "Mind
+you don't get lost. Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in, and the
+winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard 'em afore. Them that
+know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times."
+
+"Is that you, Christian?" said Mrs. Yeobright. "What made you hide away
+from me?"
+
+"'Twas that I didn't know you in this light, mis'ess; and being a man of
+the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that's all. Oftentimes if
+you could see how terrible down I get in my mind, 'twould make 'ee quite
+nervous for fear I should die by my hand."
+
+"You don't take after your father," said Mrs. Yeobright, looking towards
+the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of originality, was
+dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others had done before.
+
+"Now, Grandfer," said Timothy Fairway, "we are ashamed of ye. A reverent
+old patriarch man as you be--seventy if a day--to go hornpiping like
+that by yourself!"
+
+"A harrowing old man, Mis'ess Yeobright," said Christian despondingly.
+"I wouldn't live with him a week, so playward as he is, if I could get
+away."
+
+"'Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome Mis'ess
+Yeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle," said the
+besom-woman.
+
+"Faith, and so it would," said the reveller checking himself
+repentantly. "I've such a bad memory, Mis'ess Yeobright, that I forget
+how I'm looked up to by the rest of 'em. My spirits must be wonderful
+good, you'll say? But not always. 'Tis a weight upon a man to be looked
+up to as commander, and I often feel it."
+
+"I am sorry to stop the talk," said Mrs. Yeobright. "But I must be
+leaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road, towards my
+niece's new home, who is returning tonight with her husband; and seeing
+the bonfire and hearing Olly's voice among the rest I came up here to
+learn what was going on. I should like her to walk with me, as her way
+is mine."
+
+"Ay, sure, ma'am, I'm just thinking of moving," said Olly.
+
+"Why, you'll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of," said
+Fairway. "He's only gone back to get his van. We heard that your niece
+and her husband were coming straight home as soon as they were married,
+and we are going down there shortly, to give 'em a song o' welcome."
+
+"Thank you indeed," said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you can go with
+long clothes; so we won't trouble you to wait."
+
+"Very well--are you ready, Olly?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. And there's a light shining from your niece's window, see.
+It will help to keep us in the path."
+
+She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley which Fairway
+had pointed out; and the two women descended the tumulus.
+
+
+
+
+4--The Halt on the Turnpike Road
+
+
+Down, downward they went, and yet further down--their descent at each
+step seeming to outmeasure their advance. Their skirts were scratched
+noisily by the furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which,
+though dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winter
+weather having as yet arrived to beat them down. Their Tartarean
+situation might by some have been called an imprudent one for two
+unattended women. But these shaggy recesses were at all seasons a
+familiar surrounding to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the addition of
+darkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.
+
+"And so Tamsin has married him at last," said Olly, when the incline
+had become so much less steep that their foot-steps no longer required
+undivided attention.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright answered slowly, "Yes; at last."
+
+"How you will miss her--living with 'ee as a daughter, as she always
+have."
+
+"I do miss her."
+
+Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely,
+was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive.
+Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with
+impunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright's acquiescence in the
+revival of an evidently sore subject.
+
+"I was quite strook to hear you'd agreed to it, ma'am, that I was,"
+continued the besom-maker.
+
+"You were not more struck by it than I should have been last year this
+time, Olly. There are a good many sides to that wedding. I could not
+tell you all of them, even if I tried."
+
+"I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with your
+family. Keeping an inn--what is it? But 'a's clever, that's true, and
+they say he was an engineering gentleman once, but has come down by
+being too outwardly given."
+
+"I saw that, upon the whole, it would be better she should marry where
+she wished."
+
+"Poor little thing, her feelings got the better of her, no doubt. 'Tis
+nature. Well, they may call him what they will--he've several acres
+of heth-ground broke up here, besides the public house, and the
+heth-croppers, and his manners be quite like a gentleman's. And what's
+done cannot be undone."
+
+"It cannot," said Mrs. Yeobright. "See, here's the wagon-track at last.
+Now we shall get along better."
+
+The wedding subject was no further dwelt upon; and soon a faint
+diverging path was reached, where they parted company, Olly first
+begging her companion to remind Mr. Wildeve that he had not sent
+her sick husband the bottle of wine promised on the occasion of his
+marriage. The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house,
+behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright followed the straight
+track, which further on joined the highway by the Quiet Woman Inn,
+whither she supposed her niece to have returned with Wildeve from their
+wedding at Anglebury that day.
+
+She first reached Wildeve's Patch, as it was called, a plot of land
+redeemed from the heath, and after long and laborious years brought into
+cultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilled died of
+the labour; the man who succeeded him in possession ruined himself in
+fertilizing it. Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, and received the
+honours due to those who had gone before.
+
+When Mrs. Yeobright had drawn near to the inn, and was about to enter,
+she saw a horse and vehicle some two hundred yards beyond it, coming
+towards her, a man walking alongside with a lantern in his hand. It
+was soon evident that this was the reddleman who had inquired for her.
+Instead of entering the inn at once, she walked by it and towards the
+van.
+
+The conveyance came close, and the man was about to pass her with
+little notice, when she turned to him and said, "I think you have been
+inquiring for me? I am Mrs. Yeobright of Blooms-End."
+
+The reddleman started, and held up his finger. He stopped the horses,
+and beckoned to her to withdraw with him a few yards aside, which she
+did, wondering.
+
+"You don't know me, ma'am, I suppose?" he said.
+
+"I do not," said she. "Why, yes, I do! You are young Venn--your father
+was a dairyman somewhere here?"
+
+"Yes; and I knew your niece, Miss Tamsin, a little. I have something bad
+to tell you."
+
+"About her--no! She has just come home, I believe, with her husband.
+They arranged to return this afternoon--to the inn beyond here."
+
+"She's not there."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Because she's here. She's in my van," he added slowly.
+
+"What new trouble has come?" murmured Mrs. Yeobright, putting her hand
+over her eyes.
+
+"I can't explain much, ma'am. All I know is that, as I was going along
+the road this morning, about a mile out of Anglebury, I heard something
+trotting after me like a doe, and looking round there she was, white as
+death itself. 'Oh, Diggory Venn!' she said, 'I thought 'twas you--will
+you help me? I am in trouble.'"
+
+"How did she know your Christian name?" said Mrs. Yeobright doubtingly.
+
+"I had met her as a lad before I went away in this trade. She asked then
+if she might ride, and then down she fell in a faint. I picked her up
+and put her in, and there she has been ever since. She has cried a good
+deal, but she has hardly spoke; all she has told me being that she was
+to have been married this morning. I tried to get her to eat something,
+but she couldn't; and at last she fell asleep."
+
+"Let me see her at once," said Mrs. Yeobright, hastening towards the
+van.
+
+The reddleman followed with the lantern, and, stepping up first,
+assisted Mrs. Yeobright to mount beside him. On the door being opened
+she perceived at the end of the van an extemporized couch, around which
+was hung apparently all the drapery that the reddleman possessed,
+to keep the occupant of the little couch from contact with the red
+materials of his trade. A young girl lay thereon, covered with a cloak.
+She was asleep, and the light of the lantern fell upon her features.
+
+A fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed, reposing in a nest
+of wavy chestnut hair. It was between pretty and beautiful. Though her
+eyes were closed, one could easily imagine the light necessarily shining
+in them as the culmination of the luminous workmanship around. The
+groundwork of the face was hopefulness; but over it now I ay like a
+foreign substance a film of anxiety and grief. The grief had been there
+so shortly as to have abstracted nothing of the bloom, and had as yet
+but given a dignity to what it might eventually undermine. The scarlet
+of her lips had not had time to abate, and just now it appeared still
+more intense by the absence of the neighbouring and more transient
+colour of her cheek. The lips frequently parted, with a murmur of words.
+She seemed to belong rightly to a madrigal--to require viewing through
+rhyme and harmony.
+
+One thing at least was obvious: she was not made to be looked at
+thus. The reddleman had appeared conscious of as much, and, while Mrs.
+Yeobright looked in upon her, he cast his eyes aside with a delicacy
+which well became him. The sleeper apparently thought so too, for the
+next moment she opened her own.
+
+The lips then parted with something of anticipation, something more of
+doubt; and her several thoughts and fractions of thoughts, as signalled
+by the changes on her face, were exhibited by the light to the utmost
+nicety. An ingenuous, transparent life was disclosed, as if the flow of
+her existence could be seen passing within her. She understood the scene
+in a moment.
+
+"O yes, it is I, Aunt," she cried. "I know how frightened you are, and
+how you cannot believe it; but all the same, it is I who have come home
+like this!"
+
+"Tamsin, Tamsin!" said Mrs. Yeobright, stooping over the young woman and
+kissing her. "O my dear girl!"
+
+Thomasin was now on the verge of a sob, but by an unexpected
+self-command she uttered no sound. With a gentle panting breath she sat
+upright.
+
+"I did not expect to see you in this state, any more than you me," she
+went on quickly. "Where am I, Aunt?"
+
+"Nearly home, my dear. In Egdon Bottom. What dreadful thing is it?"
+
+"I'll tell you in a moment. So near, are we? Then I will get out and
+walk. I want to go home by the path."
+
+"But this kind man who has done so much will, I am sure, take you
+right on to my house?" said the aunt, turning to the reddleman, who had
+withdrawn from the front of the van on the awakening of the girl, and
+stood in the road.
+
+"Why should you think it necessary to ask me? I will, of course," said
+he.
+
+"He is indeed kind," murmured Thomasin. "I was once acquainted with him,
+Aunt, and when I saw him today I thought I should prefer his van to any
+conveyance of a stranger. But I'll walk now. Reddleman, stop the horses,
+please."
+
+The man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped them
+
+Aunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright saying to its
+owner, "I quite recognize you now. What made you change from the nice
+business your father left you?"
+
+"Well, I did," he said, and looked at Thomasin, who blushed a little.
+"Then you'll not be wanting me any more tonight, ma'am?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills, at the
+perishing bonfires, and at the lighted window of the inn they had
+neared. "I think not," she said, "since Thomasin wishes to walk. We can
+soon run up the path and reach home--we know it well."
+
+And after a few further words they parted, the reddleman moving onwards
+with his van, and the two women remaining standing in the road. As soon
+as the vehicle and its driver had withdrawn so far as to be beyond all
+possible reach of her voice, Mrs. Yeobright turned to her niece.
+
+"Now, Thomasin," she said sternly, "what's the meaning of this
+disgraceful performance?"
+
+
+
+
+5--Perplexity among Honest People
+
+
+Thomasin looked as if quite overcome by her aunt's change of manner.
+"It means just what it seems to mean: I am--not married," she replied
+faintly. "Excuse me--for humiliating you, Aunt, by this mishap--I am
+sorry for it. But I cannot help it."
+
+"Me? Think of yourself first."
+
+"It was nobody's fault. When we got there the parson wouldn't marry us
+because of some trifling irregularity in the license."
+
+"What irregularity?"
+
+"I don't know. Mr. Wildeve can explain. I did not think when I went away
+this morning that I should come back like this." It being dark, Thomasin
+allowed her emotion to escape her by the silent way of tears, which
+could roll down her cheek unseen.
+
+"I could almost say that it serves you right--if I did not feel that
+you don't deserve it," continued Mrs. Yeobright, who, possessing two
+distinct moods in close contiguity, a gentle mood and an angry, flew
+from one to the other without the least warning. "Remember, Thomasin,
+this business was none of my seeking; from the very first, when you
+began to feel foolish about that man, I warned you he would not make you
+happy. I felt it so strongly that I did what I would never have believed
+myself capable of doing--stood up in the church, and made myself the
+public talk for weeks. But having once consented, I don't submit to
+these fancies without good reason. Marry him you must after this."
+
+"Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?" said Thomasin,
+with a heavy sigh. "I know how wrong it was of me to love him, but don't
+pain me by talking like that, Aunt! You would not have had me stay there
+with him, would you?--and your house is the only home I have to return
+to. He says we can be married in a day or two."
+
+"I wish he had never seen you."
+
+"Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not
+let him see me again. No, I won't have him!"
+
+"It is too late to speak so. Come with me. I am going to the inn to see
+if he has returned. Of course I shall get to the bottom of this story
+at once. Mr. Wildeve must not suppose he can play tricks upon me, or any
+belonging to me."
+
+"It was not that. The license was wrong, and he couldn't get another the
+same day. He will tell you in a moment how it was, if he comes."
+
+"Why didn't he bring you back?"
+
+"That was me!" again sobbed Thomasin. "When I found we could not be
+married I didn't like to come back with him, and I was very ill. Then
+I saw Diggory Venn, and was glad to get him to take me home. I cannot
+explain it any better, and you must be angry with me if you will."
+
+"I shall see about that," said Mrs. Yeobright; and they turned towards
+the inn, known in the neighbourhood as the Quiet Woman, the sign of
+which represented the figure of a matron carrying her head under her
+arm, beneath which gruesome design was written the couplet so well known
+to frequenters of the inn:--
+
+
+SINCE THE WOMAN'S QUIET LET NO MAN BREED A RIOT.(1)
+
+     (1) The inn which really bore this sign and legend stood
+     some miles to the northwest of the present scene, wherein
+     the house more immediately referred to is now no longer an
+     inn; and the surroundings are much changed. But another inn,
+     some of whose features are also embodied in this
+     description, the RED LION at Winfrith, still remains as a
+     haven for the wayfarer (1912).
+
+The front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose dark
+shape seemed to threaten it from the sky. Upon the door was a neglected
+brass plate, bearing the unexpected inscription, "Mr. Wildeve,
+Engineer"--a useless yet cherished relic from the time when he had been
+started in that profession in an office at Budmouth by those who had
+hoped much from him, and had been disappointed. The garden was at the
+back, and behind this ran a still deep stream, forming the margin of the
+heath in that direction, meadow-land appearing beyond the stream.
+
+But the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be visible of any
+scene at present. The water at the back of the house could be
+heard, idly spinning whirpools in its creep between the rows of dry
+feather-headed reeds which formed a stockade along each bank. Their
+presence was denoted by sounds as of a congregation praying humbly,
+produced by their rubbing against each other in the slow wind.
+
+The window, whence the candlelight had shone up the vale to the eyes
+of the bonfire group, was uncurtained, but the sill lay too high for a
+pedestrian on the outside to look over it into the room. A vast shadow,
+in which could be dimly traced portions of a masculine contour, blotted
+half the ceiling.
+
+"He seems to be at home," said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"Must I come in, too, Aunt?" asked Thomasin faintly. "I suppose not; it
+would be wrong."
+
+"You must come, certainly--to confront him, so that he may make no false
+representations to me. We shall not be five minutes in the house, and
+then we'll walk home."
+
+Entering the open passage, she tapped at the door of the private
+parlour, unfastened it, and looked in.
+
+The back and shoulders of a man came between Mrs. Yeobright's eyes and
+the fire. Wildeve, whose form it was, immediately turned, arose, and
+advanced to meet his visitors.
+
+He was quite a young man, and of the two properties, form and motion,
+the latter first attracted the eye in him. The grace of his movement
+was singular--it was the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing career.
+Next came into notice the more material qualities, among which was a
+profuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face, lending to his
+forehead the high-cornered outline of an early Gothic shield; and a neck
+which was smooth and round as a cylinder. The lower half of his figure
+was of light build. Altogether he was one in whom no man would have seen
+anything to admire, and in whom no woman would have seen anything to
+dislike.
+
+He discerned the young girl's form in the passage, and said, "Thomasin,
+then, has reached home. How could you leave me in that way, darling?"
+And turning to Mrs. Yeobright--"It was useless to argue with her. She
+would go, and go alone."
+
+"But what's the meaning of it all?" demanded Mrs. Yeobright haughtily.
+
+"Take a seat," said Wildeve, placing chairs for the two women. "Well,
+it was a very stupid mistake, but such mistakes will happen. The license
+was useless at Anglebury. It was made out for Budmouth, but as I didn't
+read it I wasn't aware of that."
+
+"But you had been staying at Anglebury?"
+
+"No. I had been at Budmouth--till two days ago--and that was where I
+had intended to take her; but when I came to fetch her we decided upon
+Anglebury, forgetting that a new license would be necessary. There was
+not time to get to Budmouth afterwards."
+
+"I think you are very much to blame," said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"It was quite my fault we chose Anglebury," Thomasin pleaded. "I
+proposed it because I was not known there."
+
+"I know so well that I am to blame that you need not remind me of it,"
+replied Wildeve shortly.
+
+"Such things don't happen for nothing," said the aunt. "It is a great
+slight to me and my family; and when it gets known there will be a
+very unpleasant time for us. How can she look her friends in the face
+tomorrow? It is a very great injury, and one I cannot easily forgive. It
+may even reflect on her character."
+
+"Nonsense," said Wildeve.
+
+Thomasin's large eyes had flown from the face of one to the face of
+the other during this discussion, and she now said anxiously, "Will you
+allow me, Aunt, to talk it over alone with Damon for five minutes? Will
+you, Damon?"
+
+"Certainly, dear," said Wildeve, "if your aunt will excuse us." He led
+her into an adjoining room, leaving Mrs. Yeobright by the fire.
+
+As soon as they were alone, and the door closed, Thomasin said, turning
+up her pale, tearful face to him, "It is killing me, this, Damon! I did
+not mean to part from you in anger at Anglebury this morning; but I was
+frightened and hardly knew what I said. I've not let Aunt know how much
+I suffered today; and it is so hard to command my face and voice, and to
+smile as if it were a slight thing to me; but I try to do so, that she
+may not be still more indignant with you. I know you could not help it,
+dear, whatever Aunt may think."
+
+"She is very unpleasant."
+
+"Yes," Thomasin murmured, "and I suppose I seem so now.... Damon, what do
+you mean to do about me?"
+
+"Do about you?"
+
+"Yes. Those who don't like you whisper things which at moments make me
+doubt you. We mean to marry, I suppose, don't we?"
+
+"Of course we do. We have only to go to Budmouth on Monday, and we marry
+at once."
+
+"Then do let us go!--O Damon, what you make me say!" She hid her face in
+her handkerchief. "Here am I asking you to marry me, when by rights
+you ought to be on your knees imploring me, your cruel mistress, not
+to refuse you, and saying it would break your heart if I did. I used to
+think it would be pretty and sweet like that; but how different!"
+
+"Yes, real life is never at all like that."
+
+"But I don't care personally if it never takes place," she added with a
+little dignity; "no, I can live without you. It is Aunt I think of. She
+is so proud, and thinks so much of her family respectability, that she
+will be cut down with mortification if this story should get abroad
+before--it is done. My cousin Clym, too, will be much wounded."
+
+"Then he will be very unreasonable. In fact, you are all rather
+unreasonable."
+
+Thomasin coloured a little, and not with love. But whatever the
+momentary feeling which caused that flush in her, it went as it came,
+and she humbly said, "I never mean to be, if I can help it. I merely
+feel that you have my aunt to some extent in your power at last."
+
+"As a matter of justice it is almost due to me," said Wildeve. "Think
+what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is to
+any man to have the banns forbidden--the double insult to a man unlucky
+enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven
+knows what, as I am. I can never forget those banns. A harsher man would
+rejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your aunt by going no
+further in the business."
+
+She looked wistfully at him with her sorrowful eyes as he said those
+words, and her aspect showed that more than one person in the room could
+deplore the possession of sensitiveness. Seeing that she was really
+suffering he seemed disturbed and added, "This is merely a reflection
+you know. I have not the least intention to refuse to complete the
+marriage, Tamsie mine--I could not bear it."
+
+"You could not, I know!" said the fair girl, brightening. "You, who
+cannot bear the sight of pain in even an insect, or any disagreeable
+sound, or unpleasant smell even, will not long cause pain to me and
+mine."
+
+"I will not, if I can help it."
+
+"Your hand upon it, Damon."
+
+He carelessly gave her his hand.
+
+"Ah, by my crown, what's that?" he said suddenly.
+
+There fell upon their ears the sound of numerous voices singing in
+front of the house. Among these, two made themselves prominent by their
+peculiarity: one was a very strong bass, the other a wheezy thin piping.
+Thomasin recognized them as belonging to Timothy Fairway and Grandfer
+Cantle respectively.
+
+"What does it mean--it is not skimmity-riding, I hope?" she said, with a
+frightened gaze at Wildeve.
+
+"Of course not; no, it is that the heath-folk have come to sing to us
+a welcome. This is intolerable!" He began pacing about, the men outside
+singing cheerily--
+
+
+"He told' her that she' was the joy' of his life', And if' she'd
+con-sent' he would make her his wife'; She could' not refuse' him;
+to church' so they went', Young Will was forgot', and young Sue' was
+content'; And then' was she kiss'd' and set down' on his knee', No man'
+in the world' was so lov'-ing as he'!"
+
+
+Mrs. Yeobright burst in from the outer room. "Thomasin, Thomasin!" she
+said, looking indignantly at Wildeve; "here's a pretty exposure! Let us
+escape at once. Come!"
+
+It was, however, too late to get away by the passage. A rugged knocking
+had begun upon the door of the front room. Wildeve, who had gone to the
+window, came back.
+
+"Stop!" he said imperiously, putting his hand upon Mrs. Yeobright's arm.
+"We are regularly besieged. There are fifty of them out there if there's
+one. You stay in this room with Thomasin; I'll go out and face them. You
+must stay now, for my sake, till they are gone, so that it may seem as
+if all was right. Come, Tamsie dear, don't go making a scene--we must
+marry after this; that you can see as well as I. Sit still, that's
+all--and don't speak much. I'll manage them. Blundering fools!"
+
+He pressed the agitated girl into a seat, returned to the outer room and
+opened the door. Immediately outside, in the passage, appeared Grandfer
+Cantle singing in concert with those still standing in front of the
+house. He came into the room and nodded abstractedly to Wildeve, his
+lips still parted, and his features excruciatingly strained in the
+emission of the chorus. This being ended, he said heartily, "Here's
+welcome to the new-made couple, and God bless 'em!"
+
+"Thank you," said Wildeve, with dry resentment, his face as gloomy as a
+thunderstorm.
+
+At the Grandfer's heels now came the rest of the group, which included
+Fairway, Christian, Sam the turf-cutter, Humphrey, and a dozen others.
+All smiled upon Wildeve, and upon his tables and chairs likewise, from
+a general sense of friendliness towards the articles as well as towards
+their owner.
+
+"We be not here afore Mrs. Yeobright after all," said Fairway,
+recognizing the matron's bonnet through the glass partition which
+divided the public apartment they had entered from the room where the
+women sat. "We struck down across, d'ye see, Mr. Wildeve, and she went
+round by the path."
+
+"And I see the young bride's little head!" said Grandfer, peeping in the
+same direction, and discerning Thomasin, who was waiting beside her aunt
+in a miserable and awkward way. "Not quite settled in yet--well, well,
+there's plenty of time."
+
+Wildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner he treated
+them the sooner they would go, he produced a stone jar, which threw a
+warm halo over matters at once.
+
+"That's a drop of the right sort, I can see," said Grandfer Cantle, with
+the air of a man too well-mannered to show any hurry to taste it.
+
+"Yes," said Wildeve, "'tis some old mead. I hope you will like it."
+
+"O ay!" replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural when the words
+demanded by politeness coincide with those of deepest feeling. "There
+isn't a prettier drink under the sun."
+
+"I'll take my oath there isn't," added Grandfer Cantle. "All that can be
+said against mead is that 'tis rather heady, and apt to lie about a man
+a good while. But tomorrow's Sunday, thank God."
+
+"I feel'd for all the world like some bold soldier after I had had some
+once," said Christian.
+
+"You shall feel so again," said Wildeve, with condescension, "Cups or
+glasses, gentlemen?"
+
+"Well, if you don't mind, we'll have the beaker, and pass 'en round;
+'tis better than heling it out in dribbles."
+
+"Jown the slippery glasses," said Grandfer Cantle. "What's the good of
+a thing that you can't put down in the ashes to warm, hey, neighbours;
+that's what I ask?"
+
+"Right, Grandfer," said Sam; and the mead then circulated.
+
+"Well," said Timothy Fairway, feeling demands upon his praise in some
+form or other, "'tis a worthy thing to be married, Mr. Wildeve; and the
+woman you've got is a dimant, so says I. Yes," he continued, to Grandfer
+Cantle, raising his voice so as to be heard through the partition, "her
+father (inclining his head towards the inner room) was as good a
+feller as ever lived. He always had his great indignation ready against
+anything underhand."
+
+"Is that very dangerous?" said Christian.
+
+"And there were few in these parts that were upsides with him," said
+Sam. "Whenever a club walked he'd play the clarinet in the band that
+marched before 'em as if he'd never touched anything but a clarinet all
+his life. And then, when they got to church door he'd throw down the
+clarinet, mount the gallery, snatch up the bass viol, and rozum away as
+if he'd never played anything but a bass viol. Folk would say--folk that
+knowed what a true stave was--'Surely, surely that's never the same man
+that I saw handling the clarinet so masterly by now!"
+
+"I can mind it," said the furze-cutter. "'Twas a wonderful thing that
+one body could hold it all and never mix the fingering."
+
+"There was Kingsbere church likewise," Fairway recommenced, as one
+opening a new vein of the same mine of interest.
+
+Wildeve breathed the breath of one intolerably bored, and glanced
+through the partition at the prisoners.
+
+"He used to walk over there of a Sunday afternoon to visit his old
+acquaintance Andrew Brown, the first clarinet there; a good man enough,
+but rather screechy in his music, if you can mind?"
+
+"'A was."
+
+"And neighbour Yeobright would take Andrey's place for some part of
+the service, to let Andrey have a bit of a nap, as any friend would
+naturally do."
+
+"As any friend would," said Grandfer Cantle, the other listeners
+expressing the same accord by the shorter way of nodding their heads.
+
+"No sooner was Andrey asleep and the first whiff of neighbour
+Yeobright's wind had got inside Andrey's clarinet than everyone in
+church feeled in a moment there was a great soul among 'em. All heads
+would turn, and they'd say, 'Ah, I thought 'twas he!' One Sunday I can
+well mind--a bass viol day that time, and Yeobright had brought his own.
+'Twas the Hundred-and-thirty-third to 'Lydia'; and when they'd come
+to 'Ran down his beard and o'er his robes its costly moisture shed,'
+neighbour Yeobright, who had just warmed to his work, drove his bow into
+them strings that glorious grand that he e'en a'most sawed the bass
+viol into two pieces. Every winder in church rattled as if 'twere a
+thunderstorm. Old Pa'son Williams lifted his hands in his great holy
+surplice as natural as if he'd been in common clothes, and seemed to say
+hisself, 'O for such a man in our parish!' But not a soul in Kingsbere
+could hold a candle to Yeobright."
+
+"Was it quite safe when the winder shook?" Christian inquired.
+
+He received no answer, all for the moment sitting rapt in admiration
+of the performance described. As with Farinelli's singing before the
+princesses, Sheridan's renowned Begum Speech, and other such examples,
+the fortunate condition of its being for ever lost to the world invested
+the deceased Mr. Yeobright's tour de force on that memorable afternoon
+with a cumulative glory which comparative criticism, had that been
+possible, might considerably have shorn down.
+
+"He was the last you'd have expected to drop off in the prime of life,"
+said Humphrey.
+
+"Ah, well; he was looking for the earth some months afore he went. At
+that time women used to run for smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill
+Fair, and my wife that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid,
+hardly husband-high, went with the rest of the maidens, for 'a was a
+good, runner afore she got so heavy. When she came home I said--we were
+then just beginning to walk together--'What have ye got, my honey?'
+'I've won--well, I've won--a gown-piece,' says she, her colours coming
+up in a moment. 'Tis a smock for a crown, I thought; and so it turned
+out. Ay, when I think what she'll say to me now without a mossel of red
+in her face, it do seem strange that 'a wouldn't say such a little thing
+then.... However, then she went on, and that's what made me bring up the
+story. Well, whatever clothes I've won, white or figured, for eyes to
+see or for eyes not to see' ('a could do a pretty stroke of modesty in
+those days), 'I'd sooner have lost it than have seen what I have. Poor
+Mr. Yeobright was took bad directly he reached the fair ground, and was
+forced to go home again.' That was the last time he ever went out of the
+parish."
+
+"'A faltered on from one day to another, and then we heard he was gone."
+
+"D'ye think he had great pain when 'a died?" said Christian.
+
+"O no--quite different. Nor any pain of mind. He was lucky enough to be
+God A'mighty's own man."
+
+"And other folk--d'ye think 'twill be much pain to 'em, Mister Fairway?"
+
+"That depends on whether they be afeard."
+
+"I bain't afeard at all, I thank God!" said Christian strenuously. "I'm
+glad I bain't, for then 'twon't pain me.... I don't think I be afeard--or
+if I be I can't help it, and I don't deserve to suffer. I wish I was not
+afeard at all!"
+
+There was a solemn silence, and looking from the window, which was
+unshuttered and unblinded, Timothy said, "Well, what a fess little
+bonfire that one is, out by Cap'n Vye's! 'Tis burning just the same now
+as ever, upon my life."
+
+All glances went through the window, and nobody noticed that Wildeve
+disguised a brief, telltale look. Far away up the sombre valley of
+heath, and to the right of Rainbarrow, could indeed be seen the light,
+small, but steady and persistent as before.
+
+"It was lighted before ours was," Fairway continued; "and yet every one
+in the country round is out afore 'n."
+
+"Perhaps there's meaning in it!" murmured Christian.
+
+"How meaning?" said Wildeve sharply.
+
+Christian was too scattered to reply, and Timothy helped him.
+
+"He means, sir, that the lonesome dark-eyed creature up there that some
+say is a witch--ever I should call a fine young woman such a name--is
+always up to some odd conceit or other; and so perhaps 'tis she."
+
+"I'd be very glad to ask her in wedlock, if she'd hae me and take
+the risk of her wild dark eyes ill-wishing me," said Grandfer Cantle
+staunchly.
+
+"Don't ye say it, Father!" implored Christian.
+
+"Well, be dazed if he who do marry the maid won't hae an uncommon
+picture for his best parlour," said Fairway in a liquid tone, placing
+down the cup of mead at the end of a good pull.
+
+"And a partner as deep as the North Star," said Sam, taking up the cup
+and finishing the little that remained. "Well, really, now I think we
+must be moving," said Humphrey, observing the emptiness of the vessel.
+
+"But we'll gie 'em another song?" said Grandfer Cantle. "I'm as full of
+notes as a bird!"
+
+"Thank you, Grandfer," said Wildeve. "But we will not trouble you now.
+Some other day must do for that--when I have a party."
+
+"Be jown'd if I don't learn ten new songs for't, or I won't learn a
+line!" said Grandfer Cantle. "And you may be sure I won't disappoint ye
+by biding away, Mr. Wildeve."
+
+"I quite believe you," said that gentleman.
+
+All then took their leave, wishing their entertainer long life and
+happiness as a married man, with recapitulations which occupied some
+time. Wildeve attended them to the door, beyond which the deep-dyed
+upward stretch of heath stood awaiting them, an amplitude of darkness
+reigning from their feet almost to the zenith, where a definite form
+first became visible in the lowering forehead of Rainbarrow. Diving
+into the dense obscurity in a line headed by Sam the turf-cutter, they
+pursued their trackless way home.
+
+When the scratching of the furze against their leggings had fainted upon
+the ear, Wildeve returned to the room where he had left Thomasin and her
+aunt. The women were gone.
+
+They could only have left the house in one way, by the back window; and
+this was open.
+
+Wildeve laughed to himself, remained a moment thinking, and idly
+returned to the front room. Here his glance fell upon a bottle of wine
+which stood on the mantelpiece. "Ah--old Dowden!" he murmured; and going
+to the kitchen door shouted, "Is anybody here who can take something to
+old Dowden?"
+
+There was no reply. The room was empty, the lad who acted as his
+factotum having gone to bed. Wildeve came back put on his hat, took the
+bottle, and left the house, turning the key in the door, for there was
+no guest at the inn tonight. As soon as he was on the road the little
+bonfire on Mistover Knap again met his eye.
+
+"Still waiting, are you, my lady?" he murmured.
+
+However, he did not proceed that way just then; but leaving the hill to
+the left of him, he stumbled over a rutted road that brought him to a
+cottage which, like all other habitations on the heath at this hour, was
+only saved from being visible by a faint shine from its bedroom window.
+This house was the home of Olly Dowden, the besom-maker, and he entered.
+
+The lower room was in darkness; but by feeling his way he found a table,
+whereon he placed the bottle, and a minute later emerged again upon the
+heath. He stood and looked northeast at the undying little fire--high up
+above him, though not so high as Rainbarrow.
+
+We have been told what happens when a woman deliberates; and the epigram
+is not always terminable with woman, provided that one be in the case,
+and that a fair one. Wildeve stood, and stood longer, and breathed
+perplexedly, and then said to himself with resignation, "Yes--by Heaven,
+I must go to her, I suppose!"
+
+Instead of turning in the direction of home he pressed on rapidly by a
+path under Rainbarrow towards what was evidently a signal light.
+
+
+
+
+6--The Figure against the Sky
+
+
+When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to its
+accustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached the
+barrow from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay. Had
+the reddleman been watching he might have recognized her as the woman
+who had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the approach
+of strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top, where the red
+coals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes in the corpse
+of day. There she stood still around her stretching the vast night
+atmosphere, whose incomplete darkness in comparison with the total
+darkness of the heath below it might have represented a venial beside a
+mortal sin.
+
+That she was tall and straight in build, that she was lady-like in her
+movements, was all that could be learnt of her just now, her form being
+wrapped in a shawl folded in the old cornerwise fashion, and her head in
+a large kerchief, a protection not superfluous at this hour and place.
+Her back was towards the wind, which blew from the northwest; but
+whether she had avoided that aspect because of the chilly gusts which
+played about her exceptional position, or because her interest lay in
+the southeast, did not at first appear.
+
+Her reason for standing so dead still as the pivot of this circle
+of heath-country was just as obscure. Her extraordinary fixity, her
+conspicuous loneliness, her heedlessness of night, betokened among other
+things an utter absence of fear. A tract of country unaltered from that
+sinister condition which made Caesar anxious every year to get clear of
+its glooms before the autumnal equinox, a kind of landscape and weather
+which leads travellers from the South to describe our island as Homer's
+Cimmerian land, was not, on the face of it, friendly to women.
+
+It might reasonably have been supposed that she was listening to the
+wind, which rose somewhat as the night advanced, and laid hold of the
+attention. The wind, indeed, seemed made for the scene, as the scene
+seemed made for the hour. Part of its tone was quite special; what was
+heard there could be heard nowhere else. Gusts in innumerable series
+followed each other from the northwest, and when each one of them raced
+past the sound of its progress resolved into three. Treble, tenor, and
+bass notes were to be found therein. The general ricochet of the whole
+over pits and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. Next there
+could be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in force,
+above them in pitch, a dwindled voice strove hard at a husky tune, which
+was the peculiar local sound alluded to. Thinner and less immediately
+traceable than the other two, it was far more impressive than either. In
+it lay what may be called the linguistic peculiarity of the heath; and
+being audible nowhere on earth off a heath, it afforded a shadow of
+reason for the woman's tenseness, which continued as unbroken as ever.
+
+Throughout the blowing of these plaintive November winds that note
+bore a great resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain to the
+throat of fourscore and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and
+it brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, the
+material minutiae in which it originated could be realized as by touch.
+It was the united products of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these
+were neither stems, leaves, fruit, blades, prickles, lichen, nor moss.
+
+They were the mummied heathbells of the past summer, originally tender
+and purple, now washed colourless by Michaelmas rains, and dried to dead
+skins by October suns. So low was an individual sound from these that a
+combination of hundreds only just emerged from silence, and the myriads
+of the whole declivity reached the woman's ear but as a shrivelled and
+intermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent among the many
+afloat tonight could have such power to impress a listener with
+thoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the infinity of those combined
+multitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny trumpets was seized on
+entered, scoured and emerged from by the wind as thoroughly as if it
+were as vast as a crater.
+
+"The spirit moved them." A meaning of the phrase forced itself upon the
+attention; and an emotional listener's fetichistic mood might have
+ended in one of more advanced quality. It was not, after all, that the
+left-hand expanse of old blooms spoke, or the right-hand, or those
+of the slope in front; but it was the single person of something else
+speaking through each at once.
+
+Suddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild rhetoric
+of night a sound which modulated so naturally into the rest that its
+beginning and ending were hardly to be distinguished. The bluffs, and
+the bushes, and the heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so did
+the woman; and her articulation was but as another phrase of the same
+discourse as theirs. Thrown out on the winds it became twined in with
+them, and with them it flew away.
+
+What she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at something
+in her mind which had led to her presence here. There was a spasmodic
+abandonment about it as if, in allowing herself to utter the sound the
+woman's brain had authorized what it could not regulate. One point was
+evident in this; that she had been existing in a suppressed state, and
+not in one of languor, or stagnation.
+
+Far away down the valley the faint shine from the window of the inn
+still lasted on; and a few additional moments proved that the window, or
+what was within it, had more to do with the woman's sigh than had either
+her own actions or the scene immediately around. She lifted her left
+hand, which held a closed telescope. This she rapidly extended, as if
+she were well accustomed to the operation, and raising it to her eye
+directed it towards the light beaming from the inn.
+
+The handkerchief which had hooded her head was now a little thrown back,
+her face being somewhat elevated. A profile was visible against the dull
+monochrome of cloud around her; and it was as though side shadows from
+the features of Sappho and Mrs. Siddons had converged upwards from the
+tomb to form an image like neither but suggesting both. This, however,
+was mere superficiality. In respect of character a face may make certain
+admissions by its outline; but it fully confesses only in its changes.
+So much is this the case that what is called the play of the features
+often helps more in understanding a man or woman than the earnest
+labours of all the other members together. Thus the night revealed
+little of her whose form it was embracing, for the mobile parts of her
+countenance could not be seen.
+
+At last she gave up her spying attitude, closed the telescope, and
+turned to the decaying embers. From these no appreciable beams now
+radiated, except when a more than usually smart gust brushed over their
+faces and raised a fitful glow which came and went like the blush of a
+girl. She stooped over the silent circle, and selecting from the brands
+a piece of stick which bore the largest live coal at its end, brought it
+to where she had been standing before.
+
+She held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal with her mouth at
+the same time; till it faintly illuminated the sod, and revealed a small
+object, which turned out to be an hourglass, though she wore a watch.
+She blew long enough to show that the sand had all slipped through.
+
+"Ah!" she said, as if surprised.
+
+The light raised by her breath had been very fitful, and a momentary
+irradiation of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. That
+consisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being still
+enveloped. She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand, the
+telescope under her arm, and moved on.
+
+Along the ridge ran a faint foot-track, which the lady followed. Those
+who knew it well called it a path; and, while a mere visitor would have
+passed it unnoticed even by day, the regular haunters of the heath
+were at no loss for it at midnight. The whole secret of following these
+incipient paths, when there was not light enough in the atmosphere to
+show a turnpike road, lay in the development of the sense of touch in
+the feet, which comes with years of night-rambling in little-trodden
+spots. To a walker practised in such places a difference between impact
+on maiden herbage, and on the crippled stalks of a slight footway, is
+perceptible through the thickest boot or shoe.
+
+The solitary figure who walked this beat took no notice of the windy
+tune still played on the dead heathbells. She did not turn her head to
+look at a group of dark creatures further on, who fled from her presence
+as she skirted a ravine where they fed. They were about a score of the
+small wild ponies known as heath-croppers. They roamed at large on the
+undulations of Egdon, but in numbers too few to detract much from the
+solitude.
+
+The pedestrian noticed nothing just now, and a clue to her abstraction
+was afforded by a trivial incident. A bramble caught hold of her skirt,
+and checked her progress. Instead of putting it off and hastening along,
+she yielded herself up to the pull, and stood passively still. When she
+began to extricate herself it was by turning round and round, and so
+unwinding the prickly switch. She was in a desponding reverie.
+
+Her course was in the direction of the small undying fire which had
+drawn the attention of the men on Rainbarrow and of Wildeve in the
+valley below. A faint illumination from its rays began to glow upon
+her face, and the fire soon revealed itself to be lit, not on the level
+ground, but on a salient corner or redan of earth, at the junction of
+two converging bank fences. Outside was a ditch, dry except immediately
+under the fire, where there was a large pool, bearded all round by
+heather and rushes. In the smooth water of the pool the fire appeared
+upside down.
+
+The banks meeting behind were bare of a hedge, save such as was formed
+by disconnected tufts of furze, standing upon stems along the top, like
+impaled heads above a city wall. A white mast, fitted up with spars
+and other nautical tackle, could be seen rising against the dark clouds
+whenever the flames played brightly enough to reach it. Altogether the
+scene had much the appearance of a fortification upon which had been
+kindled a beacon fire.
+
+Nobody was visible; but ever and anon a whitish something moved above
+the bank from behind, and vanished again. This was a small human hand,
+in the act of lifting pieces of fuel into the fire, but for all that
+could be seen the hand, like that which troubled Belshazzar, was there
+alone. Occasionally an ember rolled off the bank, and dropped with a
+hiss into the pool.
+
+At one side of the pool rough steps built of clods enabled everyone who
+wished to do so to mount the bank; which the woman did. Within was a
+paddock in an uncultivated state, though bearing evidence of having once
+been tilled; but the heath and fern had insidiously crept in, and were
+reasserting their old supremacy. Further ahead were dimly visible an
+irregular dwelling-house, garden, and outbuildings, backed by a clump of
+firs.
+
+The young lady--for youth had revealed its presence in her buoyant bound
+up the bank--walked along the top instead of descending inside, and came
+to the corner where the fire was burning. One reason for the permanence
+of the blaze was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces of
+wood, cleft and sawn--the knotty boles of old thorn trees which grew in
+twos and threes about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed pile of these lay
+in the inner angle of the bank; and from this corner the upturned face
+of a little boy greeted her eyes. He was dilatorily throwing up a piece
+of wood into the fire every now and then, a business which seemed to
+have engaged him a considerable part of the evening, for his face was
+somewhat weary.
+
+"I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia," he said, with a sigh of
+relief. "I don't like biding by myself."
+
+"Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. I have been gone
+only twenty minutes."
+
+"It seemed long," murmured the sad boy. "And you have been so many
+times."
+
+"Why, I thought you would be pleased to have a bonfire. Are you not much
+obliged to me for making you one?"
+
+"Yes; but there's nobody here to play wi' me."
+
+"I suppose nobody has come while I've been away?"
+
+"Nobody except your grandfather--he looked out of doors once for 'ee.
+I told him you were walking round upon the hill to look at the other
+bonfires."
+
+"A good boy."
+
+"I think I hear him coming again, miss."
+
+An old man came into the remoter light of the fire from the direction
+of the homestead. He was the same who had overtaken the reddleman on the
+road that afternoon. He looked wistfully to the top of the bank at
+the woman who stood there, and his teeth, which were quite unimpaired,
+showed like parian from his parted lips.
+
+"When are you coming indoors, Eustacia?" he asked. "'Tis almost bedtime.
+I've been home these two hours, and am tired out. Surely 'tis somewhat
+childish of you to stay out playing at bonfires so long, and wasting
+such fuel. My precious thorn roots, the rarest of all firing, that I
+laid by on purpose for Christmas--you have burnt 'em nearly all!"
+
+"I promised Johnny a bonfire, and it pleases him not to let it go out
+just yet," said Eustacia, in a way which told at once that she was
+absolute queen here. "Grandfather, you go in to bed. I shall follow you
+soon. You like the fire, don't you, Johnny?"
+
+The boy looked up doubtfully at her and murmured, "I don't think I want
+it any longer."
+
+Her grandfather had turned back again, and did not hear the boy's reply.
+As soon as the white-haired man had vanished she said in a tone of pique
+to the child, "Ungrateful little boy, how can you contradict me? Never
+shall you have a bonfire again unless you keep it up now. Come, tell me
+you like to do things for me, and don't deny it."
+
+The repressed child said, "Yes, I do, miss," and continued to stir the
+fire perfunctorily.
+
+"Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence," said
+Eustacia, more gently. "Put in one piece of wood every two or three
+minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge a
+little longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a frog
+jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure you
+run and tell me, because it is a sign of rain."
+
+"Yes, Eustacia."
+
+"Miss Vye, sir."
+
+"Miss Vy--stacia."
+
+"That will do. Now put in one stick more."
+
+The little slave went on feeding the fire as before. He seemed a mere
+automaton, galvanized into moving and speaking by the wayward Eustacia's
+will. He might have been the brass statue which Albertus Magnus is said
+to have animated just so far as to make it chatter, and move, and be his
+servant.
+
+Before going on her walk again the young girl stood still on the bank
+for a few instants and listened. It was to the full as lonely a place
+as Rainbarrow, though at rather a lower level; and it was more sheltered
+from wind and weather on account of the few firs to the north. The bank
+which enclosed the homestead, and protected it from the lawless state of
+the world without, was formed of thick square clods, dug from the ditch
+on the outside, and built up with a slight batter or incline, which
+forms no slight defense where hedges will not grow because of the wind
+and the wilderness, and where wall materials are unattainable. Otherwise
+the situation was quite open, commanding the whole length of the valley
+which reached to the river behind Wildeve's house. High above this to
+the right, and much nearer thitherward than the Quiet Woman Inn, the
+blurred contour of Rainbarrow obstructed the sky.
+
+After her attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow ravines a
+gesture of impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant words
+every now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden
+listenings between her sighs. Descending from her perch she again
+sauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she did not go the
+whole way.
+
+Twice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes and each time she
+said--
+
+"Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?"
+
+"No, Miss Eustacia," the child replied.
+
+"Well," she said at last, "I shall soon be going in, and then I will
+give you the crooked sixpence, and let you go home."
+
+"Thank'ee, Miss Eustacia," said the tired stoker, breathing more easily.
+And Eustacia again strolled away from the fire, but this time not
+towards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and went round to the wicket
+before the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the scene.
+
+Fifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks, with the
+fire upon it; within the bank, lifting up to the fire one stick at a
+time, just as before, the figure of the little child. She idly watched
+him as he occasionally climbed up in the nook of the bank and stood
+beside the brands. The wind blew the smoke, and the child's hair, and
+the corner of his pinafore, all in the same direction; the breeze died,
+and the pinafore and hair lay still, and the smoke went up straight.
+
+While Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy's form visibly
+started--he slid down the bank and ran across towards the white gate.
+
+"Well?" said Eustacia.
+
+"A hopfrog have jumped into the pond. Yes, I heard 'en!"
+
+"Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. You will not be
+afraid?" She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leapt into her throat
+at the boy's words.
+
+"No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence."
+
+"Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can--not that way--through the
+garden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a bonfire as yours."
+
+The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched away
+into the shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving her
+telescope and hourglass by the gate, brushed forward from the wicket
+towards the angle of the bank, under the fire.
+
+Here, screened by the outwork, she waited. In a few moments a splash was
+audible from the pond outside. Had the child been there he would have
+said that a second frog had jumped in; but by most people the sound
+would have been likened to the fall of a stone into the water. Eustacia
+stepped upon the bank.
+
+"Yes?" she said, and held her breath.
+
+Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against the
+low-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool.
+He came round it and leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh escaped
+her--the third utterance which the girl had indulged in tonight. The
+first, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed anxiety; the
+second, on the ridge, had expressed impatience; the present was one
+of triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes rest upon him without
+speaking, as upon some wondrous thing she had created out of chaos.
+
+"I have come," said the man, who was Wildeve. "You give me no peace. Why
+do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the evening."
+The words were not without emotion, and retained their level tone as if
+by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.
+
+At this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover the girl seemed to
+repress herself also. "Of course you have seen my fire," she answered
+with languid calmness, artificially maintained. "Why shouldn't I have a
+bonfire on the Fifth of November, like other denizens of the heath?"
+
+"I knew it was meant for me."
+
+"How did you know it? I have had no word with you since you--you chose
+her, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely, as if I had
+never been yours life and soul so irretrievably!"
+
+"Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day of the month
+and at this same place you lighted exactly such a fire as a signal for
+me to come and see you? Why should there have been a bonfire again by
+Captain Vye's house if not for the same purpose?"
+
+"Yes, yes--I own it," she cried under her breath, with a drowsy fervour
+of manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her. "Don't begin
+speaking to me as you did, Damon; you will drive me to say words I would
+not wish to say to you. I had given you up, and resolved not to think of
+you any more; and then I heard the news, and I came out and got the fire
+ready because I thought that you had been faithful to me."
+
+"What have you heard to make you think that?" said Wildeve, astonished.
+
+"That you did not marry her!" she murmured exultingly. "And I knew it
+was because you loved me best, and couldn't do it.... Damon, you have
+been cruel to me to go away, and I have said I would never forgive you.
+I do not think I can forgive you entirely, even now--it is too much for
+a woman of any spirit to quite overlook."
+
+"If I had known you wished to call me up here only to reproach me, I
+wouldn't have come."
+
+"But I don't mind it, and I do forgive you now that you have not married
+her, and have come back to me!"
+
+"Who told you that I had not married her?"
+
+"My grandfather. He took a long walk today, and as he was coming home he
+overtook some person who told him of a broken-off wedding--he thought it
+might be yours, and I knew it was."
+
+"Does anybody else know?"
+
+"I suppose not. Now Damon, do you see why I lit my signal fire? You did
+not think I would have lit it if I had imagined you to have become the
+husband of this woman. It is insulting my pride to suppose that."
+
+Wildeve was silent; it was evident that he had supposed as much.
+
+"Did you indeed think I believed you were married?" she again demanded
+earnestly. "Then you wronged me; and upon my life and heart I can hardly
+bear to recognize that you have such ill thoughts of me! Damon, you are
+not worthy of me--I see it, and yet I love you. Never mind, let it go--I
+must bear your mean opinion as best I may.... It is true, is it not," she
+added with ill-concealed anxiety, on his making no demonstration, "that
+you could not bring yourself to give me up, and are still going to love
+me best of all?"
+
+"Yes; or why should I have come?" he said touchily. "Not that
+fidelity will be any great merit in me after your kind speech about my
+unworthiness, which should have been said by myself if by anybody, and
+comes with an ill grace from you. However, the curse of inflammability
+is upon me, and I must live under it, and take any snub from a woman. It
+has brought me down from engineering to innkeeping--what lower stage it
+has in store for me I have yet to learn." He continued to look upon her
+gloomily.
+
+She seized the moment, and throwing back the shawl so that the firelight
+shone full upon her face and throat, said with a smile, "Have you seen
+anything better than that in your travels?"
+
+Eustacia was not one to commit herself to such a position without good
+ground. He said quietly, "No."
+
+"Not even on the shoulders of Thomasin?"
+
+"Thomasin is a pleasing and innocent woman."
+
+"That's nothing to do with it," she cried with quick passionateness. "We
+will leave her out; there are only you and me now to think of." After a
+long look at him she resumed with the old quiescent warmth, "Must I go
+on weakly confessing to you things a woman ought to conceal; and
+own that no words can express how gloomy I have been because of that
+dreadful belief I held till two hours ago--that you had quite deserted
+me?"
+
+"I am sorry I caused you that pain."
+
+"But perhaps it is not wholly because of you that I get gloomy," she
+archly added. "It is in my nature to feel like that. It was born in my
+blood, I suppose."
+
+"Hypochondriasis."
+
+"Or else it was coming into this wild heath. I was happy enough at
+Budmouth. O the times, O the days at Budmouth! But Egdon will be
+brighter again now."
+
+"I hope it will," said Wildeve moodily. "Do you know the consequence
+of this recall to me, my old darling? I shall come to see you again as
+before, at Rainbarrow."
+
+"Of course you will."
+
+"And yet I declare that until I got here tonight I intended, after this
+one good-bye, never to meet you again."
+
+"I don't thank you for that," she said, turning away, while indignation
+spread through her like subterranean heat. "You may come again to
+Rainbarrow if you like, but you won't see me; and you may call, but I
+shall not listen; and you may tempt me, but I won't give myself to you
+any more."
+
+"You have said as much before, sweet; but such natures as yours don't so
+easily adhere to their words. Neither, for the matter of that, do such
+natures as mine."
+
+"This is the pleasure I have won by my trouble," she whispered bitterly.
+"Why did I try to recall you? Damon, a strange warring takes place in my
+mind occasionally. I think when I become calm after you woundings, 'Do
+I embrace a cloud of common fog after all?' You are a chameleon, and now
+you are at your worst colour. Go home, or I shall hate you!"
+
+He looked absently towards Rainbarrow while one might have counted
+twenty, and said, as if he did not much mind all this, "Yes, I will go
+home. Do you mean to see me again?"
+
+"If you own to me that the wedding is broken off because you love me
+best."
+
+"I don't think it would be good policy," said Wildeve, smiling. "You
+would get to know the extent of your power too clearly."
+
+"But tell me!"
+
+"You know."
+
+"Where is she now?"
+
+"I don't know. I prefer not to speak of her to you. I have not yet
+married her; I have come in obedience to your call. That is enough."
+
+"I merely lit that fire because I was dull, and thought I would get a
+little excitement by calling you up and triumphing over you as the Witch
+of Endor called up Samuel. I determined you should come; and you have
+come! I have shown my power. A mile and half hither, and a mile and
+half back again to your home--three miles in the dark for me. Have I not
+shown my power?"
+
+He shook his head at her. "I know you too well, my Eustacia; I know you
+too well. There isn't a note in you which I don't know; and that hot
+little bosom couldn't play such a cold-blooded trick to save its life. I
+saw a woman on Rainbarrow at dusk looking down towards my house. I think
+I drew out you before you drew out me."
+
+The revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly in Wildeve now; and
+he leant forward as if about to put his face towards her cheek.
+
+"O no," she said, intractably moving to the other side of the decayed
+fire. "What did you mean by that?"
+
+"Perhaps I may kiss your hand?"
+
+"No, you may not."
+
+"Then I may shake your hand?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I wish you good night without caring for either. Good-bye,
+good-bye."
+
+She returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-master he
+vanished on the other side of the pool as he had come.
+
+Eustacia sighed--it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which shook
+her like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like an
+electric light upon her lover--as it sometimes would--and showed his
+imperfections, she shivered thus. But it was over in a second, and
+she loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on. She
+scattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately, and up to
+her bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles which denoted her to be
+undressing in the darkness other heavy breaths frequently came; and the
+same kind of shudder occasionally moved through her when, ten minutes
+later, she lay on her bed asleep.
+
+
+
+
+7--Queen of Night
+
+
+Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would
+have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and
+instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not
+quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to
+be entirely in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff, the
+spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world would
+have noticed the change of government. There would have been the same
+inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely
+there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas,
+the same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we endure now.
+
+She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness, as
+without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair was
+to fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form
+its shadow--it closed over her forehead like nightfall extinguishing the
+western glow.
+
+Her nerves extended into those tresses, and her temper could always
+be softened by stroking them down. When her hair was brushed she would
+instantly sink into stillness and look like the Sphinx. If, in passing
+under one of the Egdon banks, any of its thick skeins were caught,
+as they sometimes were, by a prickly tuft of the large Ulex
+Europoeus--which will act as a sort of hairbrush--she would go back a
+few steps, and pass against it a second time.
+
+She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light, as
+it came and went, and came again, was partially hampered by their
+oppressive lids and lashes; and of these the under lid was much fuller
+than it usually is with English women. This enabled her to indulge in
+reverie without seeming to do so--she might have been believed capable
+of sleeping without closing them up. Assuming that the souls of men and
+women were visible essences, you could fancy the colour of Eustacia's
+soul to be flamelike. The sparks from it that rose into her dark pupils
+gave the same impression.
+
+The mouth seemed formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiver
+than to kiss. Some might have added, less to kiss than to curl. Viewed
+sideways, the closing-line of her lips formed, with almost geometric
+precision, the curve so well known in the arts of design as the
+cima-recta, or ogee. The sight of such a flexible bend as that on grim
+Egdon was quite an apparition. It was felt at once that the mouth did
+not come over from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates whose lips met
+like the two halves of a muffin. One had fancied that such lip-curves
+were mostly lurking underground in the South as fragments of forgotten
+marbles. So fine were the lines of her lips that, though full, each
+corner of her mouth was as clearly cut as the point of a spear. This
+keenness of corner was only blunted when she was given over to sudden
+fits of gloom, one of the phases of the night-side of sentiment which
+she knew too well for her years.
+
+Her presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon roses, rubies,
+and tropical midnight; her moods recalled lotus-eaters and the march in
+Athalie; her motions, the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, the viola.
+In a dim light, and with a slight rearrangement of her hair, her general
+figure might have stood for that of either of the higher female deities.
+The new moon behind her head, an old helmet upon it, a diadem of
+accidental dewdrops round her brow, would have been adjuncts sufficient
+to strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or Hera respectively, with as
+close an approximation to the antique as that which passes muster on
+many respected canvases.
+
+But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be
+somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, and the
+consciousness of this limitation had biassed her development. Egdon was
+her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark
+in its tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciled thereto. Her
+appearance accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness, and
+the shady splendour of her beauty was the real surface of the sad and
+stifled warmth within her. A true Tartarean dignity sat upon her brow,
+and not factitiously or with marks of constraint, for it had grown in
+her with years.
+
+Across the upper part of her head she wore a thin fillet of black
+velvet, restraining the luxuriance of her shady hair, in a way which
+added much to this class of majesty by irregularly clouding her
+forehead. "Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow
+band drawn over the brow," says Richter. Some of the neighbouring
+girls wore coloured ribbon for the same purpose, and sported metallic
+ornaments elsewhere; but if anyone suggested coloured ribbon and
+metallic ornaments to Eustacia Vye she laughed and went on.
+
+Why did a woman of this sort live on Egdon Heath? Budmouth was her
+native place, a fashionable seaside resort at that date. She was the
+daughter of the bandmaster of a regiment which had been quartered
+there--a Corfiote by birth, and a fine musician--who met his future
+wife during her trip thither with her father the captain, a man of good
+family. The marriage was scarcely in accord with the old man's wishes,
+for the bandmaster's pockets were as light as his occupation. But the
+musician did his best; adopted his wife's name, made England permanently
+his home, took great trouble with his child's education, the expenses
+of which were defrayed by the grandfather, and throve as the chief local
+musician till her mother's death, when he left off thriving, drank, and
+died also. The girl was left to the care of her grandfather, who, since
+three of his ribs became broken in a shipwreck, had lived in this airy
+perch on Egdon, a spot which had taken his fancy because the house was
+to be had for next to nothing, and because a remote blue tinge on
+the horizon between the hills, visible from the cottage door, was
+traditionally believed to be the English Channel. She hated the change;
+she felt like one banished; but here she was forced to abide.
+
+Thus it happened that in Eustacia's brain were juxtaposed the strangest
+assortment of ideas, from old time and from new. There was no middle
+distance in her perspective--romantic recollections of sunny afternoons
+on an esplanade, with military bands, officers, and gallants around,
+stood like gilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding Egdon.
+Every bizarre effect that could result from the random intertwining of
+watering-place glitter with the grand solemnity of a heath, was to be
+found in her. Seeing nothing of human life now, she imagined all the
+more of what she had seen.
+
+Where did her dignity come from? By a latent vein from Alcinous' line,
+her father hailing from Phaeacia's isle?--or from Fitzalan and De Vere,
+her maternal grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage? Perhaps it
+was the gift of Heaven--a happy convergence of natural laws. Among other
+things opportunity had of late years been denied her of learning to
+be undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation on a heath renders
+vulgarity well-nigh impossible. It would have been as easy for the
+heath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her. A narrow life in
+Budmouth might have completely demeaned her.
+
+The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over
+is to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a triumph.
+In the captain's cottage she could suggest mansions she had never seen.
+Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion than any of
+them, the open hills. Like the summer condition of the place around her,
+she was an embodiment of the phrase "a populous solitude"--apparently so
+listless, void, and quiet, she was really busy and full.
+
+To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her the
+one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.
+And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more
+than for any particular lover.
+
+She could show a most reproachful look at times, but it was directed
+less against human beings than against certain creatures of her mind,
+the chief of these being Destiny, through whose interference she dimly
+fancied it arose that love alighted only on gliding youth--that any love
+she might win would sink simultaneously with the sand in the glass.
+She thought of it with an ever-growing consciousness of cruelty, which
+tended to breed actions of reckless unconventionality, framed to snatch
+a year's, a week's, even an hour's passion from anywhere while it could
+be won. Through want of it she had sung without being merry, possessed
+without enjoying, outshone without triumphing. Her loneliness deepened
+her desire. On Egdon, coldest and meanest kisses were at famine prices,
+and where was a mouth matching hers to be found?
+
+Fidelity in love for fidelity's sake had less attraction for her than
+for most women; fidelity because of love's grip had much. A blaze of
+love, and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same
+which should last long years. On this head she knew by prevision what
+most women learn only by experience--she had mentally walked round love,
+told the towers thereof, considered its palaces, and concluded that love
+was but a doleful joy. Yet she desired it, as one in a desert would be
+thankful for brackish water.
+
+She often repeated her prayers; not at particular times, but, like the
+unaffectedly devout, when she desired to pray. Her prayer was always
+spontaneous, and often ran thus, "O deliver my heart from this fearful
+gloom and loneliness; send me great love from somewhere, else I shall
+die."
+
+Her high gods were William the Conqueror, Strafford, and Napoleon
+Buonaparte, as they had appeared in the Lady's History used at the
+establishment in which she was educated. Had she been a mother she would
+have christened her boys such names as Saul or Sisera in preference to
+Jacob or David, neither of whom she admired. At school she had used
+to side with the Philistines in several battles, and had wondered if
+Pontius Pilate were as handsome as he was frank and fair.
+
+Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed, weighed in
+relation to her situation among the very rearward of thinkers, very
+original. Her instincts towards social non-comformity were at the root
+of this. In the matter of holidays, her mood was that of horses who,
+when turned out to grass, enjoy looking upon their kind at work on the
+highway. She only valued rest to herself when it came in the midst of
+other people's labour. Hence she hated Sundays when all was at rest, and
+often said they would be the death of her. To see the heathmen in their
+Sunday condition, that is, with their hands in their pockets, their
+boots newly oiled, and not laced up (a particularly Sunday sign),
+walking leisurely among the turves and furze-faggots they had cut during
+the week, and kicking them critically as if their use were unknown, was
+a fearful heaviness to her. To relieve the tedium of this untimely day
+she would overhaul the cupboards containing her grandfather's old charts
+and other rubbish, humming Saturday-night ballads of the country people
+the while. But on Saturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm, and
+it was always on a weekday that she read the Bible, that she might be
+unoppressed with a sense of doing her duty.
+
+Such views of life were to some extent the natural begettings of her
+situation upon her nature. To dwell on a heath without studying its
+meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue. The
+subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught its
+vapours. An environment which would have made a contented woman a poet,
+a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy
+woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.
+
+Eustacia had got beyond the vision of some marriage of inexpressible
+glory; yet, though her emotions were in full vigour, she cared for no
+meaner union. Thus we see her in a strange state of isolation. To have
+lost the godlike conceit that we may do what we will, and not to have
+acquired a homely zest for doing what we can, shows a grandeur of temper
+which cannot be objected to in the abstract, for it denotes a mind
+that, though disappointed, forswears compromise. But, if congenial to
+philosophy, it is apt to be dangerous to the commonwealth. In a world
+where doing means marrying, and the commonwealth is one of hearts and
+hands, the same peril attends the condition.
+
+And so we see our Eustacia--for at times she was not altogether
+unlovable--arriving at that stage of enlightenment which feels that
+nothing is worth while, and filling up the spare hours of her existence
+by idealizing Wildeve for want of a better object. This was the sole
+reason of his ascendency: she knew it herself. At moments her pride
+rebelled against her passion for him, and she even had longed to be
+free. But there was only one circumstance which could dislodge him, and
+that was the advent of a greater man.
+
+For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits, and took
+slow walks to recover them, in which she carried her grandfather's
+telescope and her grandmother's hourglass--the latter because of a
+peculiar pleasure she derived from watching a material representation of
+time's gradual glide away. She seldom schemed, but when she did scheme,
+her plans showed rather the comprehensive strategy of a general than the
+small arts called womanish, though she could utter oracles of Delphian
+ambiguity when she did not choose to be direct. In heaven she will
+probably sit between the Heloises and the Cleopatras.
+
+
+
+
+8--Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody
+
+
+As soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire he clasped
+the money tight in the palm of his hand, as if thereby to fortify his
+courage, and began to run. There was really little danger in allowing a
+child to go home alone on this part of Egdon Heath. The distance to
+the boy's house was not more than three-eighths of a mile, his father's
+cottage, and one other a few yards further on, forming part of the small
+hamlet of Mistover Knap: the third and only remaining house was that
+of Captain Vye and Eustacia, which stood quite away from the small
+cottages and was the loneliest of lonely houses on these thinly
+populated slopes.
+
+He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more courageous,
+walked leisurely along, singing in an old voice a little song about a
+sailor-boy and a fair one, and bright gold in store. In the middle of
+this the child stopped--from a pit under the hill ahead of him shone a
+light, whence proceeded a cloud of floating dust and a smacking noise.
+
+Only unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy. The shrivelled voice
+of the heath did not alarm him, for that was familiar. The thornbushes
+which arose in his path from time to time were less satisfactory, for
+they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit after dark of putting
+on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling giants, and hideous cripples.
+Lights were not uncommon this evening, but the nature of all of them was
+different from this. Discretion rather than terror prompted the boy
+to turn back instead of passing the light, with a view of asking Miss
+Eustacia Vye to let her servant accompany him home.
+
+When the boy had reascended to the top of the valley he found the fire
+to be still burning on the bank, though lower than before. Beside it,
+instead of Eustacia's solitary form, he saw two persons, the second
+being a man. The boy crept along under the bank to ascertain from
+the nature of the proceedings if it would be prudent to interrupt so
+splendid a creature as Miss Eustacia on his poor trivial account.
+
+After listening under the bank for some minutes to the talk he turned in
+a perplexed and doubting manner and began to withdraw as silently as
+he had come. That he did not, upon the whole, think it advisable to
+interrupt her conversation with Wildeve, without being prepared to bear
+the whole weight of her displeasure, was obvious.
+
+Here was a Scyllaeo-Charybdean position for a poor boy. Pausing when
+again safe from discovery, he finally decided to face the pit phenomenon
+as the lesser evil. With a heavy sigh he retraced the slope, and
+followed the path he had followed before.
+
+The light had gone, the rising dust had disappeared--he hoped for ever.
+He marched resolutely along, and found nothing to alarm him till, coming
+within a few yards of the sandpit, he heard a slight noise in front,
+which led him to halt. The halt was but momentary, for the noise
+resolved itself into the steady bites of two animals grazing.
+
+"Two he'th-croppers down here," he said aloud. "I have never known 'em
+come down so far afore."
+
+The animals were in the direct line of his path, but that the child
+thought little of; he had played round the fetlocks of horses from his
+infancy. On coming nearer, however, the boy was somewhat surprised to
+find that the little creatures did not run off, and that each wore a
+clog, to prevent his going astray; this signified that they had been
+broken in. He could now see the interior of the pit, which, being in
+the side of the hill, had a level entrance. In the innermost corner the
+square outline of a van appeared, with its back towards him. A light
+came from the interior, and threw a moving shadow upon the vertical face
+of gravel at the further side of the pit into which the vehicle faced.
+
+The child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy, and his dread of
+those wanderers reached but to that mild pitch which titillates rather
+than pains. Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and his family from
+being gipsies themselves. He skirted the gravel pit at a respectful
+distance, ascended the slope, and came forward upon the brow, in order
+to look into the open door of the van and see the original of the
+shadow.
+
+The picture alarmed the boy. By a little stove inside the van sat a
+figure red from head to heels--the man who had been Thomasin's friend.
+He was darning a stocking, which was red like the rest of him. Moreover,
+as he darned he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of which were red also.
+
+At this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the outer shadows
+was audibly shaking off the clog attached to its foot. Aroused by the
+sound, the reddleman laid down his stocking, lit a lantern which hung
+beside him, and came out from the van. In sticking up the candle he
+lifted the lantern to his face, and the light shone into the whites
+of his eyes and upon his ivory teeth, which, in contrast with the
+red surrounding, lent him a startling aspect enough to the gaze of a
+juvenile. The boy knew too well for his peace of mind upon whose lair
+he had lighted. Uglier persons than gipsies were known to cross Egdon at
+times, and a reddleman was one of them.
+
+"How I wish 'twas only a gipsy!" he murmured.
+
+The man was by this time coming back from the horses. In his fear of
+being seen the boy rendered detection certain by nervous motion. The
+heather and peat stratum overhung the brow of the pit in mats, hiding
+the actual verge. The boy had stepped beyond the solid ground; the
+heather now gave way, and down he rolled over the scarp of grey sand to
+the very foot of the man.
+
+The red man opened the lantern and turned it upon the figure of the
+prostrate boy.
+
+"Who be ye?" he said.
+
+"Johnny Nunsuch, master!"
+
+"What were you doing up there?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Watching me, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"What did you watch me for?"
+
+"Because I was coming home from Miss Vye's bonfire."
+
+"Beest hurt?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why, yes, you be--your hand is bleeding. Come under my tilt and let me
+tie it up."
+
+"Please let me look for my sixpence."
+
+"How did you come by that?"
+
+"Miss Vye gied it to me for keeping up her bonfire."
+
+The sixpence was found, and the man went to the van, the boy behind,
+almost holding his breath.
+
+The man took a piece of rag from a satchel containing sewing materials,
+tore off a strip, which, like everything else, was tinged red, and
+proceeded to bind up the wound.
+
+"My eyes have got foggy-like--please may I sit down, master?" said the
+boy.
+
+"To be sure, poor chap. 'Tis enough to make you feel fainty. Sit on that
+bundle."
+
+The man finished tying up the gash, and the boy said, "I think I'll go
+home now, master."
+
+"You are rather afraid of me. Do you know what I be?"
+
+The child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down with much misgiving
+and finally said, "Yes."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"The reddleman!" he faltered.
+
+"Yes, that's what I be. Though there's more than one. You little
+children think there's only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one devil,
+and one reddleman, when there's lots of us all."
+
+"Is there? You won't carry me off in your bags, will ye, master? 'Tis
+said that the reddleman will sometimes."
+
+"Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. You see all these bags
+at the back of my cart? They are not full of little boys--only full of
+red stuff."
+
+"Was you born a reddleman?"
+
+"No, I took to it. I should be as white as you if I were to give up the
+trade--that is, I should be white in time--perhaps six months; not at
+first, because 'tis grow'd into my skin and won't wash out. Now, you'll
+never be afraid of a reddleman again, will ye?"
+
+"No, never. Willy Orchard said he seed a red ghost here t'other
+day--perhaps that was you?"
+
+"I was here t'other day."
+
+"Were you making that dusty light I saw by now?"
+
+"Oh yes, I was beating out some bags. And have you had a good bonfire up
+there? I saw the light. Why did Miss Vye want a bonfire so bad that she
+should give you sixpence to keep it up?"
+
+"I don't know. I was tired, but she made me bide and keep up the fire
+just the same, while she kept going up across Rainbarrow way."
+
+"And how long did that last?"
+
+"Until a hopfrog jumped into the pond."
+
+The reddleman suddenly ceased to talk idly. "A hopfrog?" he inquired.
+"Hopfrogs don't jump into ponds this time of year."
+
+"They do, for I heard one."
+
+"Certain-sure?"
+
+"Yes. She told me afore that I should hear'n; and so I did. They say
+she's clever and deep, and perhaps she charmed 'en to come."
+
+"And what then?"
+
+"Then I came down here, and I was afeard, and I went back; but I didn't
+like to speak to her, because of the gentleman, and I came on here
+again."
+
+"A gentleman--ah! What did she say to him, my man?"
+
+"Told him she supposed he had not married the other woman because he
+liked his old sweetheart best; and things like that."
+
+"What did the gentleman say to her, my sonny?"
+
+"He only said he did like her best, and how he was coming to see her
+again under Rainbarrow o' nights."
+
+"Ha!" cried the reddleman, slapping his hand against the side of his van
+so that the whole fabric shook under the blow. "That's the secret o't!"
+
+The little boy jumped clean from the stool.
+
+"My man, don't you be afraid," said the dealer in red, suddenly becoming
+gentle. "I forgot you were here. That's only a curious way reddlemen
+have of going mad for a moment; but they don't hurt anybody. And what
+did the lady say then?"
+
+"I can't mind. Please, Master Reddleman, may I go home-along now?"
+
+"Ay, to be sure you may. I'll go a bit of ways with you."
+
+He conducted the boy out of the gravel pit and into the path leading
+to his mother's cottage. When the little figure had vanished in the
+darkness the reddleman returned, resumed his seat by the fire, and
+proceeded to darn again.
+
+
+
+
+9--Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
+
+
+Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. Since the
+introduction of railways Wessex farmers have managed to do without these
+Mephistophelian visitants, and the bright pigment so largely used by
+shepherds in preparing sheep for the fair is obtained by other routes.
+Even those who yet survive are losing the poetry of existence which
+characterized them when the pursuit of the trade meant periodical
+journeys to the pit whence the material was dug, a regular camping out
+from month to month, except in the depth of winter, a peregrination
+among farms which could be counted by the hundred, and in spite of this
+Arab existence the preservation of that respectability which is insured
+by the never-failing production of a well-lined purse.
+
+Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on, and stamps
+unmistakably, as with the mark of Cain, any person who has handled it
+half an hour.
+
+A child's first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in his life. That
+blood-coloured figure was a sublimation of all the horrid dreams
+which had afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began. "The
+reddleman is coming for you!" had been the formulated threat of Wessex
+mothers for many generations. He was successfully supplanted for a
+while, at the beginning of the present century, by Buonaparte; but as
+process of time rendered the latter personage stale and ineffective the
+older phrase resumed its early prominence. And now the reddleman has
+in his turn followed Buonaparte to the land of worn-out bogeys, and his
+place is filled by modern inventions.
+
+The reddleman lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. He was about
+as thriving as travelling basket and mat makers; but he had nothing
+to do with them. He was more decently born and brought up than the
+cattledrovers who passed and repassed him in his wanderings; but they
+merely nodded to him. His stock was more valuable than that of pedlars;
+but they did not think so, and passed his cart with eyes straight ahead.
+He was such an unnatural colour to look at that the men of roundabouts
+and waxwork shows seemed gentlemen beside him; but he considered them
+low company, and remained aloof. Among all these squatters and folks
+of the road the reddleman continually found himself; yet he was not of
+them. His occupation tended to isolate him, and isolated he was mostly
+seen to be.
+
+It was sometimes suggested that reddlemen were criminals for whose
+misdeeds other men wrongfully suffered--that in escaping the law they
+had not escaped their own consciences, and had taken to the trade as a
+lifelong penance. Else why should they have chosen it? In the present
+case such a question would have been particularly apposite. The
+reddleman who had entered Egdon that afternoon was an instance of the
+pleasing being wasted to form the ground-work of the singular, when an
+ugly foundation would have done just as well for that purpose. The one
+point that was forbidding about this reddleman was his colour. Freed
+from that he would have been as agreeable a specimen of rustic manhood
+as one would often see. A keen observer might have been inclined to
+think--which was, indeed, partly the truth--that he had relinquished
+his proper station in life for want of interest in it. Moreover, after
+looking at him one would have hazarded the guess that good nature, and
+an acuteness as extreme as it could be without verging on craft, formed
+the framework of his character.
+
+While he darned the stocking his face became rigid with thought. Softer
+expressions followed this, and then again recurred the tender sadness
+which had sat upon him during his drive along the highway that
+afternoon. Presently his needle stopped. He laid down the stocking,
+arose from his seat, and took a leathern pouch from a hook in the corner
+of the van. This contained among other articles a brown-paper packet,
+which, to judge from the hinge-like character of its worn folds, seemed
+to have been carefully opened and closed a good many times. He sat down
+on a three-legged milking stool that formed the only seat in the van,
+and, examining his packet by the light of a candle, took thence an old
+letter and spread it open. The writing had originally been traced on
+white paper, but the letter had now assumed a pale red tinge from the
+accident of its situation; and the black strokes of writing thereon
+looked like the twigs of a winter hedge against a vermilion sunset. The
+letter bore a date some two years previous to that time, and was signed
+"Thomasin Yeobright." It ran as follows:--
+
+
+DEAR DIGGORY VENN,--The question you put when you overtook me coming
+home from Pond-close gave me such a surprise that I am afraid I did not
+make you exactly understand what I meant. Of course, if my aunt had not
+met me I could have explained all then at once, but as it was there was
+no chance. I have been quite uneasy since, as you know I do not wish
+to pain you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in contradicting what
+I seemed to say then. I cannot, Diggory, marry you, or think of letting
+you call me your sweetheart. I could not, indeed, Diggory. I hope you
+will not much mind my saying this, and feel in a great pain. It makes me
+very sad when I think it may, for I like you very much, and I always put
+you next to my cousin Clym in my mind. There are so many reasons why we
+cannot be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter. I did not
+in the least expect that you were going to speak on such a thing when
+you followed me, because I had never thought of you in the sense of a
+lover at all. You must not becall me for laughing when you spoke; you
+mistook when you thought I laughed at you as a foolish man. I laughed
+because the idea was so odd, and not at you at all. The great reason
+with my own personal self for not letting you court me is, that I do not
+feel the things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you
+with the meaning of being your wife. It is not as you think, that I have
+another in my mind, for I do not encourage anybody, and never have in
+my life. Another reason is my aunt. She would not, I know, agree to it,
+even if I wished to have you. She likes you very well, but she will
+want me to look a little higher than a small dairy-farmer, and marry
+a professional man. I hope you will not set your heart against me for
+writing plainly, but I felt you might try to see me again, and it is
+better that we should not meet. I shall always think of you as a good
+man, and be anxious for your well-doing. I send this by Jane Orchard's
+little maid,--And remain Diggory, your faithful friend,
+
+THOMASIN YEOBRIGHT.
+
+To MR. VENN, Dairy-farmer.
+
+
+Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning long ago,
+the reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today. During the interval
+he had shifted his position even further from hers than it had
+originally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he was really in
+very good circumstances still. Indeed, seeing that his expenditure was
+only one-fourth of his income, he might have been called a prosperous
+man.
+
+Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and the
+business to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many ways
+congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions,
+had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon
+her who attracted him thither. To be in Thomasin's heath, and near her,
+yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure left to him.
+
+Then came the incident of that day, and the reddleman, still loving
+her well, was excited by this accidental service to her at a critical
+juncture to vow an active devotion to her cause, instead of, as
+hitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had happened it was
+impossible that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve's intentions.
+But her hope was apparently centred upon him; and dismissing his regrets
+Venn determined to aid her to be happy in her own chosen way. That this
+way was, of all others, the most distressing to himself, was awkward
+enough; but the reddleman's love was generous.
+
+His first active step in watching over Thomasin's interests was taken
+about seven o'clock the next evening and was dictated by the news which
+he had learnt from the sad boy. That Eustacia was somehow the cause
+of Wildeve's carelessness in relation to the marriage had at once been
+Venn's conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting between them. It did
+not occur to his mind that Eustacia's love signal to Wildeve was the
+tender effect upon the deserted beauty of the intelligence which her
+grandfather had brought home. His instinct was to regard her as a
+conspirator against rather than as an antecedent obstacle to Thomasin's
+happiness.
+
+During the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the condition of
+Thomasin, but he did not venture to intrude upon a threshold to which
+he was a stranger, particularly at such an unpleasant moment as this. He
+had occupied his time in moving with his ponies and load to a new point
+in the heath, eastward to his previous station; and here he selected a
+nook with a careful eye to shelter from wind and rain, which seemed to
+mean that his stay there was to be a comparatively extended one. After
+this he returned on foot some part of the way that he had come; and,
+it being now dark, he diverged to the left till he stood behind a holly
+bush on the edge of a pit not twenty yards from Rainbarrow.
+
+He watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. Nobody except
+himself came near the spot that night.
+
+But the loss of his labour produced little effect upon the reddleman.
+He had stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upon a certain
+mass of disappointment as the natural preface to all realizations,
+without which preface they would give cause for alarm.
+
+The same hour the next evening found him again at the same place; but
+Eustacia and Wildeve, the expected trysters, did not appear.
+
+He pursued precisely the same course yet four nights longer, and without
+success. But on the next, being the day-week of their previous meeting,
+he saw a female shape floating along the ridge and the outline of
+a young man ascending from the valley. They met in the little ditch
+encircling the tumulus--the original excavation from which it had been
+thrown up by the ancient British people.
+
+The reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin, was aroused
+to strategy in a moment. He instantly left the bush and crept forward on
+his hands and knees. When he had got as close as he might safely venture
+without discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind, the conversation
+of the trysting pair could not be overheard.
+
+Near him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas strewn with
+large turves, which lay edgeways and upside down awaiting removal by
+Timothy Fairway, previous to the winter weather. He took two of these
+as he lay, and dragged them over him till one covered his head and
+shoulders, the other his back and legs. The reddleman would now have
+been quite invisible, even by daylight; the turves, standing upon him
+with the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they were growing. He
+crept along again, and the turves upon his back crept with him. Had he
+approached without any covering the chances are that he would not
+have been perceived in the dusk; approaching thus, it was as though he
+burrowed underground. In this manner he came quite close to where the
+two were standing.
+
+"Wish to consult me on the matter?" reached his ears in the rich,
+impetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. "Consult me? It is an indignity to
+me to talk so--I won't bear it any longer!" She began weeping. "I have
+loved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to my regret; and
+yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you wish to consult
+with me whether it would not be better to marry Thomasin. Better--of
+course it would be. Marry her--she is nearer to your own position in
+life than I am!"
+
+"Yes, yes; that's very well," said Wildeve peremptorily. "But we must
+look at things as they are. Whatever blame may attach to me for having
+brought it about, Thomasin's position is at present much worse than
+yours. I simply tell you that I am in a strait."
+
+"But you shall not tell me! You must see that it is only harassing me.
+Damon, you have not acted well; you have sunk in my opinion. You have
+not valued my courtesy--the courtesy of a lady in loving you--who used
+to think of far more ambitious things. But it was Thomasin's fault.
+
+"She won you away from me, and she deserves to suffer for it. Where is
+she staying now? Not that I care, nor where I am myself. Ah, if I were
+dead and gone how glad she would be! Where is she, I ask?"
+
+"Thomasin is now staying at her aunt's shut up in a bedroom, and keeping
+out of everybody's sight," he said indifferently.
+
+"I don't think you care much about her even now," said Eustacia with
+sudden joyousness, "for if you did you wouldn't talk so coolly about
+her. Do you talk so coolly to her about me? Ah, I expect you do! Why did
+you originally go away from me? I don't think I can ever forgive you,
+except on one condition, that whenever you desert me, you come back
+again, sorry that you served me so."
+
+"I never wish to desert you."
+
+"I do not thank you for that. I should hate it to be all smooth. Indeed,
+I think I like you to desert me a little once now and then. Love is the
+dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, it is a shame to
+say so; but it is true!" She indulged in a little laugh. "My low spirits
+begin at the very idea. Don't you offer me tame love, or away you go!"
+
+"I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman," said
+Wildeve, "so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthy
+person. It is I who am the sinner after all; I am not worth the little
+finger of either of you."
+
+"But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from any sense of justice,"
+replied Eustacia quickly. "If you do not love her it is the most
+merciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That's always
+the best way. There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose. When you have
+left me I am always angry with myself for things that I have said to
+you."
+
+Wildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. The
+pause was filled up by the intonation of a pollard thorn a little way to
+windward, the breezes filtering through its unyielding twigs as through
+a strainer. It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched teeth.
+
+She continued, half sorrowfully, "Since meeting you last, it has
+occurred to me once or twice that perhaps it was not for love of me you
+did not marry her. Tell me, Damon--I'll try to bear it. Had I nothing
+whatever to do with the matter?"
+
+"Do you press me to tell?"
+
+"Yes, I must know. I see I have been too ready to believe in my own
+power."
+
+"Well, the immediate reason was that the license would not do for the
+place, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point
+you had nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to me in a
+tone which I don't at all like."
+
+"Yes, yes! I am nothing in it--I am nothing in it. You only trifle with
+me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so much of
+you!"
+
+"Nonsense; do not be so passionate.... Eustacia, how we roved among these
+bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shades of the
+hills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!"
+
+She remained in moody silence till she said, "Yes; and how I used to
+laugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made me
+suffer for that since."
+
+"Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found someone
+fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia."
+
+"Do you still think you found somebody fairer?"
+
+"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced so nicely
+that a feather would turn them."
+
+"But don't you really care whether I meet you or whether I don't?" she
+said slowly.
+
+"I care a little, but not enough to break my rest," replied the young
+man languidly. "No, all that's past. I find there are two flowers where
+I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four, or any
+number as good as the first.... Mine is a curious fate. Who would have
+thought that all this could happen to me?"
+
+She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger
+seemed an equally possible issue, "Do you love me now?"
+
+"Who can say?"
+
+"Tell me; I will know it!"
+
+"I do, and I do not," said he mischievously. "That is, I have my times
+and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you are too
+do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I don't
+know what, except--that you are not the whole world to me that you used
+to be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know and nice to meet,
+and I dare say as sweet as ever--almost."
+
+Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in a voice
+of suspended mightiness, "I am for a walk, and this is my way."
+
+"Well, I can do worse than follow you."
+
+"You know you can't do otherwise, for all your moods and changes!" she
+answered defiantly. "Say what you will; try as you may; keep away from
+me all that you can--you will never forget me. You will love me all your
+life long. You would jump to marry me!"
+
+"So I would!" said Wildeve. "Such strange thoughts as I've had from time
+to time, Eustacia; and they come to me this moment. You hate the heath
+as much as ever; that I know."
+
+"I do," she murmured deeply. "'Tis my cross, my shame, and will be my
+death!"
+
+"I abhor it too," said he. "How mournfully the wind blows round us now!"
+
+She did not answer. Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive. Compound
+utterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it was possible to
+view by ear the features of the neighbourhood. Acoustic pictures were
+returned from the darkened scenery; they could hear where the tracts of
+heather began and ended; where the furze was growing stalky and tall;
+where it had been recently cut; in what direction the fir-clump lay,
+and how near was the pit in which the hollies grew; for these differing
+features had their voices no less than their shapes and colours.
+
+"God, how lonely it is!" resumed Wildeve. "What are picturesque ravines
+and mists to us who see nothing else? Why should we stay here? Will you
+go with me to America? I have kindred in Wisconsin."
+
+"That wants consideration."
+
+"It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were a wild bird or a
+landscape-painter. Well?"
+
+"Give me time," she softly said, taking his hand. "America is so far
+away. Are you going to walk with me a little way?"
+
+As Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from the base of the
+barrow, and Wildeve followed her, so that the reddleman could hear no
+more.
+
+He lifted the turves and arose. Their black figures sank and disappeared
+from against the sky. They were as two horns which the sluggish heath
+had put forth from its crown, like a mollusc, and had now again drawn
+in.
+
+The reddleman's walk across the vale, and over into the next where his
+cart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His
+spirit was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his mouth
+in that walk carried off upon them the accents of a commination.
+
+He entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. Without lighting
+his candle he sat down at once on the three-legged stool, and pondered
+on what he had seen and heard touching that still-loved one of his.
+He uttered a sound which was neither sigh nor sob, but was even more
+indicative than either of a troubled mind.
+
+"My Tamsie," he whispered heavily. "What can be done? Yes, I will see
+that Eustacia Vye."
+
+
+
+
+10--A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion
+
+
+The next morning, at the time when the height of the sun appeared very
+insignificant from any part of the heath as compared with the altitude
+of Rainbarrow, and when all the little hills in the lower levels were
+like an archipelago in a fog-formed Aegean, the reddleman came from
+the brambled nook which he had adopted as his quarters and ascended the
+slopes of Mistover Knap.
+
+Though these shaggy hills were apparently so solitary, several keen
+round eyes were always ready on such a wintry morning as this to
+converge upon a passer-by. Feathered species sojourned here in hiding
+which would have created wonder if found elsewhere. A bustard haunted
+the spot, and not many years before this five and twenty might have been
+seen in Egdon at one time. Marsh-harriers looked up from the valley by
+Wildeve's. A cream-coloured courser had used to visit this hill, a bird
+so rare that not more than a dozen have ever been seen in England; but
+a barbarian rested neither night nor day till he had shot the African
+truant, and after that event cream-coloured coursers thought fit to
+enter Egdon no more.
+
+A traveller who should walk and observe any of these visitants as Venn
+observed them now could feel himself to be in direct communication with
+regions unknown to man. Here in front of him was a wild mallard--just
+arrived from the home of the north wind. The creature brought within
+him an amplitude of Northern knowledge. Glacial catastrophes, snowstorm
+episodes, glittering auroral effects, Polaris in the zenith, Franklin
+underfoot--the category of his commonplaces was wonderful. But the bird,
+like many other philosophers, seemed as he looked at the reddleman to
+think that a present moment of comfortable reality was worth a decade of
+memories.
+
+Venn passed on through these towards the house of the isolated beauty
+who lived up among them and despised them. The day was Sunday; but as
+going to church, except to be married or buried, was exceptional at
+Egdon, this made little difference. He had determined upon the bold
+stroke of asking for an interview with Miss Vye--to attack her position
+as Thomasin's rival either by art or by storm, showing therein, somewhat
+too conspicuously, the want of gallantry characteristic of a certain
+astute sort of men, from clowns to kings. The great Frederick making war
+on the beautiful Archduchess, Napoleon refusing terms to the beautiful
+Queen of Prussia, were not more dead to difference of sex than the
+reddleman was, in his peculiar way, in planning the displacement of
+Eustacia.
+
+To call at the captain's cottage was always more or less an undertaking
+for the inferior inhabitants. Though occasionally chatty, his moods
+were erratic, and nobody could be certain how he would behave at
+any particular moment. Eustacia was reserved, and lived very much
+to herself. Except the daughter of one of the cotters, who was their
+servant, and a lad who worked in the garden and stable, scarcely anyone
+but themselves ever entered the house. They were the only genteel people
+of the district except the Yeobrights, and though far from rich, they
+did not feel that necessity for preserving a friendly face towards every
+man, bird, and beast which influenced their poorer neighbours.
+
+When the reddleman entered the garden the old man was looking through
+his glass at the stain of blue sea in the distant landscape, the little
+anchors on his buttons twinkling in the sun. He recognized Venn as
+his companion on the highway, but made no remark on that circumstance,
+merely saying, "Ah, reddleman--you here? Have a glass of grog?"
+
+Venn declined, on the plea of it being too early, and stated that
+his business was with Miss Vye. The captain surveyed him from cap to
+waistcoat and from waistcoat to leggings for a few moments, and finally
+asked him to go indoors.
+
+Miss Vye was not to be seen by anybody just then; and the reddleman
+waited in the window-bench of the kitchen, his hands hanging across his
+divergent knees, and his cap hanging from his hands.
+
+"I suppose the young lady is not up yet?" he presently said to the
+servant.
+
+"Not quite yet. Folks never call upon ladies at this time of day."
+
+"Then I'll step outside," said Venn. "If she is willing to see me, will
+she please send out word, and I'll come in."
+
+The reddleman left the house and loitered on the hill adjoining. A
+considerable time elapsed, and no request for his presence was brought.
+He was beginning to think that his scheme had failed, when he beheld
+the form of Eustacia herself coming leisurely towards him. A sense of
+novelty in giving audience to that singular figure had been sufficient
+to draw her forth.
+
+She seemed to feel, after a bare look at Diggory Venn, that the man had
+come on a strange errand, and that he was not so mean as she had thought
+him; for her close approach did not cause him to writhe uneasily,
+or shift his feet, or show any of those little signs which escape an
+ingenuous rustic at the advent of the uncommon in womankind. On his
+inquiring if he might have a conversation with her she replied, "Yes,
+walk beside me," and continued to move on.
+
+Before they had gone far it occurred to the perspicacious reddleman that
+he would have acted more wisely by appearing less unimpressionable, and
+he resolved to correct the error as soon as he could find opportunity.
+
+"I have made so bold, miss, as to step across and tell you some strange
+news which has come to my ears about that man."
+
+"Ah! what man?"
+
+He jerked his elbow to the southeast--the direction of the Quiet Woman.
+
+Eustacia turned quickly to him. "Do you mean Mr. Wildeve?"
+
+"Yes, there is trouble in a household on account of him, and I have come
+to let you know of it, because I believe you might have power to drive
+it away."
+
+"I? What is the trouble?"
+
+"It is quite a secret. It is that he may refuse to marry Thomasin
+Yeobright after all."
+
+Eustacia, though set inwardly pulsing by his words, was equal to her
+part in such a drama as this. She replied coldly, "I do not wish to
+listen to this, and you must not expect me to interfere."
+
+"But, miss, you will hear one word?"
+
+"I cannot. I am not interested in the marriage, and even if I were I
+could not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding."
+
+"As the only lady on the heath I think you might," said Venn with subtle
+indirectness. "This is how the case stands. Mr. Wildeve would marry
+Thomasin at once, and make all matters smooth, if so be there were not
+another woman in the case. This other woman is some person he has picked
+up with, and meets on the heath occasionally, I believe. He will never
+marry her, and yet through her he may never marry the woman who loves
+him dearly. Now, if you, miss, who have so much sway over us menfolk,
+were to insist that he should treat your young neighbour Tamsin with
+honourable kindness and give up the other woman, he would perhaps do it,
+and save her a good deal of misery."
+
+"Ah, my life!" said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips so
+that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a similar
+scarlet fire. "You think too much of my influence over menfolk indeed,
+reddleman. If I had such a power as you imagine I would go straight and
+use it for the good of anybody who has been kind to me--which Thomasin
+Yeobright has not particularly, to my knowledge."
+
+"Can it be that you really don't know of it--how much she had always
+thought of you?"
+
+"I have never heard a word of it. Although we live only two miles apart
+I have never been inside her aunt's house in my life."
+
+The superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn that thus
+far he had utterly failed. He inwardly sighed and felt it necessary to
+unmask his second argument.
+
+"Well, leaving that out of the question, 'tis in your power, I assure
+you, Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good to another woman."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve. It is law with all men who see
+'ee. They say, 'This well-favoured lady coming--what's her name? How
+handsome!' Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright," the reddleman persisted,
+saying to himself, "God forgive a rascal for lying!" And she was
+handsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking so. There was a
+certain obscurity in Eustacia's beauty, and Venn's eye was not trained.
+In her winter dress, as now, she was like the tiger-beetle, which, when
+observed in dull situations, seems to be of the quietest neutral colour,
+but under a full illumination blazes with dazzling splendour.
+
+Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered
+her dignity thereby. "Many women are lovelier than Thomasin," she said,
+"so not much attaches to that."
+
+The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: "He is a man who notices
+the looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like withywind,
+if you only had the mind."
+
+"Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do
+living up here away from him."
+
+The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. "Miss Vye!" he said.
+
+"Why do you say that--as if you doubted me?" She spoke faintly, and her
+breathing was quick. "The idea of your speaking in that tone to me!"
+she added, with a forced smile of hauteur. "What could have been in your
+mind to lead you to speak like that?"
+
+"Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don't know this man?--I
+know why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are ashamed."
+
+"You are mistaken. What do you mean?"
+
+The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. "I was at the
+meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word," he said. "The
+woman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself."
+
+It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of
+Candaules' wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip would
+tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be kept
+down.
+
+"I am unwell," she said hurriedly. "No--it is not that--I am not in a
+humour to hear you further. Leave me, please."
+
+"I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you. What I would put
+before you is this. However it may come about--whether she is to blame,
+or you--her case is without doubt worse than yours. Your giving up Mr.
+Wildeve will be a real advantage to you, for how could you marry him?
+Now she cannot get off so easily--everybody will blame her if she loses
+him. Then I ask you--not because her right is best, but because her
+situation is worst--to give him up to her."
+
+"No--I won't, I won't!" she said impetuously, quite forgetful of her
+previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling. "Nobody has ever
+been served so! It was going on well--I will not be beaten down--by an
+inferior woman like her. It is very well for you to come and plead for
+her, but is she not herself the cause of all her own trouble? Am I not
+to show favour to any person I may choose without asking permission of a
+parcel of cottagers? She has come between me and my inclination, and now
+that she finds herself rightly punished she gets you to plead for her!"
+
+"Indeed," said Venn earnestly, "she knows nothing whatever about it. It
+is only I who ask you to give him up. It will be better for her and you
+both. People will say bad things if they find out that a lady secretly
+meets a man who has ill-used another woman."
+
+"I have NOT injured her--he was mine before he was hers! He came
+back--because--because he liked me best!" she said wildly. "But I lose
+all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!"
+
+"I can keep secrets," said Venn gently. "You need not fear. I am the
+only man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing
+more to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to him that
+you hated living here--that Egdon Heath was a jail to you."
+
+"I did say so. There is a sort of beauty in the scenery, I know; but it
+is a jail to me. The man you mention does not save me from that feeling,
+though he lives here. I should have cared nothing for him had there been
+a better person near."
+
+The reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from her his third
+attempt seemed promising. "As we have now opened our minds a bit, miss,"
+he said, "I'll tell you what I have got to propose. Since I have taken
+to the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know."
+
+She inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes rested in the
+misty vale beneath them.
+
+"And in my travels I go near Budmouth. Now Budmouth is a wonderful
+place--wonderful--a great salt sheening sea bending into the land like
+a bow--thousands of gentlepeople walking up and down--bands of music
+playing--officers by sea and officers by land walking among the
+rest--out of every ten folks you meet nine of 'em in love."
+
+"I know it," she said disdainfully. "I know Budmouth better than you.
+I was born there. My father came to be a military musician there from
+abroad. Ah, my soul, Budmouth! I wish I was there now."
+
+The reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could blaze on
+occasion. "If you were, miss," he replied, "in a week's time you would
+think no more of Wildeve than of one of those he'th-croppers that we see
+yond. Now, I could get you there."
+
+"How?" said Eustacia, with intense curiosity in her heavy eyes.
+
+"My uncle has been for five and twenty years the trusty man of a rich
+widow-lady who has a beautiful house facing the sea. This lady has
+become old and lame, and she wants a young company-keeper to read and
+sing to her, but can't get one to her mind to save her life, though
+she've advertised in the papers, and tried half a dozen. She would jump
+to get you, and Uncle would make it all easy."
+
+"I should have to work, perhaps?"
+
+"No, not real work--you'd have a little to do, such as reading and that.
+You would not be wanted till New Year's Day."
+
+"I knew it meant work," she said, drooping to languor again.
+
+"I confess there would be a trifle to do in the way of amusing her;
+but though idle people might call it work, working people would call
+it play. Think of the company and the life you'd lead, miss; the gaiety
+you'd see, and the gentleman you'd marry. My uncle is to inquire for a
+trustworthy young lady from the country, as she don't like town girls."
+
+"It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won't go. O, if I could
+live in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do my own
+doings, I'd give the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman, that
+would I."
+
+"Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance shall be yours,"
+urged her companion.
+
+"Chance--'tis no chance," she said proudly. "What can a poor man like
+you offer me, indeed?--I am going indoors. I have nothing more to say.
+Don't your horses want feeding, or your reddlebags want mending, or
+don't you want to find buyers for your goods, that you stay idling here
+like this?"
+
+Venn spoke not another word. With his hands behind him he turned away,
+that she might not see the hopeless disappointment in his face. The
+mental clearness and power he had found in this lonely girl had indeed
+filled his manner with misgiving even from the first few minutes of
+close quarters with her. Her youth and situation had led him to expect
+a simplicity quite at the beck of his method. But a system of inducement
+which might have carried weaker country lasses along with it had merely
+repelled Eustacia. As a rule, the word Budmouth meant fascination on
+Egdon. That Royal port and watering place, if truly mirrored in
+the minds of the heathfolk, must have combined, in a charming and
+indescribable manner a Carthaginian bustle of building with Tarentine
+luxuriousness and Baian health and beauty. Eustacia felt little less
+extravagantly about the place; but she would not sink her independence
+to get there.
+
+When Diggory Venn had gone quite away, Eustacia walked to the bank and
+looked down the wild and picturesque vale towards the sun, which was
+also in the direction of Wildeve's. The mist had now so far collapsed
+that the tips of the trees and bushes around his house could just
+be discerned, as if boring upwards through a vast white cobweb which
+cloaked them from the day. There was no doubt that her mind was inclined
+thitherward; indefinitely, fancifully--twining and untwining about
+him as the single object within her horizon on which dreams might
+crystallize. The man who had begun by being merely her amusement, and
+would never have been more than her hobby but for his skill in deserting
+her at the right moments, was now again her desire. Cessation in his
+love-making had revivified her love. Such feeling as Eustacia had idly
+given to Wildeve was dammed into a flood by Thomasin. She had used to
+tease Wildeve, but that was before another had favoured him. Often a
+drop of irony into an indifferent situation renders the whole piquant.
+
+"I will never give him up--never!" she said impetuously.
+
+The reddleman's hint that rumour might show her to disadvantage had
+no permanent terror for Eustacia. She was as unconcerned at that
+contingency as a goddess at a lack of linen. This did not originate in
+inherent shamelessness, but in her living too far from the world to feel
+the impact of public opinion. Zenobia in the desert could hardly have
+cared what was said about her at Rome. As far as social ethics were
+concerned Eustacia approached the savage state, though in emotion she
+was all the while an epicure. She had advanced to the secret recesses of
+sensuousness, yet had hardly crossed the threshold of conventionality.
+
+
+
+
+11--The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman
+
+
+The reddleman had left Eustacia's presence with desponding views on
+Thomasin's future happiness; but he was awakened to the fact that one
+other channel remained untried by seeing, as he followed the way to his
+van, the form of Mrs. Yeobright slowly walking towards the Quiet Woman.
+He went across to her; and could almost perceive in her anxious face
+that this journey of hers to Wildeve was undertaken with the same object
+as his own to Eustacia.
+
+She did not conceal the fact. "Then," said the reddleman, "you may as
+well leave it alone, Mrs. Yeobright."
+
+"I half think so myself," she said. "But nothing else remains to be done
+besides pressing the question upon him."
+
+"I should like to say a word first," said Venn firmly. "Mr. Wildeve is
+not the only man who has asked Thomasin to marry him; and why should not
+another have a chance? Mrs. Yeobright, I should be glad to marry your
+niece and would have done it any time these last two years. There, now
+it is out, and I have never told anybody before but herself."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was not demonstrative, but her eyes involuntarily glanced
+towards his singular though shapely figure.
+
+"Looks are not everything," said the reddleman, noticing the glance.
+"There's many a calling that don't bring in so much as mine, if it comes
+to money; and perhaps I am not so much worse off than Wildeve. There is
+nobody so poor as these professional fellows who have failed; and if you
+shouldn't like my redness--well, I am not red by birth, you know; I only
+took to this business for a freak; and I might turn my hand to something
+else in good time."
+
+"I am much obliged to you for your interest in my niece; but I fear
+there would be objections. More than that, she is devoted to this man."
+
+"True; or I shouldn't have done what I have this morning."
+
+"Otherwise there would be no pain in the case, and you would not see me
+going to his house now. What was Thomasin's answer when you told her of
+your feelings?"
+
+"She wrote that you would object to me; and other things."
+
+"She was in a measure right. You must not take this unkindly--I merely
+state it as a truth. You have been good to her, and we do not forget
+it. But as she was unwilling on her own account to be your wife, that
+settles the point without my wishes being concerned."
+
+"Yes. But there is a difference between then and now, ma'am. She is
+distressed now, and I have thought that if you were to talk to her about
+me, and think favourably of me yourself, there might be a chance of
+winning her round, and getting her quite independent of this Wildeve's
+backward and forward play, and his not knowing whether he'll have her or
+no."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright shook her head. "Thomasin thinks, and I think with her,
+that she ought to be Wildeve's wife, if she means to appear before the
+world without a slur upon her name. If they marry soon, everybody will
+believe that an accident did really prevent the wedding. If not, it may
+cast a shade upon her character--at any rate make her ridiculous. In
+short, if it is anyhow possible they must marry now."
+
+"I thought that till half an hour ago. But, after all, why should her
+going off with him to Anglebury for a few hours do her any harm? Anybody
+who knows how pure she is will feel any such thought to be quite
+unjust. I have been trying this morning to help on this marriage with
+Wildeve--yes, I, ma'am--in the belief that I ought to do it, because she
+was so wrapped up in him. But I much question if I was right, after all.
+However, nothing came of it. And now I offer myself."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright appeared disinclined to enter further into the question.
+"I fear I must go on," she said. "I do not see that anything else can be
+done."
+
+And she went on. But though this conversation did not divert Thomasin's
+aunt from her purposed interview with Wildeve, it made a considerable
+difference in her mode of conducting that interview. She thanked God for
+the weapon which the reddleman had put into her hands.
+
+Wildeve was at home when she reached the inn. He showed her silently
+into the parlour, and closed the door. Mrs. Yeobright began--
+
+"I have thought it my duty to call today. A new proposal has been made
+to me, which has rather astonished me. It will affect Thomasin greatly;
+and I have decided that it should at least be mentioned to you."
+
+"Yes? What is it?" he said civilly.
+
+"It is, of course, in reference to her future. You may not be aware that
+another man has shown himself anxious to marry Thomasin. Now, though
+I have not encouraged him yet, I cannot conscientiously refuse him a
+chance any longer. I don't wish to be short with you; but I must be fair
+to him and to her."
+
+"Who is the man?" said Wildeve with surprise.
+
+"One who has been in love with her longer than she has with you. He
+proposed to her two years ago. At that time she refused him."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He has seen her lately, and has asked me for permission to pay his
+addresses to her. She may not refuse him twice."
+
+"What is his name?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright declined to say. "He is a man Thomasin likes," she added,
+"and one whose constancy she respects at least. It seems to me that what
+she refused then she would be glad to get now. She is much annoyed at
+her awkward position."
+
+"She never once told me of this old lover."
+
+"The gentlest women are not such fools as to show EVERY card."
+
+"Well, if she wants him I suppose she must have him."
+
+"It is easy enough to say that; but you don't see the difficulty. He
+wants her much more than she wants him; and before I can encourage
+anything of the sort I must have a clear understanding from you that
+you will not interfere to injure an arrangement which I promote in the
+belief that it is for the best. Suppose, when they are engaged, and
+everything is smoothly arranged for their marriage, that you should step
+between them and renew your suit? You might not win her back, but you
+might cause much unhappiness."
+
+"Of course I should do no such thing," said Wildeve "But they are not
+engaged yet. How do you know that Thomasin would accept him?"
+
+"That's a question I have carefully put to myself; and upon the whole
+the probabilities are in favour of her accepting him in time. I flatter
+myself that I have some influence over her. She is pliable, and I can be
+strong in my recommendations of him."
+
+"And in your disparagement of me at the same time."
+
+"Well, you may depend upon my not praising you," she said drily. "And
+if this seems like manoeuvring, you must remember that her position is
+peculiar, and that she has been hardly used. I shall also be helped in
+making the match by her own desire to escape from the humiliation of her
+present state; and a woman's pride in these cases will lead her a very
+great way. A little managing may be required to bring her round; but
+I am equal to that, provided that you agree to the one thing
+indispensable; that is, to make a distinct declaration that she is to
+think no more of you as a possible husband. That will pique her into
+accepting him."
+
+"I can hardly say that just now, Mrs. Yeobright. It is so sudden."
+
+"And so my whole plan is interfered with! It is very inconvenient
+that you refuse to help my family even to the small extent of saying
+distinctly you will have nothing to do with us."
+
+Wildeve reflected uncomfortably. "I confess I was not prepared for
+this," he said. "Of course I'll give her up if you wish, if it is
+necessary. But I thought I might be her husband."
+
+"We have heard that before."
+
+"Now, Mrs. Yeobright, don't let us disagree. Give me a fair time. I
+don't want to stand in the way of any better chance she may have; only
+I wish you had let me know earlier. I will write to you or call in a day
+or two. Will that suffice?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, "provided you promise not to communicate with
+Thomasin without my knowledge."
+
+"I promise that," he said. And the interview then terminated, Mrs.
+Yeobright returning homeward as she had come.
+
+By far the greatest effect of her simple strategy on that day was, as
+often happens, in a quarter quite outside her view when arranging it. In
+the first place, her visit sent Wildeve the same evening after dark to
+Eustacia's house at Mistover.
+
+At this hour the lonely dwelling was closely blinded and shuttered from
+the chill and darkness without. Wildeve's clandestine plan with her was
+to take a little gravel in his hand and hold it to the crevice at the
+top of the window shutter, which was on the outside, so that it should
+fall with a gentle rustle, resembling that of a mouse, between shutter
+and glass. This precaution in attracting her attention was to avoid
+arousing the suspicions of her grandfather.
+
+The soft words, "I hear; wait for me," in Eustacia's voice from within
+told him that she was alone.
+
+He waited in his customary manner by walking round the enclosure and
+idling by the pool, for Wildeve was never asked into the house by his
+proud though condescending mistress. She showed no sign of coming out in
+a hurry. The time wore on, and he began to grow impatient. In the course
+of twenty minutes she appeared from round the corner, and advanced as if
+merely taking an airing.
+
+"You would not have kept me so long had you known what I come about," he
+said with bitterness. "Still, you are worth waiting for."
+
+"What has happened?" said Eustacia. "I did not know you were in trouble.
+I too am gloomy enough."
+
+"I am not in trouble," said he. "It is merely that affairs have come to
+a head, and I must take a clear course."
+
+"What course is that?" she asked with attentive interest.
+
+"And can you forget so soon what I proposed to you the other night? Why,
+take you from this place, and carry you away with me abroad."
+
+"I have not forgotten. But why have you come so unexpectedly to repeat
+the question, when you only promised to come next Saturday? I thought I
+was to have plenty of time to consider."
+
+"Yes, but the situation is different now."
+
+"Explain to me."
+
+"I don't want to explain, for I may pain you."
+
+"But I must know the reason of this hurry."
+
+"It is simply my ardour, dear Eustacia. Everything is smooth now."
+
+"Then why are you so ruffled?"
+
+"I am not aware of it. All is as it should be. Mrs. Yeobright--but she
+is nothing to us."
+
+"Ah, I knew she had something to do with it! Come, I don't like
+reserve."
+
+"No--she has nothing. She only says she wishes me to give up Thomasin
+because another man is anxious to marry her. The woman, now she no
+longer needs me, actually shows off!" Wildeve's vexation has escaped him
+in spite of himself.
+
+Eustacia was silent a long while. "You are in the awkward position of an
+official who is no longer wanted," she said in a changed tone.
+
+"It seems so. But I have not yet seen Thomasin."
+
+"And that irritates you. Don't deny it, Damon. You are actually nettled
+by this slight from an unexpected quarter."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And you come to get me because you cannot get her. This is certainly a
+new position altogether. I am to be a stop-gap."
+
+"Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day."
+
+Eustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence. What curious
+feeling was this coming over her? Was it really possible that her
+interest in Wildeve had been so entirely the result of antagonism that
+the glory and the dream departed from the man with the first sound that
+he was no longer coveted by her rival? She was, then, secure of him at
+last. Thomasin no longer required him. What a humiliating victory!
+He loved her best, she thought; and yet--dared she to murmur such
+treacherous criticism ever so softly?--what was the man worth whom a
+woman inferior to herself did not value? The sentiment which lurks more
+or less in all animate nature--that of not desiring the undesired of
+others--was lively as a passion in the supersubtle, epicurean heart of
+Eustacia. Her social superiority over him, which hitherto had scarcely
+ever impressed her, became unpleasantly insistent, and for the first
+time she felt that she had stooped in loving him.
+
+"Well, darling, you agree?" said Wildeve.
+
+"If it could be London, or even Budmouth, instead of America," she
+murmured languidly. "Well, I will think. It is too great a thing for me
+to decide offhand. I wish I hated the heath less--or loved you more."
+
+"You can be painfully frank. You loved me a month ago warmly enough to
+go anywhere with me."
+
+"And you loved Thomasin."
+
+"Yes, perhaps that was where the reason lay," he returned, with almost a
+sneer. "I don't hate her now."
+
+"Exactly. The only thing is that you can no longer get her."
+
+"Come--no taunts, Eustacia, or we shall quarrel. If you don't agree to
+go with me, and agree shortly, I shall go by myself."
+
+"Or try Thomasin again. Damon, how strange it seems that you could have
+married her or me indifferently, and only have come to me because I
+am--cheapest! Yes, yes--it is true. There was a time when I should have
+exclaimed against a man of that sort, and been quite wild; but it is all
+past now."
+
+"Will you go, dearest? Come secretly with me to Bristol, marry me, and
+turn our backs upon this dog-hole of England for ever? Say Yes."
+
+"I want to get away from here at almost any cost," she said with
+weariness, "but I don't like to go with you. Give me more time to
+decide."
+
+"I have already," said Wildeve. "Well, I give you one more week."
+
+"A little longer, so that I may tell you decisively. I have to consider
+so many things. Fancy Thomasin being anxious to get rid of you! I cannot
+forget it."
+
+"Never mind that. Say Monday week. I will be here precisely at this
+time."
+
+"Let it be at Rainbarrow," said she. "This is too near home; my
+grandfather may be walking out."
+
+"Thank you, dear. On Monday week at this time I will be at the Barrow.
+Till then good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye. No, no, you must not touch me now. Shaking hands is enough
+till I have made up my mind."
+
+Eustacia watched his shadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed
+her hand to her forehead and breathed heavily; and then her rich,
+romantic lips parted under that homely impulse--a yawn. She was
+immediately angry at having betrayed even to herself the possible
+evanescence of her passion for him. She could not admit at once that she
+might have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his mediocrity now was
+to admit her own great folly heretofore. And the discovery that she was
+the owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog in the manger had
+something in it which at first made her ashamed.
+
+The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright's diplomacy was indeed remarkable,
+though not as yet of the kind she had anticipated. It had appreciably
+influenced Wildeve, but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her lover
+was no longer to her an exciting man whom many women strove for, and
+herself could only retain by striving with them. He was a superfluity.
+
+She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly
+grief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the latter
+days of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that the end of
+the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is one of
+the most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along the course
+between the beginning of a passion and its end.
+
+Her grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in pouring some
+gallons of newly arrived rum into the square bottles of his square
+cellaret. Whenever these home supplies were exhausted he would go to the
+Quiet Woman, and, standing with his back to the fire, grog in hand, tell
+remarkable stories of how he had lived seven years under the waterline
+of his ship, and other naval wonders, to the natives, who hoped too
+earnestly for a treat of ale from the teller to exhibit any doubts of
+his truth.
+
+He had been there this evening. "I suppose you have heard the Egdon
+news, Eustacia?" he said, without looking up from the bottles. "The
+men have been talking about it at the Woman as if it were of national
+importance."
+
+"I have heard none," she said.
+
+"Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming home next week to
+spend Christmas with his mother. He is a fine fellow by this time, it
+seems. I suppose you remember him?"
+
+"I never saw him in my life."
+
+"Ah, true; he left before you came here. I well remember him as a
+promising boy."
+
+"Where has he been living all these years?"
+
+"In that rookery of pomp and vanity, Paris, I believe."
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO -- THE ARRIVAL
+
+
+
+
+1--Tidings of the Comer
+
+
+On the fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain
+ephemeral operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way, the
+majestic calm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those
+of a town, a village, or even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment
+of stagnation merely, a creeping of the flesh of somnolence. But here,
+away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which mere
+walking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imagine
+himself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted the
+attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep,
+and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at a
+safe distance.
+
+The performance was that of bringing together and building into a stack
+the furze faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the captain's
+use during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at the end of the
+dwelling, and the men engaged in building it were Humphrey and Sam, the
+old man looking on.
+
+It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o'clock; but the winter
+solstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun caused the
+hour to seem later than it actually was, there being little here to
+remind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience of the
+sky as a dial. In the course of many days and weeks sunrise had advanced
+its quarters from northeast to southeast, sunset had receded from
+northwest to southwest; but Egdon had hardly heeded the change.
+
+Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like a
+kitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping chimney-corner. The air was
+still, and while she lingered a moment here alone sounds of voices in
+conversation came to her ears directly down the chimney. She entered
+the recess, and, listening, looked up the old irregular shaft, with its
+cavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered about on its way to the
+square bit of sky at the top, from which the daylight struck down with a
+pallid glare upon the tatters of soot draping the flue as seaweed drapes
+a rocky fissure.
+
+She remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney, and the
+voices were those of the workers.
+
+Her grandfather joined in the conversation. "That lad ought never to
+have left home. His father's occupation would have suited him best, and
+the boy should have followed on. I don't believe in these new moves in
+families. My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should my son have
+been if I had had one."
+
+"The place he's been living at is Paris," said Humphrey, "and they tell
+me 'tis where the king's head was cut off years ago. My poor mother used
+to tell me about that business. 'Hummy,' she used to say, 'I was a young
+maid then, and as I was at home ironing Mother's caps one afternoon the
+parson came in and said, "They've cut the king's head off, Jane; and
+what 'twill be next God knows."'"
+
+"A good many of us knew as well as He before long," said the captain,
+chuckling. "I lived seven years under water on account of it in my
+boyhood--in that damned surgery of the Triumph, seeing men brought down
+to the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to Jericho.... And so the
+young man has settled in Paris. Manager to a diamond merchant, or some
+such thing, is he not?"
+
+"Yes, sir, that's it. 'Tis a blazing great business that he belongs to,
+so I've heard his mother say--like a king's palace, as far as diments
+go."
+
+"I can well mind when he left home," said Sam.
+
+"'Tis a good thing for the feller," said Humphrey. "A sight of times
+better to be selling diments than nobbling about here."
+
+"It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place."
+
+"A good few indeed, my man," replied the captain. "Yes, you may make
+away with a deal of money and be neither drunkard nor glutton."
+
+"They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real perusing man, with
+the strangest notions about things. There, that's because he went to
+school early, such as the school was."
+
+"Strange notions, has he?" said the old man. "Ah, there's too much of
+that sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Every gatepost
+and barn's door you come to is sure to have some bad word or other
+chalked upon it by the young rascals--a woman can hardly pass for shame
+sometimes. If they'd never been taught how to write they wouldn't have
+been able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers couldn't do it, and
+the country was all the better for it."
+
+"Now, I should think, Cap'n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much in her
+head that comes from books as anybody about here?"
+
+"Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her head
+it would be better for her," said the captain shortly; after which he
+walked away.
+
+"I say, Sam," observed Humphrey when the old man was gone, "she and Clym
+Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair--hey? If they wouldn't
+I'll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for certain, and learned
+in print, and always thinking about high doctrine--there couldn't be a
+better couple if they were made o' purpose. Clym's family is as good as
+hers. His father was a farmer, that's true; but his mother was a sort
+of lady, as we know. Nothing would please me better than to see them two
+man and wife."
+
+"They'd look very natty, arm-in-crook together, and their best clothes
+on, whether or no, if he's at all the well-favoured fellow he used to
+be."
+
+"They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terrible much
+after so many years. If I knew for certain when he was coming I'd stroll
+out three or four miles to meet him and help carry anything for'n;
+though I suppose he's altered from the boy he was. They say he can talk
+French as fast as a maid can eat blackberries; and if so, depend upon it
+we who have stayed at home shall seem no more than scroff in his eyes."
+
+"Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes; but how he's coming from Budmouth I don't know."
+
+"That's a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such a
+nice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What a
+nunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren't married
+at all, after singing to 'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if
+I should like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by a
+man. It makes the family look small."
+
+"Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health is
+suffering from it, I hear, for she will bide entirely indoors. We never
+see her out now, scampering over the furze with a face as red as a rose,
+as she used to do."
+
+"I've heard she wouldn't have Wildeve now if he asked her."
+
+"You have? 'Tis news to me."
+
+While the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed thus Eustacia's
+face gradually bent to the hearth in a profound reverie, her toe
+unconsciously tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet.
+
+The subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting to her. A
+young and clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of all
+contrasting places in the world, Paris. It was like a man coming from
+heaven. More singular still, the heathmen had instinctively coupled her
+and this man together in their minds as a pair born for each other.
+
+That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visions enough
+to fill the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternations from mental
+vacuity do sometimes occur thus quietly. She could never have believed
+in the morning that her colourless inner world would before night become
+as animated as water under a microscope, and that without the arrival of
+a single visitor. The words of Sam and Humphrey on the harmony between
+the unknown and herself had on her mind the effect of the invading
+Bard's prelude in the Castle of Indolence, at which myriads of
+imprisoned shapes arose where had previously appeared the stillness of a
+void.
+
+Involved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time. When she became
+conscious of externals it was dusk. The furze-rick was finished; the men
+had gone home. Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she would take a
+walk at this her usual time; and she determined that her walk should be
+in the direction of Blooms-End, the birthplace of young Yeobright and
+the present home of his mother. She had no reason for walking elsewhere,
+and why should she not go that way? The scene of the daydream is
+sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen. To look at the palings before
+the Yeobrights' house had the dignity of a necessary performance.
+Strange that such a piece of idling should have seemed an important
+errand.
+
+She put on her bonnet, and, leaving the house, descended the hill on the
+side towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly along the valley for a
+distance of a mile and a half. This brought her to a spot in which the
+green bottom of the dale began to widen, the furze bushes to recede
+yet further from the path on each side, till they were diminished to
+an isolated one here and there by the increasing fertility of the soil.
+Beyond the irregular carpet of grass was a row of white palings, which
+marked the verge of the heath in this latitude. They showed upon the
+dusky scene that they bordered as distinctly as white lace on velvet.
+Behind the white palings was a little garden; behind the garden an old,
+irregular, thatched house, facing the heath, and commanding a full view
+of the valley. This was the obscure, removed spot to which was about
+to return a man whose latter life had been passed in the French
+capital--the centre and vortex of the fashionable world.
+
+
+
+
+2--The People at Blooms-End Make Ready
+
+
+All that afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia's
+ruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin had
+been persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of loyalty
+towards her cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account with an
+alacrity unusual in her during these most sorrowful days of her life. At
+the time that Eustacia was listening to the rick-makers' conversation
+on Clym's return, Thomasin was climbing into a loft over her aunt's
+fuelhouse, where the store-apples were kept, to search out the best and
+largest of them for the coming holiday-time.
+
+The loft was lighted by a semicircular hole, through which the pigeons
+crept to their lodgings in the same high quarters of the premises; and
+from this hole the sun shone in a bright yellow patch upon the figure of
+the maiden as she knelt and plunged her naked arms into the soft brown
+fern, which, from its abundance, was used on Egdon in packing away
+stores of all kinds. The pigeons were flying about her head with the
+greatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just visible above
+the floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of light, as she stood
+halfway up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was not climber
+enough to venture.
+
+"Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well as
+ribstones."
+
+Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where more
+mellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking them out
+she stopped a moment.
+
+"Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?" she said, gazing
+abstractedly at the pigeon-hole, which admitted the sunlight so directly
+upon her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost seemed to
+shine through her.
+
+"If he could have been dear to you in another way," said Mrs. Yeobright
+from the ladder, "this might have been a happy meeting."
+
+"Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?"
+
+"Yes," said her aunt, with some warmth. "To thoroughly fill the air with
+the past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and keep clear
+of it."
+
+Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. "I am a warning to
+others, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are," she said in a
+low voice. "What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them? 'Tis
+absurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me think that I do,
+by the way they behave towards me? Why don't people judge me by my acts?
+Now, look at me as I kneel here, picking up these apples--do I look
+like a lost woman?... I wish all good women were as good as I!" she added
+vehemently.
+
+"Strangers don't see you as I do," said Mrs. Yeobright; "they judge from
+false report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to blame."
+
+"How quickly a rash thing can be done!" replied the girl. Her lips were
+quivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that she could
+hardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued industriously
+searching to hide her weakness.
+
+"As soon as you have finished getting the apples," her aunt said,
+descending the ladder, "come down, and we'll go for the holly. There is
+nobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear being
+stared at. We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in our
+preparations."
+
+Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together they
+went through the white palings to the heath beyond. The open hills were
+airy and clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often appears
+on a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination independently
+toned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts of landscape streaming
+visibly across those further off; a stratum of ensaffroned light was
+imposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind these lay still remoter
+scenes wrapped in frigid grey.
+
+They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conical
+pit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general level
+of the ground. Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes, as
+she had done under happier circumstances on many similar occasions,
+and with a small chopper that they had brought she began to lop off the
+heavily berried boughs.
+
+"Don't scratch your face," said her aunt, who stood at the edge of the
+pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green and
+scarlet masses of the tree. "Will you walk with me to meet him this
+evening?"
+
+"I should like to. Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him," said
+Thomasin, tossing out a bough. "Not that that would matter much; I
+belong to one man; nothing can alter that. And that man I must marry,
+for my pride's sake."
+
+"I am afraid--" began Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"Ah, you think, 'That weak girl--how is she going to get a man to marry
+her when she chooses?' But let me tell you one thing, Aunt: Mr. Wildeve
+is not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman. He has
+an unfortunate manner, and doesn't try to make people like him if they
+don't wish to do it of their own accord."
+
+"Thomasin," said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her niece,
+"do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr. Wildeve?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed its
+colour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him, and
+that you act a part to me."
+
+"He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him."
+
+"Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment agree to be his
+wife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?"
+
+Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed. "Aunt,"
+she said presently, "I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer that
+question."
+
+"Yes, you have."
+
+"You may think what you choose. I have never implied to you by word or
+deed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will. And
+I shall marry him."
+
+"Well, wait till he repeats his offer. I think he may do it, now that he
+knows--something I told him. I don't for a moment dispute that it is the
+most proper thing for you to marry him. Much as I have objected to him
+in bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure. It is the only
+way out of a false position, and a very galling one."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+"That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours."
+
+"Aunt," said Thomasin, with round eyes, "what DO you mean?"
+
+"Don't be alarmed; it was my duty. I can say no more about it now, but
+when it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I said it."
+
+Thomasin was perforce content.
+
+"And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for the
+present?" she next asked.
+
+"I have given my word to. But what is the use of it? He must soon know
+what has happened. A mere look at your face will show him that something
+is wrong."
+
+Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. "Now, hearken to
+me," she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a force
+which was other than physical. "Tell him nothing. If he finds out that I
+am not worthy to be his cousin, let him. But, since he loved me once, we
+will not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon. The air is full of
+the story, I know; but gossips will not dare to speak of it to him for
+the first few days. His closeness to me is the very thing that will
+hinder the tale from reaching him early. If I am not made safe from
+sneers in a week or two I will tell him myself."
+
+The earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented further objections.
+Her aunt simply said, "Very well. He should by rights have been told at
+the time that the wedding was going to be. He will never forgive you for
+your secrecy."
+
+"Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished to spare him, and
+that I did not expect him home so soon. And you must not let me stand in
+the way of your Christmas party. Putting it off would only make matters
+worse."
+
+"Of course I shall not. I do not wish to show myself beaten before all
+Egdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve. We have enough berries now,
+I think, and we had better take them home. By the time we have decked
+the house with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must think of starting
+to meet him."
+
+Thomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair and dress the loose
+berries which had fallen thereon, and went down the hill with her aunt,
+each woman bearing half the gathered boughs. It was now nearly four
+o'clock, and the sunlight was leaving the vales. When the west grew red
+the two relatives came again from the house and plunged into the heath
+in a different direction from the first, towards a point in the distant
+highway along which the expected man was to return.
+
+
+
+
+3--How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream
+
+
+Eustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes in the
+direction of Mrs. Yeobright's house and premises. No light, sound, or
+movement was perceptible there. The evening was chilly; the spot was
+dark and lonely. She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and after
+lingering ten or fifteen minutes she turned again towards home.
+
+She had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front of her betokened
+the approach of persons in conversation along the same path. Soon their
+heads became visible against the sky. They were walking slowly; and
+though it was too dark for much discovery of character from aspect, the
+gait of them showed that they were not workers on the heath. Eustacia
+stepped a little out of the foot-track to let them pass. They were
+two women and a man; and the voices of the women were those of Mrs.
+Yeobright and Thomasin.
+
+They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared to discern her
+dusky form. There came to her ears in a masculine voice, "Good night!"
+
+She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round. She could not,
+for a moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had brought into her
+presence the soul of the house she had gone to inspect, the man without
+whom her inspection would not have been thought of.
+
+She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. Such was her
+intentness, however, that it seemed as if her ears were performing the
+functions of seeing as well as hearing. This extension of power can
+almost be believed in at such moments. The deaf Dr. Kitto was probably
+under the influence of a parallel fancy when he described his body as
+having become, by long endeavour, so sensitive to vibrations that he had
+gained the power of perceiving by it as by ears.
+
+She could follow every word that the ramblers uttered. They were talking
+no secrets. They were merely indulging in the ordinary vivacious chat of
+relatives who have long been parted in person though not in soul. But
+it was not to the words that Eustacia listened; she could not even
+have recalled, a few minutes later, what the words were. It was to the
+alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth of them--the voice that
+had wished her good night. Sometimes this throat uttered Yes, sometimes
+it uttered No; sometimes it made inquiries about a time worn denizen
+of the place. Once it surprised her notions by remarking upon the
+friendliness and geniality written in the faces of the hills around.
+
+The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear. Thus
+much had been granted her; and all besides withheld. No event could have
+been more exciting. During the greater part of the afternoon she had
+been entrancing herself by imagining the fascination which must attend
+a man come direct from beautiful Paris--laden with its atmosphere,
+familiar with its charms. And this man had greeted her.
+
+With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of the women
+wasted away from her memory; but the accents of the other stayed on.
+Was there anything in the voice of Mrs. Yeobright's son--for Clym
+it was--startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive. All
+emotional things were possible to the speaker of that "good night."
+Eustacia's imagination supplied the rest--except the solution to one
+riddle. What COULD the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and
+geniality in these shaggy hills?
+
+On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly charged
+woman's head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but the changes,
+though actual, are minute. Eustacia's features went through a rhythmical
+succession of them. She glowed; remembering the mendacity of the
+imagination, she flagged; then she freshened; then she fired; then she
+cooled again. It was a cycle of aspects, produced by a cycle of visions.
+
+Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited. Her grandfather was
+enjoying himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing the
+red-hot surface of the turves, so that their lurid glare irradiated the
+chimney-corner with the hues of a furnace.
+
+"Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?" she said,
+coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth. "I wish we
+were. They seem to be very nice people."
+
+"Be hanged if I know why," said the captain. "I liked the old man well
+enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never have
+cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure."
+
+"Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in the
+kitchen, drink mead and elder-wine, and sand the floor to keep it clean.
+A sensible way of life; but how would you like it?"
+
+"I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman? A curate's daughter, was
+she not?"
+
+"Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose
+she has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once
+accidentally offended her, and I have never seen her since."
+
+That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she
+hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from
+Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable
+one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was
+certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's situation before. It had
+as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many fluctuations as
+the northern lights, as much colour as a parterre in June, and was as
+crowded with figures as a coronation. To Queen Scheherazade the dream
+might have seemed not far removed from commonplace; and to a girl just
+returned from all the courts of Europe it might have seemed not more
+than interesting. But amid the circumstances of Eustacia's life it was
+as wonderful as a dream could be.
+
+There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation scenes a
+less extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared behind the
+general brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music, and
+her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her through
+the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being closed.
+The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came into her ear
+from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman in Paradise.
+Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers, dived into one
+of the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere into an iridescent
+hollow, arched with rainbows. "It must be here," said the voice by her
+side, and blushingly looking up she saw him removing his casque to kiss
+her. At that moment there was a cracking noise, and his figure fell into
+fragments like a pack of cards.
+
+She cried aloud. "O that I had seen his face!"
+
+Eustacia awoke. The cracking had been that of the window shutter
+downstairs, which the maid-servant was opening to let in the day, now
+slowly increasing to Nature's meagre allowance at this sickly time of
+the year. "O that I had seen his face!" she said again. "'Twas meant for
+Mr. Yeobright!"
+
+When she became cooler she perceived that many of the phases of the
+dream had naturally arisen out of the images and fancies of the day
+before. But this detracted little from its interest, which lay in the
+excellent fuel it provided for newly kindled fervour. She was at the
+modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called
+"having a fancy for." It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic
+passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest
+will.
+
+The perfervid woman was by this time half in love with a vision. The
+fantastic nature of her passion, which lowered her as an intellect,
+raised her as a soul. If she had had a little more self-control she
+would have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and so
+have killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might have
+gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights' premises at Blooms-End at any
+maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did neither of
+these things. She acted as the most exemplary might have acted, being
+so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day upon the Egdon
+hills, and kept her eyes employed.
+
+The first occasion passed, and he did not come that way.
+
+She promenaded a second time, and was again the sole wanderer there.
+
+The third time there was a dense fog; she looked around, but without
+much hope. Even if he had been walking within twenty yards of her she
+could not have seen him.
+
+At the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain in torrents, and
+she turned back.
+
+The fifth sally was in the afternoon; it was fine, and she remained out
+long, walking to the very top of the valley in which Blooms-End lay. She
+saw the white paling about half a mile off; but he did not appear. It
+was almost with heart-sickness that she came home and with a sense of
+shame at her weakness. She resolved to look for the man from Paris no
+more.
+
+But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had Eustacia
+formed this resolve than the opportunity came which, while sought, had
+been entirely withholden.
+
+
+
+
+4--Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure
+
+
+In the evening of this last day of expectation, which was the
+twenty-third of December, Eustacia was at home alone. She had passed
+the recent hour in lamenting over a rumour newly come to her ears--that
+Yeobright's visit to his mother was to be of short duration, and would
+end some time the next week. "Naturally," she said to herself. A man
+in the full swing of his activities in a gay city could not afford to
+linger long on Egdon Heath. That she would behold face to face the owner
+of the awakening voice within the limits of such a holiday was most
+unlikely, unless she were to haunt the environs of his mother's house
+like a robin, to do which was difficult and unseemly.
+
+The customary expedient of provincial girls and men in such
+circumstances is churchgoing. In an ordinary village or country town
+one can safely calculate that, either on Christmas day or the Sunday
+contiguous, any native home for the holidays, who has not through age or
+ennui lost the appetite for seeing and being seen, will turn up in some
+pew or other, shining with hope, self-consciousness, and new clothes.
+Thus the congregation on Christmas morning is mostly a Tussaud
+collection of celebrities who have been born in the neighbourhood.
+Hither the mistress, left neglected at home all the year, can steal and
+observe the development of the returned lover who has forgotten her, and
+think as she watches him over her prayer book that he may throb with
+a renewed fidelity when novelties have lost their charm. And hither
+a comparatively recent settler like Eustacia may betake herself to
+scrutinize the person of a native son who left home before her advent
+upon the scene, and consider if the friendship of his parents be worth
+cultivating during his next absence in order to secure a knowledge of
+him on his next return.
+
+But these tender schemes were not feasible among the scattered
+inhabitants of Egdon Heath. In name they were parishioners, but
+virtually they belonged to no parish at all. People who came to these
+few isolated houses to keep Christmas with their friends remained
+in their friends' chimney-corners drinking mead and other comforting
+liquors till they left again for good and all. Rain, snow, ice, mud
+everywhere around, they did not care to trudge two or three miles to
+sit wet-footed and splashed to the nape of their necks among those
+who, though in some measure neighbours, lived close to the church, and
+entered it clean and dry. Eustacia knew it was ten to one that Clym
+Yeobright would go to no church at all during his few days of leave, and
+that it would be a waste of labour for her to go driving the pony and
+gig over a bad road in hope to see him there.
+
+It was dusk, and she was sitting by the fire in the dining-room or
+hall, which they occupied at this time of the year in preference to the
+parlour, because of its large hearth, constructed for turf-fires, a
+fuel the captain was partial to in the winter season. The only visible
+articles in the room were those on the window-sill, which showed their
+shapes against the low sky, the middle article being the old hourglass,
+and the other two a pair of ancient British urns which had been dug
+from a barrow near, and were used as flowerpots for two razor-leaved
+cactuses. Somebody knocked at the door. The servant was out; so was her
+grandfather. The person, after waiting a minute, came in and tapped at
+the door of the room.
+
+"Who's there?" said Eustacia.
+
+"Please, Cap'n Vye, will you let us----"
+
+Eustacia arose and went to the door. "I cannot allow you to come in so
+boldly. You should have waited."
+
+"The cap'n said I might come in without any fuss," was answered in a
+lad's pleasant voice.
+
+"Oh, did he?" said Eustacia more gently. "What do you want, Charley?"
+
+"Please will your grandfather lend us his fuelhouse to try over our
+parts in, tonight at seven o'clock?"
+
+"What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?"
+
+"Yes, miss. The cap'n used to let the old mummers practise here."
+
+"I know it. Yes, you may use the fuelhouse if you like," said Eustacia
+languidly.
+
+The choice of Captain Vye's fuelhouse as the scene of rehearsal was
+dictated by the fact that his dwelling was nearly in the centre of the
+heath. The fuelhouse was as roomy as a barn, and was a most desirable
+place for such a purpose. The lads who formed the company of players
+lived at different scattered points around, and by meeting in this spot
+the distances to be traversed by all the comers would be about equally
+proportioned.
+
+For mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. The mummers
+themselves were not afflicted with any such feeling for their art,
+though at the same time they were not enthusiastic. A traditional
+pastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking
+feature than in this, that while in the revival all is excitement and
+fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity and absence of
+stir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done so perfunctorily
+should be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other unwilling prophets, the
+agents seem moved by an inner compulsion to say and do their allotted
+parts whether they will or no. This unweeting manner of performance is
+the true ring by which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized survival
+may be known from a spurious reproduction.
+
+The piece was the well-known play of Saint George, and all who were
+behind the scenes assisted in the preparations, including the women of
+each household. Without the co-operation of sisters and sweethearts the
+dresses were likely to be a failure; but on the other hand, this class
+of assistance was not without its drawbacks. The girls could never be
+brought to respect tradition in designing and decorating the armour;
+they insisted on attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet in any
+situation pleasing to their taste. Gorget, gusset, basinet, cuirass,
+gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine eyes were
+practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of fluttering colour.
+
+It might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom, had a
+sweetheart, and that Jim, who fought on the side of the Moslem, had
+one likewise. During the making of the costumes it would come to the
+knowledge of Joe's sweetheart that Jim's was putting brilliant silk
+scallops at the bottom of her lover's surcoat, in addition to the
+ribbons of the visor, the bars of which, being invariably formed of
+coloured strips about half an inch wide hanging before the face, were
+mostly of that material. Joe's sweetheart straight-way placed brilliant
+silk on the scallops of the hem in question, and, going a little
+further, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim's, not to be
+outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere.
+
+The result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier, of the Christian
+army, was distinguished by no peculiarity of accoutrement from the
+Turkish Knight; and what was worse, on a casual view Saint George
+himself might be mistaken for his deadly enemy, the Saracen. The guisers
+themselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of persons, could
+not afford to offend those by whose assistance they so largely profited,
+and the innovations were allowed to stand.
+
+There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity. The
+Leech or Doctor preserved his character intact--his darker habiliments,
+peculiar hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his arm, could never
+be mistaken. And the same might be said of the conventional figure of
+Father Christmas, with his gigantic club, an older man, who accompanied
+the band as general protector in long night journeys from parish to
+parish, and was bearer of the purse.
+
+Seven o'clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short
+time Eustacia could hear voices in the fuelhouse. To dissipate in some
+trifling measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life she
+went to the "linhay" or lean-to shed, which formed the root-store of
+their dwelling and abutted on the fuelhouse. Here was a small rough hole
+in the mud wall, originally made for pigeons, through which the interior
+of the next shed could be viewed. A light came from it now; and Eustacia
+stepped upon a stool to look in upon the scene.
+
+On a ledge in the fuelhouse stood three tall rushlights and by the
+light of them seven or eight lads were marching about, haranguing, and
+confusing each other, in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play.
+Humphrey and Sam, the furze- and turf-cutters, were there looking on, so
+also was Timothy Fairway, who leant against the wall and prompted
+the boys from memory, interspersing among the set words remarks and
+anecdotes of the superior days when he and others were the Egdon
+mummers-elect that these lads were now.
+
+"Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be," he said. "Not that
+such mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the Saracen should
+strut a bit more, and John needn't holler his inside out. Beyond that
+perhaps you'll do. Have you got all your clothes ready?"
+
+"We shall by Monday."
+
+"Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright's."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Yeobright's. What makes her want to see ye? I should think a
+middle-aged woman was tired of mumming."
+
+"She's got up a bit of a party, because 'tis the first Christmas that
+her son Clym has been home for a long time."
+
+"To be sure, to be sure--her party! I am going myself. I almost forgot
+it, upon my life."
+
+Eustacia's face flagged. There was to be a party at the Yeobrights';
+she, naturally, had nothing to do with it. She was a stranger to all
+such local gatherings, and had always held them as scarcely appertaining
+to her sphere. But had she been going, what an opportunity would have
+been afforded her of seeing the man whose influence was penetrating her
+like summer sun! To increase that influence was coveted excitement; to
+cast it off might be to regain serenity; to leave it as it stood was
+tantalizing.
+
+The lads and men prepared to leave the premises, and Eustacia returned
+to her fireside. She was immersed in thought, but not for long. In a
+few minutes the lad Charley, who had come to ask permission to use the
+place, returned with the key to the kitchen. Eustacia heard him, and
+opening the door into the passage said, "Charley, come here."
+
+The lad was surprised. He entered the front room not without blushing;
+for he, like many, had felt the power of this girl's face and form.
+
+She pointed to a seat by the fire, and entered the other side of the
+chimney-corner herself. It could be seen in her face that whatever
+motive she might have had in asking the youth indoors would soon appear.
+
+"Which part do you play, Charley--the Turkish Knight, do you not?"
+inquired the beauty, looking across the smoke of the fire to him on the
+other side.
+
+"Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight," he replied diffidently.
+
+"Is yours a long part?"
+
+"Nine speeches, about."
+
+"Can you repeat them to me? If so I should like to hear them."
+
+The lad smiled into the glowing turf and began--
+
+     "Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
+     Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,"
+
+continuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the concluding
+catastrophe of his fall by the hand of Saint George.
+
+Eustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. When the lad
+ended she began, precisely in the same words, and ranted on without
+hitch or divergence till she too reached the end. It was the same thing,
+yet how different. Like in form, it had the added softness and finish
+of a Raffaelle after Perugino, which, while faithfully reproducing the
+original subject, entirely distances the original art.
+
+Charley's eyes rounded with surprise. "Well, you be a clever lady!" he
+said, in admiration. "I've been three weeks learning mine."
+
+"I have heard it before," she quietly observed. "Now, would you do
+anything to please me, Charley?"
+
+"I'd do a good deal, miss."
+
+"Would you let me play your part for one night?"
+
+"Oh, miss! But your woman's gown--you couldn't."
+
+"I can get boy's clothes--at least all that would be wanted besides the
+mumming dress. What should I have to give you to lend me your things,
+to let me take your place for an hour or two on Monday night, and on no
+account to say a word about who or what I am? You would, of course, have
+to excuse yourself from playing that night, and to say that somebody--a
+cousin of Miss Vye's--would act for you. The other mummers have never
+spoken to me in their lives so that it would be safe enough; and if it
+were not, I should not mind. Now, what must I give you to agree to this?
+Half a crown?"
+
+The youth shook his head
+
+"Five shillings?"
+
+He shook his head again. "Money won't do it," he said, brushing the iron
+head of the firedog with the hollow of his hand.
+
+"What will, then, Charley?" said Eustacia in a disappointed tone.
+
+"You know what you forbade me at the Maypoling, miss," murmured the lad,
+without looking at her, and still stroking the firedog's head.
+
+"Yes," said Eustacia, with a little more hauteur. "You wanted to join
+hands with me in the ring, if I recollect?"
+
+"Half an hour of that, and I'll agree, miss."
+
+Eustacia regarded the youth steadfastly. He was three years younger
+than herself, but apparently not backward for his age. "Half an hour of
+what?" she said, though she guessed what.
+
+"Holding your hand in mine."
+
+She was silent. "Make it a quarter of an hour," she said
+
+"Yes, Miss Eustacia--I will, if I may kiss it too. A quarter of an hour.
+And I'll swear to do the best I can to let you take my place without
+anybody knowing. Don't you think somebody might know your tongue, miss?"
+
+"It is possible. But I will put a pebble in my mouth to make is less
+likely. Very well; you shall be allowed to have my hand as soon as you
+bring the dress and your sword and staff. I don't want you any longer
+now."
+
+Charley departed, and Eustacia felt more and more interest in life.
+Here was something to do: here was some one to see, and a charmingly
+adventurous way to see him. "Ah," she said to herself, "want of an
+object to live for--that's all is the matter with me!"
+
+Eustacia's manner was as a rule of a slumberous sort, her passions being
+of the massive rather than the vivacious kind. But when aroused she
+would make a dash which, just for the time, was not unlike the move of a
+naturally lively person.
+
+On the question of recognition she was somewhat indifferent. By the
+acting lads themselves she was not likely to be known. With the guests
+who might be assembled she was hardly so secure. Yet detection, after
+all, would be no such dreadful thing. The fact only could be detected,
+her true motive never. It would be instantly set down as the passing
+freak of a girl whose ways were already considered singular. That she
+was doing for an earnest reason what would most naturally be done in
+jest was at any rate a safe secret.
+
+
+The next evening Eustacia stood punctually at the fuelhouse door,
+waiting for the dusk which was to bring Charley with the trappings.
+Her grandfather was at home tonight, and she would be unable to ask her
+confederate indoors.
+
+He appeared on the dark ridge of heathland, like a fly on a Negro,
+bearing the articles with him, and came up breathless with his walk.
+
+"Here are the things," he whispered, placing them upon the threshold.
+"And now, Miss Eustacia--"
+
+"The payment. It is quite ready. I am as good as my word."
+
+She leant against the door-post, and gave him her hand. Charley took it
+in both his own with a tenderness beyond description, unless it was like
+that of a child holding a captured sparrow.
+
+"Why, there's a glove on it!" he said in a deprecating way.
+
+"I have been walking," she observed.
+
+"But, miss!"
+
+"Well--it is hardly fair." She pulled off the glove, and gave him her
+bare hand.
+
+They stood together minute after minute, without further speech, each
+looking at the blackening scene, and each thinking his and her own
+thoughts.
+
+"I think I won't use it all up tonight," said Charley devotedly, when
+six or eight minutes had been passed by him caressing her hand. "May I
+have the other few minutes another time?"
+
+"As you like," said she without the least emotion. "But it must be over
+in a week. Now, there is only one thing I want you to do--to wait while
+I put on the dress, and then to see if I do my part properly. But let me
+look first indoors."
+
+She vanished for a minute or two, and went in. Her grandfather was
+safely asleep in his chair. "Now, then," she said, on returning, "walk
+down the garden a little way, and when I am ready I'll call you."
+
+Charley walked and waited, and presently heard a soft whistle. He
+returned to the fuelhouse door.
+
+"Did you whistle, Miss Vye?"
+
+"Yes; come in," reached him in Eustacia's voice from a back quarter.
+"I must not strike a light till the door is shut, or it may be seen
+shining. Push your hat into the hole through to the wash-house, if you
+can feel your way across."
+
+Charley did as commanded, and she struck the light revealing herself
+to be changed in sex, brilliant in colours, and armed from top to toe.
+Perhaps she quailed a little under Charley's vigorous gaze, but whether
+any shyness at her male attire appeared upon her countenance could not
+be seen by reason of the strips of ribbon which used to cover the face
+in mumming costumes, representing the barred visor of the mediaeval
+helmet.
+
+"It fits pretty well," she said, looking down at the white overalls,
+"except that the tunic, or whatever you call it, is long in the sleeve.
+The bottom of the overalls I can turn up inside. Now pay attention."
+
+Eustacia then proceeded in her delivery, striking the sword against the
+staff or lance at the minatory phrases, in the orthodox mumming
+manner, and strutting up and down. Charley seasoned his admiration with
+criticism of the gentlest kind, for the touch of Eustacia's hand yet
+remained with him.
+
+"And now for your excuse to the others," she said. "Where do you meet
+before you go to Mrs. Yeobright's?"
+
+"We thought of meeting here, miss, if you have nothing to say against
+it. At eight o'clock, so as to get there by nine."
+
+"Yes. Well, you of course must not appear. I will march in about five
+minutes late, ready-dressed, and tell them that you can't come. I have
+decided that the best plan will be for you to be sent somewhere by me,
+to make a real thing of the excuse. Our two heath-croppers are in the
+habit of straying into the meads, and tomorrow evening you can go and
+see if they are gone there. I'll manage the rest. Now you may leave me."
+
+"Yes, miss. But I think I'll have one minute more of what I am owed, if
+you don't mind."
+
+Eustacia gave him her hand as before.
+
+"One minute," she said, and counted on till she reached seven or eight
+minutes. Hand and person she then withdrew to a distance of several
+feet, and recovered some of her old dignity. The contract completed, she
+raised between them a barrier impenetrable as a wall.
+
+"There, 'tis all gone; and I didn't mean quite all," he said, with a
+sigh.
+
+"You had good measure," said she, turning away.
+
+"Yes, miss. Well, 'tis over, and now I'll get home-along."
+
+
+
+
+5--Through the Moonlight
+
+
+The next evening the mummers were assembled in the same spot, awaiting
+the entrance of the Turkish Knight.
+
+"Twenty minutes after eight by the Quiet Woman, and Charley not come."
+
+"Ten minutes past by Blooms-End."
+
+"It wants ten minutes to, by Grandfer Cantle's watch."
+
+"And 'tis five minutes past by the captain's clock."
+
+On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any moment
+was a number of varying doctrines professed by the different hamlets,
+some of them having originally grown up from a common root, and then
+become divided by secession, some having been alien from the beginning.
+West Egdon believed in Blooms-End time, East Egdon in the time of the
+Quiet Woman Inn. Grandfer Cantle's watch had numbered many followers in
+years gone by, but since he had grown older faiths were shaken. Thus,
+the mummers having gathered hither from scattered points each came with
+his own tenets on early and late; and they waited a little longer as a
+compromise.
+
+Eustacia had watched the assemblage through the hole; and seeing that
+now was the proper moment to enter, she went from the "linhay" and
+boldly pulled the bobbin of the fuelhouse door. Her grandfather was safe
+at the Quiet Woman.
+
+"Here's Charley at last! How late you be, Charley."
+
+"'Tis not Charley," said the Turkish Knight from within his visor. "'Tis
+a cousin of Miss Vye's, come to take Charley's place from curiosity. He
+was obliged to go and look for the heath-croppers that have got into the
+meads, and I agreed to take his place, as he knew he couldn't come back
+here again tonight. I know the part as well as he."
+
+Her graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general won
+the mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if the
+newcomer were perfect in his part.
+
+"It don't matter--if you be not too young," said Saint George.
+Eustacia's voice had sounded somewhat more juvenile and fluty than
+Charley's.
+
+"I know every word of it, I tell you," said Eustacia decisively. Dash
+being all that was required to carry her triumphantly through, she
+adopted as much as was necessary. "Go ahead, lads, with the try-over.
+I'll challenge any of you to find a mistake in me."
+
+The play was hastily rehearsed, whereupon the other mummers were
+delighted with the new knight. They extinguished the candles at
+half-past eight, and set out upon the heath in the direction of Mrs.
+Yeobright's house at Bloom's-End.
+
+There was a slight hoarfrost that night, and the moon, though not
+more than half full, threw a spirited and enticing brightness upon the
+fantastic figures of the mumming band, whose plumes and ribbons rustled
+in their walk like autumn leaves. Their path was not over Rainbarrow
+now, but down a valley which left that ancient elevation a little to
+the east. The bottom of the vale was green to a width of ten yards or
+thereabouts, and the shining facets of frost upon the blades of grass
+seemed to move on with the shadows of those they surrounded. The masses
+of furze and heath to the right and left were dark as ever; a mere
+half-moon was powerless to silver such sable features as theirs.
+
+Half-an-hour of walking and talking brought them to the spot in the
+valley where the grass riband widened and led down to the front of the
+house. At sight of the place Eustacia who had felt a few passing doubts
+during her walk with the youths, again was glad that the adventure had
+been undertaken. She had come out to see a man who might possibly have
+the power to deliver her soul from a most deadly oppression. What was
+Wildeve? Interesting, but inadequate. Perhaps she would see a sufficient
+hero tonight.
+
+As they drew nearer to the front of the house the mummers became aware
+that music and dancing were briskly flourishing within. Every now
+and then a long low note from the serpent, which was the chief wind
+instrument played at these times, advanced further into the heath than
+the thin treble part, and reached their ears alone; and next a more
+than usual loud tread from a dancer would come the same way. With nearer
+approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together, and were found
+to be the salient points of the tune called "Nancy's Fancy."
+
+He was there, of course. Who was she that he danced with? Perhaps some
+unknown woman, far beneath herself in culture, was by the most subtle
+of lures sealing his fate this very instant. To dance with a man is to
+concentrate a twelvemonth's regulation fire upon him in the fragment of
+an hour. To pass to courtship without acquaintance, to pass to marriage
+without courtship, is a skipping of terms reserved for those alone
+who tread this royal road. She would see how his heart lay by keen
+observation of them all.
+
+The enterprising lady followed the mumming company through the gate
+in the white paling, and stood before the open porch. The house was
+encrusted with heavy thatchings, which dropped between the upper
+windows; the front, upon which the moonbeams directly played, had
+originally been white; but a huge pyracanth now darkened the greater
+portion.
+
+It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately
+within the surface of the door, no apartment intervening. The brushing
+of skirts and elbows, sometimes the bumping of shoulders, could be heard
+against the very panels. Eustacia, though living within two miles of
+the place, had never seen the interior of this quaint old habitation.
+Between Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never existed much
+acquaintance, the former having come as a stranger and purchased the
+long-empty house at Mistover Knap not long before the death of Mrs.
+Yeobright's husband; and with that event and the departure of her son
+such friendship as had grown up became quite broken off.
+
+"Is there no passage inside the door, then?" asked Eustacia as they
+stood within the porch.
+
+"No," said the lad who played the Saracen. "The door opens right upon
+the front sitting-room, where the spree's going on."
+
+"So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance."
+
+"That's it. Here we must bide till they have done, for they always bolt
+the back door after dark."
+
+"They won't be much longer," said Father Christmas.
+
+This assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event. Again the
+instruments ended the tune; again they recommenced with as much fire and
+pathos as if it were the first strain. The air was now that one without
+any particular beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps, among all the
+dances which throng an inspired fiddler's fancy, best conveys the
+idea of the interminable--the celebrated "Devil's Dream." The fury of
+personal movement that was kindled by the fury of the notes could be
+approximately imagined by these outsiders under the moon, from the
+occasional kicks of toes and heels against the door, whenever the whirl
+round had been of more than customary velocity.
+
+The first five minutes of listening was interesting enough to the
+mummers. The five minutes extended to ten minutes, and these to a
+quarter of an hour; but no signs of ceasing were audible in the lively
+"Dream." The bumping against the door, the laughter, the stamping, were
+all as vigorous as ever, and the pleasure in being outside lessened
+considerably.
+
+"Why does Mrs. Yeobright give parties of this sort?" Eustacia asked, a
+little surprised to hear merriment so pronounced.
+
+"It is not one of her bettermost parlour-parties. She's asked the plain
+neighbours and workpeople without drawing any lines, just to give 'em a
+good supper and such like. Her son and she wait upon the folks."
+
+"I see," said Eustacia.
+
+"'Tis the last strain, I think," said Saint George, with his ear to the
+panel. "A young man and woman have just swung into this corner, and he's
+saying to her, 'Ah, the pity; 'tis over for us this time, my own.'"
+
+"Thank God," said the Turkish Knight, stamping, and taking from the wall
+the conventional lance that each of the mummers carried. Her boots being
+thinner than those of the young men, the hoar had damped her feet and
+made them cold.
+
+"Upon my song 'tis another ten minutes for us," said the Valiant
+Soldier, looking through the keyhole as the tune modulated into another
+without stopping. "Grandfer Cantle is standing in this corner, waiting
+his turn."
+
+"'Twon't be long; 'tis a six-handed reel," said the Doctor.
+
+"Why not go in, dancing or no? They sent for us," said the Saracen.
+
+"Certainly not," said Eustacia authoritatively, as she paced smartly up
+and down from door to gate to warm herself. "We should burst into the
+middle of them and stop the dance, and that would be unmannerly."
+
+"He thinks himself somebody because he has had a bit more schooling than
+we," said the Doctor.
+
+"You may go to the deuce!" said Eustacia.
+
+There was a whispered conversation between three or four of them, and
+one turned to her.
+
+"Will you tell us one thing?" he said, not without gentleness. "Be you
+Miss Vye? We think you must be."
+
+"You may think what you like," said Eustacia slowly. "But honourable
+lads will not tell tales upon a lady."
+
+"We'll say nothing, miss. That's upon our honour."
+
+"Thank you," she replied.
+
+At this moment the fiddles finished off with a screech, and the
+serpent emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the
+comparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken
+their seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his
+head inside the door.
+
+"Ah, the mummers, the mummers!" cried several guests at once. "Clear a
+space for the mummers."
+
+Humpbacked Father Christmas then made a complete entry, swinging his
+huge club, and in a general way clearing the stage for the actors
+proper, while he informed the company in smart verse that he was come,
+welcome or welcome not; concluding his speech with
+
+          "Make room, make room, my gallant boys,
+            And give us space to rhyme;
+           We've come to show Saint George's play,
+             Upon this Christmas time."
+
+The guests were now arranging themselves at one end of the room, the
+fiddler was mending a string, the serpent-player was emptying his
+mouthpiece, and the play began. First of those outside the Valiant
+Soldier entered, in the interest of Saint George--
+
+     "Here come I, the Valiant Soldier;
+            Slasher is my name";
+
+and so on. This speech concluded with a challenge to the infidel, at the
+end of which it was Eustacia's duty to enter as the Turkish Knight.
+She, with the rest who were not yet on, had hitherto remained in the
+moonlight which streamed under the porch. With no apparent effort or
+backwardness she came in, beginning--
+
+     "Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
+     Who learnt in Turkish land to fight;
+     I'll fight this man with courage bold:
+     If his blood's hot I'll make it cold!"
+
+During her declamation Eustacia held her head erect, and spoke as
+roughly as she could, feeling pretty secure from observation. But the
+concentration upon her part necessary to prevent discovery, the newness
+of the scene, the shine of the candles, and the confusing effect upon
+her vision of the ribboned visor which hid her features, left her
+absolutely unable to perceive who were present as spectators. On the
+further side of a table bearing candles she could faintly discern faces,
+and that was all.
+
+Meanwhile Jim Starks as the Valiant Soldier had come forward, and, with
+a glare upon the Turk, replied--
+
+     "If, then, thou art that Turkish Knight,
+     Draw out thy sword, and let us fight!"
+
+And fight they did; the issue of the combat being that the Valiant
+Soldier was slain by a preternaturally inadequate thrust from Eustacia,
+Jim, in his ardour for genuine histrionic art, coming down like a log
+upon the stone floor with force enough to dislocate his shoulder. Then,
+after more words from the Turkish Knight, rather too faintly delivered,
+and statements that he'd fight Saint George and all his crew, Saint
+George himself magnificently entered with the well-known flourish--
+
+          "Here come I, Saint George, the valiant man,
+           With naked sword and spear in hand,
+     Who fought the dragon and brought him to the slaughter,
+     And by this won fair Sabra, the King of Egypt's
+     daughter;
+         What mortal man would dare to stand
+         Before me with my sword in hand?"
+
+This was the lad who had first recognized Eustacia; and when she now, as
+the Turk, replied with suitable defiance, and at once began the combat,
+the young fellow took especial care to use his sword as gently as
+possible. Being wounded, the Knight fell upon one knee, according to the
+direction. The Doctor now entered, restored the Knight by giving him
+a draught from the bottle which he carried, and the fight was again
+resumed, the Turk sinking by degrees until quite overcome--dying as hard
+in this venerable drama as he is said to do at the present day.
+
+This gradual sinking to the earth was, in fact, one reason why Eustacia
+had thought that the part of the Turkish Knight, though not the
+shortest, would suit her best. A direct fall from upright to horizontal,
+which was the end of the other fighting characters, was not an elegant
+or decorous part for a girl. But it was easy to die like a Turk, by a
+dogged decline.
+
+Eustacia was now among the number of the slain, though not on the
+floor, for she had managed to sink into a sloping position against
+the clock-case, so that her head was well elevated. The play proceeded
+between Saint George, the Saracen, the Doctor, and Father Christmas;
+and Eustacia, having no more to do, for the first time found leisure to
+observe the scene round, and to search for the form that had drawn her
+hither.
+
+
+
+
+6--The Two Stand Face to Face
+
+
+The room had been arranged with a view to the dancing, the large oak
+table having been moved back till it stood as a breastwork to the
+fireplace. At each end, behind, and in the chimney-corner were grouped
+the guests, many of them being warm-faced and panting, among whom
+Eustacia cursorily recognized some well-to-do persons from beyond the
+heath. Thomasin, as she had expected, was not visible, and Eustacia
+recollected that a light had shone from an upper window when they were
+outside--the window, probably, of Thomasin's room. A nose, chin, hands,
+knees, and toes projected from the seat within the chimney opening,
+which members she found to unite in the person of Grandfer Cantle, Mrs.
+Yeobright's occasional assistant in the garden, and therefore one of the
+invited. The smoke went up from an Etna of peat in front of him, played
+round the notches of the chimney-crook, struck against the salt-box, and
+got lost among the flitches.
+
+Another part of the room soon riveted her gaze. At the other side of the
+chimney stood the settle, which is the necessary supplement to a fire so
+open that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up the smoke. It
+is, to the hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces, what the east
+belt of trees is to the exposed country estate, or the north wall to
+the garden. Outside the settle candles gutter, locks of hair wave, young
+women shiver, and old men sneeze. Inside is Paradise. Not a symptom of a
+draught disturbs the air; the sitters' backs are as warm as their faces,
+and songs and old tales are drawn from the occupants by the comfortable
+heat, like fruit from melon plants in a frame.
+
+It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that Eustacia was
+concerned. A face showed itself with marked distinctness against the
+dark-tanned wood of the upper part. The owner, who was leaning against
+the settle's outer end, was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as he was called
+here; she knew it could be nobody else. The spectacle constituted an
+area of two feet in Rembrandt's intensest manner. A strange power in the
+lounger's appearance lay in the fact that, though his whole figure was
+visible, the observer's eye was only aware of his face.
+
+To one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man, though a
+youth might hardly have seen any necessity for the term of immaturity.
+But it was really one of those faces which convey less the idea of
+so many years as its age than of so much experience as its store. The
+number of their years may have adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel,
+and the rest of the antediluvians, but the age of a modern man is to be
+measured by the intensity of his history.
+
+The face was well shaped, even excellently. But the mind within
+was beginning to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon to trace its
+idiosyncrasies as they developed themselves. The beauty here visible
+would in no long time be ruthlessly over-run by its parasite, thought,
+which might just as well have fed upon a plainer exterior where there
+was nothing it could harm. Had Heaven preserved Yeobright from a wearing
+habit of meditation, people would have said, "A handsome man." Had
+his brain unfolded under sharper contours they would have said, "A
+thoughtful man." But an inner strenuousness was preying upon an outer
+symmetry, and they rated his look as singular.
+
+Hence people who began by beholding him ended by perusing him.
+His countenance was overlaid with legible meanings. Without being
+thought-worn he yet had certain marks derived from a perception of his
+surroundings, such as are not unfrequently found on men at the end of
+the four or five years of endeavour which follow the close of placid
+pupilage. He already showed that thought is a disease of flesh, and
+indirectly bore evidence that ideal physical beauty is incompatible
+with emotional development and a full recognition of the coil of things.
+Mental luminousness must be fed with the oil of life, even though there
+is already a physical need for it; and the pitiful sight of two demands
+on one supply was just showing itself here.
+
+When standing before certain men the philosopher regrets that thinkers
+are but perishable tissue, the artist that perishable tissue has to
+think. Thus to deplore, each from his point of view, the mutually
+destructive interdependence of spirit and flesh would have been
+instinctive with these in critically observing Yeobright.
+
+As for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against
+depression from without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested
+isolation, but it revealed something more. As is usual with bright
+natures, the deity that lies ignominiously chained within an ephemeral
+human carcase shone out of him like a ray.
+
+The effect upon Eustacia was palpable. The extraordinary pitch of
+excitement that she had reached beforehand would, indeed, have caused
+her to be influenced by the most commonplace man. She was troubled at
+Yeobright's presence.
+
+The remainder of the play ended--the Saracen's head was cut off, and
+Saint George stood as victor. Nobody commented, any more than they would
+have commented on the fact of mushrooms coming in autumn or snowdrops
+in spring. They took the piece as phlegmatically as did the actors
+themselves. It was a phase of cheerfulness which was, as a matter of
+course, to be passed through every Christmas; and there was no more to
+be said.
+
+They sang the plaintive chant which follows the play, during which all
+the dead men rise to their feet in a silent and awful manner, like the
+ghosts of Napoleon's soldiers in the Midnight Review. Afterwards the
+door opened, and Fairway appeared on the threshold, accompanied by
+Christian and another. They had been waiting outside for the conclusion
+of the play, as the players had waited for the conclusion of the dance.
+
+"Come in, come in," said Mrs. Yeobright; and Clym went forward to
+welcome them. "How is it you are so late? Grandfer Cantle has been here
+ever so long, and we thought you'd have come with him, as you live so
+near one another."
+
+"Well, I should have come earlier," Mr. Fairway said and paused to
+look along the beam of the ceiling for a nail to hang his hat on; but,
+finding his accustomed one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all
+the nails in the walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at
+last relieved himself of the hat by ticklishly balancing it between the
+candle-box and the head of the clock-case. "I should have come earlier,
+ma'am," he resumed, with a more composed air, "but I know what parties
+be, and how there's none too much room in folks' houses at such times,
+so I thought I wouldn't come till you'd got settled a bit."
+
+"And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright," said Christian earnestly, "but
+Father there was so eager that he had no manners at all, and left home
+almost afore 'twas dark. I told him 'twas barely decent in a' old man to
+come so oversoon; but words be wind."
+
+"Klk! I wasn't going to bide waiting about, till half the game was over!
+I'm as light as a kite when anything's going on!" crowed Grandfer Cantle
+from the chimneyseat.
+
+Fairway had meanwhile concluded a critical gaze at Yeobright. "Now,
+you may not believe it," he said to the rest of the room, "but I should
+never have knowed this gentleman if I had met him anywhere off his own
+he'th--he's altered so much."
+
+"You too have altered, and for the better, I think Timothy," said
+Yeobright, surveying the firm figure of Fairway.
+
+"Master Yeobright, look me over too. I have altered for the better,
+haven't I, hey?" said Grandfer Cantle, rising and placing himself
+something above half a foot from Clym's eye, to induce the most
+searching criticism.
+
+"To be sure we will," said Fairway, taking the candle and moving it over
+the surface of the Grandfer's countenance, the subject of his scrutiny
+irradiating himself with light and pleasant smiles, and giving himself
+jerks of juvenility.
+
+"You haven't changed much," said Yeobright.
+
+"If there's any difference, Grandfer is younger," appended Fairway
+decisively.
+
+"And yet not my own doing, and I feel no pride in it," said the pleased
+ancient. "But I can't be cured of my vagaries; them I plead guilty to.
+Yes, Master Cantle always was that, as we know. But I am nothing by the
+side of you, Mister Clym."
+
+"Nor any o' us," said Humphrey, in a low rich tone of admiration, not
+intended to reach anybody's ears.
+
+"Really, there would have been nobody here who could have stood as
+decent second to him, or even third, if I hadn't been a soldier in the
+Bang-up Locals (as we was called for our smartness)," said Grandfer
+Cantle. "And even as 'tis we all look a little scammish beside him. But
+in the year four 'twas said there wasn't a finer figure in the whole
+South Wessex than I, as I looked when dashing past the shop-winders with
+the rest of our company on the day we ran out o' Budmouth because it was
+thoughted that Boney had landed round the point. There was I, straight
+as a young poplar, wi' my firelock, and my bagnet, and my spatterdashes,
+and my stock sawing my jaws off, and my accoutrements sheening like
+the seven stars! Yes, neighbours, I was a pretty sight in my soldiering
+days. You ought to have seen me in four!"
+
+"'Tis his mother's side where Master Clym's figure comes from, bless
+ye," said Timothy. "I know'd her brothers well. Longer coffins were
+never made in the whole country of South Wessex, and 'tis said that poor
+George's knees were crumpled up a little e'en as 'twas."
+
+"Coffins, where?" inquired Christian, drawing nearer. "Have the ghost of
+one appeared to anybody, Master Fairway?"
+
+"No, no. Don't let your mind so mislead your ears, Christian; and be a
+man," said Timothy reproachfully.
+
+"I will." said Christian. "But now I think o't my shadder last night
+seemed just the shape of a coffin. What is it a sign of when your
+shade's like a coffin, neighbours? It can't be nothing to be afeared of,
+I suppose?"
+
+"Afeared, no!" said the Grandfer. "Faith, I was never afeard of nothing
+except Boney, or I shouldn't ha' been the soldier I was. Yes, 'tis a
+thousand pities you didn't see me in four!"
+
+By this time the mummers were preparing to leave; but Mrs. Yeobright
+stopped them by asking them to sit down and have a little supper. To
+this invitation Father Christmas, in the name of them all, readily
+agreed.
+
+Eustacia was happy in the opportunity of staying a little longer.
+The cold and frosty night without was doubly frigid to her. But the
+lingering was not without its difficulties. Mrs. Yeobright, for want
+of room in the larger apartment, placed a bench for the mummers halfway
+through the pantry door, which opened from the sitting-room. Here they
+seated themselves in a row, the door being left open--thus they were
+still virtually in the same apartment. Mrs. Yeobright now murmured a few
+words to her son, who crossed the room to the pantry door, striking his
+head against the mistletoe as he passed, and brought the mummers beef
+and bread, cake pastry, mead, and elder-wine, the waiting being done by
+him and his mother, that the little maid-servant might sit as guest. The
+mummers doffed their helmets, and began to eat and drink.
+
+"But you will surely have some?" said Clym to the Turkish Knight, as he
+stood before that warrior, tray in hand. She had refused, and still sat
+covered, only the sparkle of her eyes being visible between the ribbons
+which covered her face.
+
+"None, thank you," replied Eustacia.
+
+"He's quite a youngster," said the Saracen apologetically, "and you
+must excuse him. He's not one of the old set, but have jined us because
+t'other couldn't come."
+
+"But he will take something?" persisted Yeobright. "Try a glass of mead
+or elder-wine."
+
+"Yes, you had better try that," said the Saracen. "It will keep the cold
+out going home-along."
+
+Though Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face she could
+drink easily enough beneath her disguise. The elder-wine was accordingly
+accepted, and the glass vanished inside the ribbons.
+
+At moments during this performance Eustacia was half in doubt about
+the security of her position; yet it had a fearful joy. A series of
+attentions paid to her, and yet not to her but to some imaginary person,
+by the first man she had ever been inclined to adore, complicated
+her emotions indescribably. She had loved him partly because he was
+exceptional in this scene, partly because she had determined to love
+him, chiefly because she was in desperate need of loving somebody
+after wearying of Wildeve. Believing that she must love him in spite of
+herself, she had been influenced after the fashion of the second Lord
+Lyttleton and other persons, who have dreamed that they were to die on a
+certain day, and by stress of a morbid imagination have actually brought
+about that event. Once let a maiden admit the possibility of her being
+stricken with love for someone at a certain hour and place, and the
+thing is as good as done.
+
+Did anything at this moment suggest to Yeobright the sex of the creature
+whom that fantastic guise inclosed, how extended was her scope both in
+feeling and in making others feel, and how far her compass transcended
+that of her companions in the band? When the disguised Queen of Love
+appeared before Aeneas a preternatural perfume accompanied her presence
+and betrayed her quality. If such a mysterious emanation ever was
+projected by the emotions of an earthly woman upon their object, it must
+have signified Eustacia's presence to Yeobright now. He looked at her
+wistfully, then seemed to fall into a reverie, as if he were forgetting
+what he observed. The momentary situation ended, he passed on, and
+Eustacia sipped her wine without knowing what she drank. The man for
+whom she had pre-determined to nourish a passion went into the small
+room, and across it to the further extremity.
+
+The mummers, as has been stated, were seated on a bench, one end of
+which extended into the small apartment, or pantry, for want of space
+in the outer room. Eustacia, partly from shyness, had chosen the midmost
+seat, which thus commanded a view of the interior of the pantry as well
+as the room containing the guests. When Clym passed down the pantry her
+eyes followed him in the gloom which prevailed there. At the remote
+end was a door which, just as he was about to open it for himself, was
+opened by somebody within; and light streamed forth.
+
+The person was Thomasin, with a candle, looking anxious, pale, and
+interesting. Yeobright appeared glad to see her, and pressed her hand.
+"That's right, Tamsie," he said heartily, as though recalled to himself
+by the sight of her, "you have decided to come down. I am glad of it."
+
+"Hush--no, no," she said quickly. "I only came to speak to you."
+
+"But why not join us?"
+
+"I cannot. At least I would rather not. I am not well enough, and we
+shall have plenty of time together now you are going to be home a good
+long holiday."
+
+"It isn't nearly so pleasant without you. Are you really ill?"
+
+"Just a little, my old cousin--here," she said, playfully sweeping her
+hand across her heart.
+
+"Ah, Mother should have asked somebody else to be present tonight,
+perhaps?"
+
+"O no, indeed. I merely stepped down, Clym, to ask you--" Here he
+followed her through the doorway into the private room beyond, and,
+the door closing, Eustacia and the mummer who sat next to her, the only
+other witness of the performance, saw and heard no more.
+
+The heat flew to Eustacia's head and cheeks. She instantly guessed that
+Clym, having been home only these two or three days, had not as yet
+been made acquainted with Thomasin's painful situation with regard to
+Wildeve; and seeing her living there just as she had been living before
+he left home, he naturally suspected nothing. Eustacia felt a wild
+jealousy of Thomasin on the instant. Though Thomasin might possibly have
+tender sentiments towards another man as yet, how long could they be
+expected to last when she was shut up here with this interesting and
+travelled cousin of hers? There was no knowing what affection might not
+soon break out between the two, so constantly in each other's society,
+and not a distracting object near. Clym's boyish love for her might have
+languished, but it might easily be revived again.
+
+Eustacia was nettled by her own contrivances. What a sheer waste of
+herself to be dressed thus while another was shining to advantage! Had
+she known the full effect of the encounter she would have moved heaven
+and earth to get here in a natural manner. The power of her face all
+lost, the charm of her emotions all disguised, the fascinations of her
+coquetry denied existence, nothing but a voice left to her; she had a
+sense of the doom of Echo. "Nobody here respects me," she said. She had
+overlooked the fact that, in coming as a boy among other boys, she
+would be treated as a boy. The slight, though of her own causing, and
+self-explanatory, she was unable to dismiss as unwittingly shown, so
+sensitive had the situation made her.
+
+Women have done much for themselves in histrionic dress. To look far
+below those who, like a certain fair personator of Polly Peachum early
+in the last century, and another of Lydia Languish early in this, (1)
+have won not only love but ducal coronets into the bargain, whole shoals
+of them have reached to the initial satisfaction of getting love almost
+whence they would. But the Turkish Knight was denied even the chance
+of achieving this by the fluttering ribbons which she dared not brush
+aside.
+
+     (1) Written in 1877.
+
+Yeobright returned to the room without his cousin. When within two or
+three feet of Eustacia he stopped, as if again arrested by a thought.
+He was gazing at her. She looked another way, disconcerted, and wondered
+how long this purgatory was to last. After lingering a few seconds he
+passed on again.
+
+To court their own discomfiture by love is a common instinct with
+certain perfervid women. Conflicting sensations of love, fear, and shame
+reduced Eustacia to a state of the utmost uneasiness. To escape was her
+great and immediate desire. The other mummers appeared to be in no
+hurry to leave; and murmuring to the lad who sat next to her that she
+preferred waiting for them outside the house, she moved to the door as
+imperceptibly as possible, opened it, and slipped out.
+
+The calm, lone scene reassured her. She went forward to the palings and
+leant over them, looking at the moon. She had stood thus but a little
+time when the door again opened. Expecting to see the remainder of the
+band Eustacia turned; but no--Clym Yeobright came out as softly as she
+had done, and closed the door behind him.
+
+He advanced and stood beside her. "I have an odd opinion," he said, "and
+should like to ask you a question. Are you a woman--or am I wrong?"
+
+"I am a woman."
+
+His eyes lingered on her with great interest. "Do girls often play as
+mummers now? They never used to."
+
+"They don't now."
+
+"Why did you?"
+
+"To get excitement and shake off depression," she said in low tones.
+
+"What depressed you?"
+
+"Life."
+
+"That's a cause of depression a good many have to put up with."
+
+"Yes."
+
+A long silence. "And do you find excitement?" asked Clym at last.
+
+"At this moment, perhaps."
+
+"Then you are vexed at being discovered?"
+
+"Yes; though I thought I might be."
+
+"I would gladly have asked you to our party had I known you wished to
+come. Have I ever been acquainted with you in my youth?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Won't you come in again, and stay as long as you like?"
+
+"No. I wish not to be further recognized."
+
+"Well, you are safe with me." After remaining in thought a minute he
+added gently, "I will not intrude upon you longer. It is a strange way
+of meeting, and I will not ask why I find a cultivated woman playing
+such a part as this."
+
+She did not volunteer the reason which he seemed to hope for, and he
+wished her good night, going thence round to the back of the house,
+where he walked up and down by himself for some time before re-
+entering.
+
+Eustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for her companions
+after this. She flung back the ribbons from her face, opened the
+gate, and at once struck into the heath. She did not hasten along. Her
+grandfather was in bed at this hour, for she so frequently walked upon
+the hills on moonlight nights that he took no notice of her comings and
+goings, and, enjoying himself in his own way, left her to do likewise.
+A more important subject than that of getting indoors now engrossed her.
+Yeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would infallibly discover her
+name. What then? She first felt a sort of exultation at the way in
+which the adventure had terminated, even though at moments between
+her exultations she was abashed and blushful. Then this consideration
+recurred to chill her: What was the use of her exploit? She was at
+present a total stranger to the Yeobright family. The unreasonable
+nimbus of romance with which she had encircled that man might be her
+misery. How could she allow herself to become so infatuated with a
+stranger? And to fill the cup of her sorrow there would be Thomasin,
+living day after day in inflammable proximity to him; for she had just
+learnt that, contrary to her first belief, he was going to stay at home
+some considerable time.
+
+She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she
+turned and faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood above
+the hills, and the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was charged with
+silence and frost. The scene reminded Eustacia of a circumstance which
+till that moment she had totally forgotten. She had promised to meet
+Wildeve by the Barrow this very night at eight, to give a final answer
+to his pleading for an elopement.
+
+She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come to
+the spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.
+
+"Well, so much the better--it did not hurt him," she said serenely.
+Wildeve had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked
+glass, and she could say such things as that with the greatest facility.
+
+She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin's winning manner towards her
+cousin arose again upon Eustacia's mind.
+
+"O that she had been married to Damon before this!" she said. "And
+she would if it hadn't been for me! If I had only known--if I had only
+known!"
+
+Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and,
+sighing that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder,
+entered the shadow of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the
+outhouse, rolled them up, and went indoors to her chamber.
+
+
+
+
+7--A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
+
+
+The old captain's prevailing indifference to his granddaughter's
+movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so
+happened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why
+she had walked out so late.
+
+"Only in search of events, Grandfather," she said, looking out of the
+window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much force
+behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.
+
+"Search of events--one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at
+one-and-twenty."
+
+"It is lonely here."
+
+"So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be
+taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been home
+when I returned from the Woman."
+
+"I won't conceal what I did. I wanted an adventure, and I went with the
+mummers. I played the part of the Turkish Knight."
+
+"No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn't expect it of you, Eustacia."
+
+"It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last. Now I
+have told you--and remember it is a secret."
+
+"Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did--ha! ha! Dammy, how 'twould
+have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl.
+You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you don't
+bother me; but no figuring in breeches again."
+
+"You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa."
+
+Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia's moral training never exceeding
+in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became profitable
+to good works, would be a result not dear at the price. But her thoughts
+soon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a passionate and
+indescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not even a name, she
+went forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around her, restless as
+Ahasuerus the Jew. She was about half a mile from her residence when
+she beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a little way in
+advance--dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight and she guessed it to
+signify Diggory Venn.
+
+When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle during
+the last month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people replied,
+"On Egdon Heath." Day after day the answer was the same. Now, since
+Egdon was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather than
+with sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most of the latter were
+to be found lay some to the north, some to the west of Egdon, his
+reason for camping about there like Israel in Zin was not apparent. The
+position was central and occasionally desirable. But the sale of reddle
+was not Diggory's primary object in remaining on the heath, particularly
+at so late a period of the year, when most travellers of his class had
+gone into winter quarters.
+
+Eustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at their last
+meeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright as one ready
+and anxious to take his place as Thomasin's betrothed. His figure
+was perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eye bright, his
+intelligence keen, and his position one which he could readily better if
+he chose. But in spite of possibilities it was not likely that Thomasin
+would accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she had a cousin like
+Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time not absolutely
+indifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor Mrs. Yeobright,
+in her anxiety for her niece's future, had mentioned this lover to
+stimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the side of the
+Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt's desire.
+
+"Good morning, miss," said the reddleman, taking off his cap of
+hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of
+their last meeting.
+
+"Good morning, reddleman," she said, hardly troubling to lift her
+heavily shaded eyes to his. "I did not know you were so near. Is your
+van here too?"
+
+Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of
+purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to
+form a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter
+in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their
+leaves.
+
+The roof and chimney of Venn's caravan showed behind the tracery and
+tangles of the brake.
+
+"You remain near this part?" she asked with more interest.
+
+"Yes, I have business here."
+
+"Not altogether the selling of reddle?"
+
+"It has nothing to do with that."
+
+"It has to do with Miss Yeobright?"
+
+Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said
+frankly, "Yes, miss; it is on account of her."
+
+"On account of your approaching marriage with her?"
+
+Venn flushed through his stain. "Don't make sport of me, Miss Vye," he
+said.
+
+"It isn't true?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere pis aller in Mrs.
+Yeobright's mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his
+promotion to that lowly standing. "It was a mere notion of mine," she
+said quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech, when,
+looking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure
+serpentining upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top
+where she stood. Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back
+was at present towards them. She glanced quickly round; to escape that
+man there was only one way. Turning to Venn, she said, "Would you allow
+me to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp for sitting
+on."
+
+"Certainly, miss; I'll make a place for you."
+
+She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling
+into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the
+door.
+
+"That is the best I can do for you," he said, stepping down and retiring
+to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he walked up
+and down.
+
+Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from
+view on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of
+other feet than the reddleman's, a not very friendly "Good day"
+uttered by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the
+foot-fall of one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her
+neck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders;
+and she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why. It was the
+sickening feeling which, if the changed heart has any generosity at all
+in its composition, accompanies the sudden sight of a once-loved one who
+is beloved no more.
+
+When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near.
+"That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss," he said slowly, and expressed
+by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting
+unseen.
+
+"Yes, I saw him coming up the hill," replied Eustacia. "Why should
+you tell me that?" It was a bold question, considering the reddleman's
+knowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner had power to
+repress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.
+
+"I am glad to hear that you can ask it," said the reddleman bluntly.
+"And, now I think of it, it agrees with what I saw last night."
+
+"Ah--what was that?" Eustacia wished to leave him, but wished to know.
+
+"Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting for a lady who
+didn't come."
+
+"You waited too, it seems?"
+
+"Yes, I always do. I was glad to see him disappointed. He will be there
+again tonight."
+
+"To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady, so
+far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin's marriage with Mr.
+Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it."
+
+Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it
+clearly; that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from
+expectation, but it is usually withheld in complicated cases of two
+removes and upwards. "Indeed, miss," he replied.
+
+"How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again
+tonight?" she asked.
+
+"I heard him say to himself that he would. He's in a regular temper."
+
+Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting
+her deep dark eyes anxiously to his, "I wish I knew what to do. I don't
+want to be uncivil to him; but I don't wish to see him again; and I have
+some few little things to return to him."
+
+"If you choose to send 'em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that you
+wish to say no more to him, I'll take it for you quite privately. That
+would be the most straightforward way of letting him know your mind."
+
+"Very well," said Eustacia. "Come towards my house, and I will bring it
+out to you."
+
+She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the
+shaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her trail.
+She saw from a distance that the captain was on the bank sweeping the
+horizon with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he stood she
+entered the house alone.
+
+In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in
+placing them in his hand, "Why are you so ready to take these for me?"
+
+"Can you ask that?"
+
+"I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as
+anxious as ever to help on her marriage?"
+
+Venn was a little moved. "I would sooner have married her myself," he
+said in a low voice. "But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy
+without him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man
+ought."
+
+Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What
+a strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of
+selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion,
+and sometimes its only one! The reddleman's disinterestedness was so
+well deserving of respect that it overshot respect by being barely
+comprehended; and she almost thought it absurd.
+
+"Then we are both of one mind at last," she said.
+
+"Yes," replied Venn gloomily. "But if you would tell me, miss, why you
+take such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden and
+strange."
+
+Eustacia appeared at a loss. "I cannot tell you that, reddleman," she
+said coldly.
+
+Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia, went
+away.
+
+Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended the
+long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from
+the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia's emissary.
+He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young inn-keeper and
+ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of Ithuriel's spear.
+
+"The meeting is always at eight o'clock, at this place," said Venn, "and
+here we are--we three."
+
+"We three?" said Wildeve, looking quickly round.
+
+"Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she." He held up the letter and
+parcel.
+
+Wildeve took them wonderingly. "I don't quite see what this means," he
+said. "How do you come here? There must be some mistake."
+
+"It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter.
+Lanterns for one." The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of
+tallow-candle which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.
+
+"Who are you?" said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-light an obscure
+rubicundity of person in his companion. "You are the reddleman I saw on
+the hill this morning--why, you are the man who----"
+
+"Please read the letter."
+
+"If you had come from the other one I shouldn't have been surprised,"
+murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face grew
+serious.
+
+
+TO MR. WILDEVE.
+
+After some thought I have decided once and for all that we must hold
+no further communication. The more I consider the matter the more I am
+convinced that there must be an end to our acquaintance. Had you been
+uniformly faithful to me throughout these two years you might now have
+some ground for accusing me of heartlessness; but if you calmly consider
+what I bore during the period of your desertion, and how I passively put
+up with your courtship of another without once interfering, you will, I
+think, own that I have a right to consult my own feelings when you come
+back to me again. That these are not what they were towards you may,
+perhaps, be a fault in me, but it is one which you can scarcely reproach
+me for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin.
+
+The little articles you gave me in the early part of our friendship are
+returned by the bearer of this letter. They should rightly have been
+sent back when I first heard of your engagement to her.
+
+EUSTACIA.
+
+
+
+By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which he
+had read the first half of the letter intensified to mortification. "I
+am made a great fool of, one way and another," he said pettishly. "Do
+you know what is in this letter?"
+
+The reddleman hummed a tune.
+
+"Can't you answer me?" asked Wildeve warmly.
+
+"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang the reddleman.
+
+Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn's feet, till he allowed
+his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory's form, as illuminated by the
+candle, to his head and face. "Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I deserve it,
+considering how I have played with them both," he said at last, as much
+to himself as to Venn. "But of all the odd things that ever I knew, the
+oddest is that you should so run counter to your own interests as to
+bring this to me."
+
+"My interests?"
+
+"Certainly. 'Twas your interest not to do anything which would send me
+courting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you--or something like it.
+Mrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. 'Tisn't true, then?"
+
+"Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn't believe it. When did she
+say so?"
+
+Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.
+
+"I don't believe it now," cried Venn.
+
+"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang Wildeve.
+
+"O Lord--how we can imitate!" said Venn contemptuously. "I'll have this
+out. I'll go straight to her."
+
+Diggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve's eye passing over his
+form in withering derision, as if he were no more than a heath-cropper.
+When the reddleman's figure could no longer be seen, Wildeve himself
+descended and plunged into the rayless hollow of the vale.
+
+To lose the two women--he who had been the well-beloved of both--was too
+ironical an issue to be endured. He could only decently save himself
+by Thomasin; and once he became her husband, Eustacia's repentance, he
+thought, would set in for a long and bitter term. It was no wonder that
+Wildeve, ignorant of the new man at the back of the scene, should have
+supposed Eustacia to be playing a part. To believe that the letter was
+not the result of some momentary pique, to infer that she really gave
+him up to Thomasin, would have required previous knowledge of her
+transfiguration by that man's influence. Who was to know that she had
+grown generous in the greediness of a new passion, that in coveting one
+cousin she was dealing liberally with another, that in her eagerness to
+appropriate she gave way?
+
+Full of this resolve to marry in haste, and wring the heart of the proud
+girl, Wildeve went his way.
+
+Meanwhile Diggory Venn had returned to his van, where he stood looking
+thoughtfully into the stove. A new vista was opened up to him. But,
+however promising Mrs. Yeobright's views of him might be as a candidate
+for her niece's hand, one condition was indispensable to the favour of
+Thomasin herself, and that was a renunciation of his present wild mode
+of life. In this he saw little difficulty.
+
+He could not afford to wait till the next day before seeing Thomasin and
+detailing his plan. He speedily plunged himself into toilet operations,
+pulled a suit of cloth clothes from a box, and in about twenty minutes
+stood before the van-lantern as a reddleman in nothing but his face, the
+vermilion shades of which were not to be removed in a day. Closing the
+door and fastening it with a padlock, Venn set off towards Blooms-End.
+
+He had reached the white palings and laid his hand upon the gate when
+the door of the house opened, and quickly closed again. A female form
+had glided in. At the same time a man, who had seemingly been standing
+with the woman in the porch, came forward from the house till he was
+face to face with Venn. It was Wildeve again.
+
+"Man alive, you've been quick at it," said Diggory sarcastically.
+
+"And you slow, as you will find," said Wildeve. "And," lowering his
+voice, "you may as well go back again now. I've claimed her, and got
+her. Good night, reddleman!" Thereupon Wildeve walked away.
+
+Venn's heart sank within him, though it had not risen unduly high.
+He stood leaning over the palings in an indecisive mood for nearly a
+quarter of an hour. Then he went up the garden path, knocked, and asked
+for Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+Instead of requesting him to enter she came to the porch. A discourse
+was carried on between them in low measured tones for the space of ten
+minutes or more. At the end of the time Mrs. Yeobright went in, and Venn
+sadly retraced his steps into the heath. When he had again regained his
+van he lit the lantern, and with an apathetic face at once began to pull
+off his best clothes, till in the course of a few minutes he reappeared
+as the confirmed and irretrievable reddleman that he had seemed before.
+
+
+
+
+8--Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart
+
+
+On that evening the interior of Blooms-End, though cosy and comfortable,
+had been rather silent. Clym Yeobright was not at home. Since the
+Christmas party he had gone on a few days' visit to a friend about ten
+miles off.
+
+The shadowy form seen by Venn to part from Wildeve in the porch, and
+quickly withdraw into the house, was Thomasin's. On entering she threw
+down a cloak which had been carelessly wrapped round her, and came
+forward to the light, where Mrs. Yeobright sat at her work-table,
+drawn up within the settle, so that part of it projected into the
+chimney-corner.
+
+"I don't like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin," said her aunt
+quietly, without looking up from her work.
+
+"I have only been just outside the door."
+
+"Well?" inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change in the tone of
+Thomasin's voice, and observing her. Thomasin's cheek was flushed to a
+pitch far beyond that which it had reached before her troubles, and her
+eyes glittered.
+
+"It was HE who knocked," she said.
+
+"I thought as much."
+
+"He wishes the marriage to be at once."
+
+"Indeed! What--is he anxious?" Mrs. Yeobright directed a searching look
+upon her niece. "Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?"
+
+"He did not wish to. You are not friends with him, he says. He would
+like the wedding to be the day after tomorrow, quite privately; at the
+church of his parish--not at ours."
+
+"Oh! And what did you say?"
+
+"I agreed to it," Thomasin answered firmly. "I am a practical woman
+now. I don't believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any
+circumstances since--since Clym's letter."
+
+A letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright's work-basket, and at Thomasin's
+words her aunt reopened it, and silently read for the tenth time that
+day:--
+
+
+
+What is the meaning of this silly story that people are circulating
+about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve? I should call such a scandal humiliating
+if there was the least chance of its being true. How could such a gross
+falsehood have arisen? It is said that one should go abroad to hear news
+of home, and I appear to have done it. Of course I contradict the
+tale everywhere; but it is very vexing, and I wonder how it could have
+originated. It is too ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could so
+mortify us as to get jilted on the wedding day. What has she done?
+
+
+
+"Yes," Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter. "If you
+think you can marry him, do so. And since Mr. Wildeve wishes it to be
+unceremonious, let it be that too. I can do nothing. It is all in your
+own hands now. My power over your welfare came to an end when you
+left this house to go with him to Anglebury." She continued, half in
+bitterness, "I may almost ask, why do you consult me in the matter at
+all? If you had gone and married him without saying a word to me, I
+could hardly have been angry--simply because, poor girl, you can't do a
+better thing."
+
+"Don't say that and dishearten me."
+
+"You are right--I will not."
+
+"I do not plead for him, Aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a
+blind woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don't
+now. But I know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for the
+best."
+
+"And so do I, and we will both continue to," said Mrs. Yeobright, rising
+and kissing her. "Then the wedding, if it comes off, will be on the
+morning of the very day Clym comes home?"
+
+"Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. After that you
+can look him in the face, and so can I. Our concealments will matter
+nothing."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent, and presently said,
+"Do you wish me to give you away? I am willing to undertake that, you
+know, if you wish, as I was last time. After once forbidding the banns I
+think I can do no less."
+
+"I don't think I will ask you to come," said Thomasin reluctantly, but
+with decision. "It would be unpleasant, I am almost sure. Better let
+there be only strangers present, and none of my relations at all. I
+would rather have it so. I do not wish to do anything which may touch
+your credit, and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were
+there, after what has passed. I am only your niece, and there is no
+necessity why you should concern yourself more about me."
+
+"Well, he has beaten us," her aunt said. "It really seems as if he had
+been playing with you in this way in revenge for my humbling him as I
+did by standing up against him at first."
+
+"O no, Aunt," murmured Thomasin.
+
+They said no more on the subject then. Diggory Venn's knock came soon
+after; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from her interview with him in
+the porch, carelessly observed, "Another lover has come to ask for you."
+
+"No?"
+
+"Yes, that queer young man Venn."
+
+"Asks to pay his addresses to me?"
+
+"Yes; and I told him he was too late."
+
+Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. "Poor Diggory!" she
+said, and then aroused herself to other things.
+
+The next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation, both
+the women being anxious to immerse themselves in these to escape the
+emotional aspect of the situation. Some wearing apparel and other
+articles were collected anew for Thomasin, and remarks on domestic
+details were frequently made, so as to obscure any inner misgivings
+about her future as Wildeve's wife.
+
+The appointed morning came. The arrangement with Wildeve was that he
+should meet her at the church to guard against any unpleasant curiosity
+which might have affected them had they been seen walking off together
+in the usual country way.
+
+Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride was
+dressing. The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of Thomasin's
+hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided according to a
+calendar system--the more important the day the more numerous the
+strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she braided it in threes;
+on ordinary Sundays in fours; at Maypolings, gipsyings, and the like,
+she braided it in fives. Years ago she had said that when she married
+she would braid it in sevens. She had braided it in sevens today.
+
+"I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all," she
+said. "It is my wedding day, even though there may be something sad
+about the time. I mean," she added, anxious to correct any wrong
+impression, "not sad in itself, but in its having had great
+disappointment and trouble before it."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh. "I
+almost wish Clym had been at home," she said. "Of course you chose the
+time because of his absence."
+
+"Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him
+all; but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry out
+the plan to its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was clear."
+
+"You are a practical little woman," said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling. "I
+wish you and he--no, I don't wish anything. There, it is nine o'clock,"
+she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging downstairs.
+
+"I told Damon I would leave at nine," said Thomasin, hastening out of
+the room.
+
+Her aunt followed. When Thomasin was going up the little walk from the
+door to the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright looked reluctantly at her, and
+said, "It is a shame to let you go alone."
+
+"It is necessary," said Thomasin.
+
+"At any rate," added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, "I shall
+call upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. If Clym has
+returned by that time he will perhaps come too. I wish to show Mr.
+Wildeve that I bear him no ill-will. Let the past be forgotten. Well,
+God bless you! There, I don't believe in old superstitions, but I'll
+do it." She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl, who
+turned, smiled, and went on again.
+
+A few steps further, and she looked back. "Did you call me, Aunt?" she
+tremulously inquired. "Good-bye!"
+
+Moved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon Mrs. Yeobright's
+worn, wet face, she ran back, when her aunt came forward, and they met
+again. "O--Tamsie," said the elder, weeping, "I don't like to let you
+go."
+
+"I--I am--" Thomasin began, giving way likewise. But, quelling her
+grief, she said "Good-bye!" again and went on.
+
+Then Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way between the
+scratching furze-bushes, and diminishing far up the valley--a pale-blue
+spot in a vast field of neutral brown, solitary and undefended except by
+the power of her own hope.
+
+But the worst feature in the case was one which did not appear in the
+landscape; it was the man.
+
+The hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had been so
+timed as to enable her to escape the awkwardness of meeting her cousin
+Clym, who was returning the same morning. To own to the partial truth
+of what he had heard would be distressing as long as the humiliating
+position resulting from the event was unimproved. It was only after a
+second and successful journey to the altar that she could lift up her
+head and prove the failure of the first attempt a pure accident.
+
+She had not been gone from Blooms-End more than half an hour when
+Yeobright came by the meads from the other direction and entered the
+house.
+
+"I had an early breakfast," he said to his mother after greeting her.
+"Now I could eat a little more."
+
+They sat down to the repeated meal, and he went on in a low, anxious
+voice, apparently imagining that Thomasin had not yet come downstairs,
+"What's this I have heard about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?"
+
+"It is true in many points," said Mrs. Yeobright quietly; "but it is all
+right now, I hope." She looked at the clock.
+
+"True?"
+
+"Thomasin is gone to him today."
+
+Clym pushed away his breakfast. "Then there is a scandal of some sort,
+and that's what's the matter with Thomasin. Was it this that made her
+ill?"
+
+"Yes. Not a scandal--a misfortune. I will tell you all about it, Clym.
+You must not be angry, but you must listen, and you'll find that what we
+have done has been done for the best."
+
+She then told him the circumstances. All that he had known of the affair
+before he returned from Paris was that there had existed an
+attachment between Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first
+discountenanced, but had since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin,
+looked upon in a little more favourable light. When she, therefore,
+proceeded to explain all he was greatly surprised and troubled.
+
+"And she determined that the wedding should be over before you came
+back," said Mrs. Yeobright, "that there might be no chance of her
+meeting you, and having a very painful time of it. That's why she has
+gone to him; they have arranged to be married this morning."
+
+"But I can't understand it," said Yeobright, rising. "'Tis so unlike
+her. I can see why you did not write to me after her unfortunate return
+home. But why didn't you let me know when the wedding was going to
+be--the first time?"
+
+"Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be
+obstinate; and when I found that you were nothing in her mind I vowed
+that she should be nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my
+niece after all; I told her she might marry, but that I should take no
+interest in it, and should not bother you about it either."
+
+"It wouldn't have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong."
+
+"I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might
+throw up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because of
+it, so I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time in a
+proper manner, I should have told you at once."
+
+"Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!"
+
+"Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time. It
+may, considering he's the same man."
+
+"Yes, and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose Wildeve
+is really a bad fellow?"
+
+"Then he won't come, and she'll come home again."
+
+"You should have looked more into it."
+
+"It is useless to say that," his mother answered with an impatient look
+of sorrow. "You don't know how bad it has been here with us all these
+weeks, Clym. You don't know what a mortification anything of that sort
+is to a woman. You don't know the sleepless nights we've had in this
+house, and the almost bitter words that have passed between us since
+that Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven such weeks again.
+Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have been ashamed to look
+anybody in the face; and now you blame me for letting her do the only
+thing that can be done to set that trouble straight."
+
+"No," he said slowly. "Upon the whole I don't blame you. But just
+consider how sudden it seems to me. Here was I, knowing nothing; and
+then I am told all at once that Tamsie is gone to be married. Well,
+I suppose there was nothing better to do. Do you know, Mother," he
+continued after a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his own
+past history, "I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart? Yes, I did. How
+odd boys are! And when I came home and saw her this time she seemed so
+much more affectionate than usual, that I was quite reminded of those
+days, particularly on the night of the party, when she was unwell. We
+had the party just the same--was not that rather cruel to her?"
+
+"It made no difference. I had arranged to give one, and it was not worth
+while to make more gloom than necessary. To begin by shutting ourselves
+up and telling you of Tamsin's misfortunes would have been a poor sort
+of welcome."
+
+Clym remained thinking. "I almost wish you had not had that party," he
+said; "and for other reasons. But I will tell you in a day or two. We
+must think of Tamsin now."
+
+They lapsed into silence. "I'll tell you what," said Yeobright again,
+in a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. "I don't think it
+kind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and neither of us there
+to keep up her spirits or care a bit about her. She hasn't disgraced
+herself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad enough that the
+wedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our keeping away
+from it in addition. Upon my soul, 'tis almost a shame. I'll go."
+
+"It is over by this time," said his mother with a sigh; "unless they
+were late, or he--"
+
+"Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don't quite like
+your keeping me in ignorance, Mother, after all. Really, I half hope he
+has failed to meet her!"
+
+"And ruined her character?"
+
+"Nonsense--that wouldn't ruin Thomasin."
+
+He took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked
+rather unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long
+left alone. A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his company
+came Diggory Venn.
+
+"I find there isn't time for me to get there," said Clym.
+
+"Is she married?" Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman a
+face in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was apparent.
+
+Venn bowed. "She is, ma'am."
+
+"How strange it sounds," murmured Clym.
+
+"And he didn't disappoint her this time?" said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"He did not. And there is now no slight on her name. I was hastening
+ath'art to tell you at once, as I saw you were not there."
+
+"How came you to be there? How did you know it?" she asked.
+
+"I have been in that neighbourhood for some time, and I saw them go in,"
+said the reddleman. "Wildeve came up to the door, punctual as the clock.
+I didn't expect it of him." He did not add, as he might have added, that
+how he came to be in that neighbourhood was not by accident; that,
+since Wildeve's resumption of his right to Thomasin, Venn, with the
+thoroughness which was part of his character, had determined to see the
+end of the episode.
+
+"Who was there?" said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"Nobody hardly. I stood right out of the way, and she did not see me."
+The reddleman spoke huskily, and looked into the garden.
+
+"Who gave her away?"
+
+"Miss Vye."
+
+"How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered an honour, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Who's Miss Vye?" said Clym.
+
+"Captain Vye's granddaughter, of Mistover Knap."
+
+"A proud girl from Budmouth," said Mrs. Yeobright. "One not much to my
+liking. People say she's a witch, but of course that's absurd."
+
+The reddleman kept to himself his acquaintance with that fair personage,
+and also that Eustacia was there because he went to fetch her, in
+accordance with a promise he had given as soon as he learnt that the
+marriage was to take place. He merely said, in continuation of the
+story----
+
+"I was sitting on the churchyard wall when they came up, one from one
+way, the other from the other; and Miss Vye was walking thereabouts,
+looking at the headstones. As soon as they had gone in I went to the
+door, feeling I should like to see it, as I knew her so well. I pulled
+off my boots because they were so noisy, and went up into the gallery. I
+saw then that the parson and clerk were already there."
+
+"How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it, if she was only on a
+walk that way?"
+
+"Because there was nobody else. She had gone into the church just before
+me, not into the gallery. The parson looked round before beginning, and
+as she was the only one near he beckoned to her, and she went up to the
+rails. After that, when it came to signing the book, she pushed up her
+veil and signed; and Tamsin seemed to thank her for her kindness." The
+reddleman told the tale thoughtfully for there lingered upon his vision
+the changing colour of Wildeve, when Eustacia lifted the thick veil
+which had concealed her from recognition and looked calmly into his
+face. "And then," said Diggory sadly, "I came away, for her history as
+Tamsin Yeobright was over."
+
+"I offered to go," said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. "But she said it was
+not necessary."
+
+"Well, it is no matter," said the reddleman. "The thing is done at last
+as it was meant to be at first, and God send her happiness. Now I'll
+wish you good morning."
+
+He placed his cap on his head and went out.
+
+From that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright's door, the reddleman was
+seen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months. He
+vanished entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had been
+standing was as vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a sign
+remained to show that he had been there, excepting a few straws, and a
+little redness on the turf, which was washed away by the next storm of
+rain.
+
+The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far as it
+went, was deficient in one significant particular, which had escaped him
+through his being at some distance back in the church. When Thomasin
+was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung towards
+Eustacia a glance that said plainly, "I have punished you now." She had
+replied in a low tone--and he little thought how truly--"You mistake; it
+gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today."
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE -- THE FASCINATION
+
+
+
+
+1--"My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"
+
+
+In Clym Yeobright's face could be dimly seen the typical countenance
+of the future. Should there be a classic period to art hereafter, its
+Pheidias may produce such faces. The view of life as a thing to be put
+up with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense in early
+civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the constitution
+of the advanced races that its facial expression will become accepted
+as a new artistic departure. People already feel that a man who lives
+without disturbing a curve of feature, or setting a mark of mental
+concern anywhere upon himself, is too far removed from modern
+perceptiveness to be a modern type. Physically beautiful men--the glory
+of the race when it was young--are almost an anachronism now; and we may
+wonder whether, at some time or other, physically beautiful women may
+not be an anachronism likewise.
+
+The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries has
+permanently displaced the Hellenic idea of life, or whatever it may
+be called. What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what their
+Aeschylus imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashioned
+revelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as we
+uncover the defects of natural laws, and see the quandary that man is in
+by their operation.
+
+The lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based upon this new
+recognition will probably be akin to those of Yeobright. The observer's
+eye was arrested, not by his face as a picture, but by his face as a
+page; not by what it was, but by what it recorded. His features were
+attractive in the light of symbols, as sounds intrinsically common
+become attractive in language, and as shapes intrinsically simple become
+interesting in writing.
+
+He had been a lad of whom something was expected. Beyond this all had
+been chaos. That he would be successful in an original way, or that he
+would go to the dogs in an original way, seemed equally probable. The
+only absolute certainty about him was that he would not stand still in
+the circumstances amid which he was born.
+
+Hence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighbouring yeomen,
+the listener said, "Ah, Clym Yeobright--what is he doing now?" When the
+instinctive question about a person is, What is he doing? it is
+felt that he will be found to be, like most of us, doing nothing in
+particular. There is an indefinite sense that he must be invading some
+region of singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that he is doing
+well. The secret faith is that he is making a mess of it. Half a dozen
+comfortable market-men, who were habitual callers at the Quiet Woman
+as they passed by in their carts, were partial to the topic. In fact,
+though they were not Egdon men, they could hardly avoid it while they
+sucked their long clay tubes and regarded the heath through the window.
+Clym had been so inwoven with the heath in his boyhood that hardly
+anybody could look upon it without thinking of him. So the subject
+recurred: if he were making a fortune and a name, so much the better
+for him; if he were making a tragical figure in the world, so much the
+better for a narrative.
+
+The fact was that Yeobright's fame had spread to an awkward extent
+before he left home. "It is bad when your fame outruns your means," said
+the Spanish Jesuit Gracian. At the age of six he had asked a Scripture
+riddle: "Who was the first man known to wear breeches?" and applause
+had resounded from the very verge of the heath. At seven he painted the
+Battle of Waterloo with tiger-lily pollen and black-currant juice, in
+the absence of water-colours. By the time he reached twelve he had in
+this manner been heard of as artist and scholar for at least two miles
+round. An individual whose fame spreads three or four thousand yards in
+the time taken by the fame of others similarly situated to travel six or
+eight hundred, must of necessity have something in him. Possibly Clym's
+fame, like Homer's, owed something to the accidents of his situation;
+nevertheless famous he was.
+
+He grew up and was helped out in life. That waggery of fate which
+started Clive as a writing clerk, Gay as a linen-draper, Keats as a
+surgeon, and a thousand others in a thousand other odd ways, banished
+the wild and ascetic heath lad to a trade whose sole concern was with
+the especial symbols of self-indulgence and vainglory.
+
+The details of this choice of a business for him it is not necessary
+to give. At the death of his father a neighbouring gentleman had kindly
+undertaken to give the boy a start, and this assumed the form of sending
+him to Budmouth. Yeobright did not wish to go there, but it was the only
+feasible opening. Thence he went to London; and thence, shortly after,
+to Paris, where he had remained till now.
+
+Something being expected of him, he had not been at home many days
+before a great curiosity as to why he stayed on so long began to arise
+in the heath. The natural term of a holiday had passed, yet he still
+remained. On the Sunday morning following the week of Thomasin's
+marriage a discussion on this subject was in progress at a hair-cutting
+before Fairway's house. Here the local barbering was always done at
+this hour on this day, to be followed by the great Sunday wash of the
+inhabitants at noon, which in its turn was followed by the great Sunday
+dressing an hour later. On Egdon Heath Sunday proper did not begin till
+dinner-time, and even then it was a somewhat battered specimen of the
+day.
+
+These Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway; the victim
+sitting on a chopping-block in front of the house, without a coat, and
+the neighbours gossiping around, idly observing the locks of hair as
+they rose upon the wind after the snip, and flew away out of sight to
+the four quarters of the heavens. Summer and winter the scene was the
+same, unless the wind were more than usually blusterous, when the stool
+was shifted a few feet round the corner. To complain of cold in sitting
+out of doors, hatless and coatless, while Fairway told true stories
+between the cuts of the scissors, would have been to pronounce yourself
+no man at once. To flinch, exclaim, or move a muscle of the face at
+the small stabs under the ear received from those instruments, or at
+scarifications of the neck by the comb, would have been thought a gross
+breach of good manners, considering that Fairway did it all for nothing.
+A bleeding about the poll on Sunday afternoons was amply accounted for
+by the explanation. "I have had my hair cut, you know."
+
+The conversation on Yeobright had been started by a distant view of the
+young man rambling leisurely across the heath before them.
+
+"A man who is doing well elsewhere wouldn't bide here two or three weeks
+for nothing," said Fairway. "He's got some project in 's head--depend
+upon that."
+
+"Well, 'a can't keep a diment shop here," said Sam.
+
+"I don't see why he should have had them two heavy boxes home if he had
+not been going to bide; and what there is for him to do here the Lord in
+heaven knows."
+
+Before many more surmises could be indulged in Yeobright had come near;
+and seeing the hair-cutting group he turned aside to join them. Marching
+up, and looking critically at their faces for a moment, he said, without
+introduction, "Now, folks, let me guess what you have been talking
+about."
+
+"Ay, sure, if you will," said Sam.
+
+"About me."
+
+"Now, it is a thing I shouldn't have dreamed of doing, otherwise," said
+Fairway in a tone of integrity; "but since you have named it, Master
+Yeobright, I'll own that we was talking about 'ee. We were wondering
+what could keep you home here mollyhorning about when you have made such
+a world-wide name for yourself in the nick-nack trade--now, that's the
+truth o't."
+
+"I'll tell you," said Yeobright with unexpected earnestness. "I am
+not sorry to have the opportunity. I've come home because, all things
+considered, I can be a trifle less useless here than anywhere else. But
+I have only lately found this out. When I first got away from home I
+thought this place was not worth troubling about. I thought our life
+here was contemptible. To oil your boots instead of blacking them, to
+dust your coat with a switch instead of a brush--was there ever anything
+more ridiculous? I said."
+
+"So 'tis; so 'tis!"
+
+"No, no--you are wrong; it isn't."
+
+"Beg your pardon, we thought that was your meaning?"
+
+"Well, as my views changed my course became very depressing. I found
+that I was trying to be like people who had hardly anything in common
+with myself. I was endeavouring to put off one sort of life for another
+sort of life, which was not better than the life I had known before. It
+was simply different."
+
+"True; a sight different," said Fairway.
+
+"Yes, Paris must be a taking place," said Humphrey. "Grand shop-winders,
+trumpets, and drums; and here be we out of doors in all winds and
+weathers--"
+
+"But you mistake me," pleaded Clym. "All this was very depressing. But
+not so depressing as something I next perceived--that my business was
+the idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a man could
+be put to. That decided me--I would give it up and try to follow some
+rational occupation among the people I knew best, and to whom I could
+be of most use. I have come home; and this is how I mean to carry out
+my plan. I shall keep a school as near to Egdon as possible, so as to be
+able to walk over here and have a night-school in my mother's house.
+But I must study a little at first, to get properly qualified. Now,
+neighbours, I must go."
+
+And Clym resumed his walk across the heath.
+
+"He'll never carry it out in the world," said Fairway. "In a few weeks
+he'll learn to see things otherwise."
+
+"'Tis good-hearted of the young man," said another. "But, for my part, I
+think he had better mind his business."
+
+
+
+
+2--The New Course Causes Disappointment
+
+
+Yeobright loved his kind. He had a conviction that the want of most men
+was knowledge of a sort which brings wisdom rather than affluence. He
+wished to raise the class at the expense of individuals rather than
+individuals at the expense of the class. What was more, he was ready at
+once to be the first unit sacrificed.
+
+In passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life the intermediate
+stages are usually two at least, frequently many more; and one of those
+stages is almost sure to be worldly advanced. We can hardly imagine
+bucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims without imagining
+social aims as the transitional phase. Yeobright's local peculiarity was
+that in striving at high thinking he still cleaved to plain living--nay,
+wild and meagre living in many respects, and brotherliness with clowns.
+
+He was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than repentance
+for his text. Mentally he was in a provincial future, that is, he was in
+many points abreast with the central town thinkers of his date. Much of
+this development he may have owed to his studious life in Paris, where
+he had become acquainted with ethical systems popular at the time.
+
+In consequence of this relatively advanced position, Yeobright might
+have been called unfortunate. The rural world was not ripe for him. A
+man should be only partially before his time--to be completely to the
+vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip's warlike son been
+intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilization without
+bloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed, but
+nobody would have heard of an Alexander.
+
+In the interests of renown the forwardness should lie chiefly in the
+capacity to handle things. Successful propagandists have succeeded
+because the doctrine they bring into form is that which their listeners
+have for some time felt without being able to shape. A man who advocates
+aesthetic effort and deprecates social effort is only likely to be
+understood by a class to which social effort has become a stale matter.
+To argue upon the possibility of culture before luxury to the bucolic
+world may be to argue truly, but it is an attempt to disturb a sequence
+to which humanity has been long accustomed. Yeobright preaching to
+the Egdon eremites that they might rise to a serene comprehensiveness
+without going through the process of enriching themselves was not unlike
+arguing to ancient Chaldeans that in ascending from earth to the pure
+empyrean it was not necessary to pass first into the intervening heaven
+of ether.
+
+Was Yeobright's mind well-proportioned? No. A well proportioned mind is
+one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that
+it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a
+heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it
+will never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest,
+or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.
+It produces the poetry of Rogers, the paintings of West, the statecraft
+of North, the spiritual guidance of Tomline; enabling its possessors to
+find their way to wealth, to wind up well, to step with dignity off the
+stage, to die comfortably in their beds, and to get the decent monument
+which, in many cases, they deserve. It never would have allowed
+Yeobright to do such a ridiculous thing as throw up his business to
+benefit his fellow-creatures.
+
+He walked along towards home without attending to paths. If anyone knew
+the heath well it was Clym. He was permeated with its scenes, with its
+substance, and with its odours. He might be said to be its product. His
+eyes had first opened thereon; with its appearance all the first images
+of his memory were mingled, his estimate of life had been coloured by
+it: his toys had been the flint knives and arrow-heads which he found
+there, wondering why stones should "grow" to such odd shapes; his
+flowers, the purple bells and yellow furze: his animal kingdom, the
+snakes and croppers; his society, its human haunters. Take all the
+varying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the heath, and translate
+them into loves, and you have the heart of Clym. He gazed upon the wide
+prospect as he walked, and was glad.
+
+To many persons this Egdon was a place which had slipped out of its
+century generations ago, to intrude as an uncouth object into this.
+It was an obsolete thing, and few cared to study it. How could this
+be otherwise in the days of square fields, plashed hedges, and meadows
+watered on a plan so rectangular that on a fine day they looked like
+silver gridirons? The farmer, in his ride, who could smile at artificial
+grasses, look with solicitude at the coming corn, and sigh with sadness
+at the fly-eaten turnips, bestowed upon the distant upland of heath
+nothing better than a frown. But as for Yeobright, when he looked
+from the heights on his way he could not help indulging in a barbarous
+satisfaction at observing that, in some of the attempts at reclamation
+from the waste, tillage, after holding on for a year or two, had receded
+again in despair, the ferns and furze-tufts stubbornly reasserting
+themselves.
+
+He descended into the valley, and soon reached his home at Blooms-End.
+His mother was snipping dead leaves from the window-plants. She looked
+up at him as if she did not understand the meaning of his long stay with
+her; her face had worn that look for several days. He could perceive
+that the curiosity which had been shown by the hair-cutting group
+amounted in his mother to concern. But she had asked no question with
+her lips, even when the arrival of his trunk suggested that he was not
+going to leave her soon. Her silence besought an explanation of him more
+loudly than words.
+
+"I am not going back to Paris again, Mother," he said. "At least, in my
+old capacity. I have given up the business."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned in pained surprise. "I thought something was
+amiss, because of the boxes. I wonder you did not tell me sooner."
+
+"I ought to have done it. But I have been in doubt whether you would be
+pleased with my plan. I was not quite clear on a few points myself. I am
+going to take an entirely new course."
+
+"I am astonished, Clym. How can you want to do better than you've been
+doing?"
+
+"Very easily. But I shall not do better in the way you mean; I suppose
+it will be called doing worse. But I hate that business of mine, and I
+want to do some worthy thing before I die. As a schoolmaster I think
+to do it--a school-master to the poor and ignorant, to teach them what
+nobody else will."
+
+"After all the trouble that has been taken to give you a start, and when
+there is nothing to do but to keep straight on towards affluence, you
+say you will be a poor man's schoolmaster. Your fancies will be your
+ruin, Clym."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke calmly, but the force of feeling behind the words
+was but too apparent to one who knew her as well as her son did. He did
+not answer. There was in his face that hopelessness of being understood
+which comes when the objector is constitutionally beyond the reach of
+a logic that, even under favouring conditions, is almost too coarse a
+vehicle for the subtlety of the argument.
+
+No more was said on the subject till the end of dinner. His mother then
+began, as if there had been no interval since the morning. "It disturbs
+me, Clym, to find that you have come home with such thoughts as those. I
+hadn't the least idea that you meant to go backward in the world by your
+own free choice. Of course, I have always supposed you were going to
+push straight on, as other men do--all who deserve the name--when they
+have been put in a good way of doing well."
+
+"I cannot help it," said Clym, in a troubled tone. "Mother, I hate
+the flashy business. Talk about men who deserve the name, can any man
+deserving the name waste his time in that effeminate way, when he sees
+half the world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle to and teach
+them how to breast the misery they are born to? I get up every morning
+and see the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain, as St. Paul
+says, and yet there am I, trafficking in glittering splendours with
+wealthy women and titled libertines, and pandering to the meanest
+vanities--I, who have health and strength enough for anything. I have
+been troubled in my mind about it all the year, and the end is that I
+cannot do it any more."
+
+"Why can't you do it as well as others?"
+
+"I don't know, except that there are many things other people care for
+which I don't; and that's partly why I think I ought to do this. For one
+thing, my body does not require much of me. I cannot enjoy delicacies;
+good things are wasted upon me. Well, I ought to turn that defect to
+advantage, and by being able to do without what other people require I
+can spend what such things cost upon anybody else."
+
+Now, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very instincts from the
+woman before him, could not fail to awaken a reciprocity in her through
+her feelings, if not by arguments, disguise it as she might for his
+good. She spoke with less assurance. "And yet you might have been a
+wealthy man if you had only persevered. Manager to that large diamond
+establishment--what better can a man wish for? What a post of trust
+and respect! I suppose you will be like your father; like him, you are
+getting weary of doing well."
+
+"No," said her son, "I am not weary of that, though I am weary of what
+you mean by it. Mother, what is doing well?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be content with ready
+definitions, and, like the "What is wisdom?" of Plato's Socrates, and
+the "What is truth?" of Pontius Pilate, Yeobright's burning question
+received no answer.
+
+The silence was broken by the clash of the garden gate, a tap at the
+door, and its opening. Christian Cantle appeared in the room in his
+Sunday clothes.
+
+It was the custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story before
+absolutely entering the house, so as to be well in for the body of the
+narrative by the time visitor and visited stood face to face. Christian
+had been saying to them while the door was leaving its latch, "To think
+that I, who go from home but once in a while, and hardly then, should
+have been there this morning!"
+
+"'Tis news you have brought us, then, Christian?" said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"Ay, sure, about a witch, and ye must overlook my time o' day; for, says
+I, 'I must go and tell 'em, though they won't have half done dinner.' I
+assure ye it made me shake like a driven leaf. Do ye think any harm will
+come o't?"
+
+"Well--what?"
+
+"This morning at church we was all standing up, and the pa'son said,
+'Let us pray.' 'Well,' thinks I, 'one may as well kneel as stand'; so
+down I went; and, more than that, all the rest were as willing to oblige
+the man as I. We hadn't been hard at it for more than a minute when a
+most terrible screech sounded through church, as if somebody had just
+gied up their heart's blood. All the folk jumped up and then we found
+that Susan Nunsuch had pricked Miss Vye with a long stocking-needle, as
+she had threatened to do as soon as ever she could get the young lady to
+church, where she don't come very often. She've waited for this chance
+for weeks, so as to draw her blood and put an end to the bewitching of
+Susan's children that has been carried on so long. Sue followed her into
+church, sat next to her, and as soon as she could find a chance in went
+the stocking-needle into my lady's arm."
+
+"Good heaven, how horrid!" said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"Sue pricked her that deep that the maid fainted away; and as I was
+afeard there might be some tumult among us, I got behind the bass viol
+and didn't see no more. But they carried her out into the air, 'tis
+said; but when they looked round for Sue she was gone. What a scream
+that girl gied, poor thing! There were the pa'son in his surplice
+holding up his hand and saying, 'Sit down, my good people, sit down!'
+But the deuce a bit would they sit down. O, and what d'ye think I
+found out, Mrs. Yeobright? The pa'son wears a suit of clothes under his
+surplice!--I could see his black sleeves when he held up his arm."
+
+"'Tis a cruel thing," said Yeobright.
+
+"Yes," said his mother.
+
+"The nation ought to look into it," said Christian. "Here's Humphrey
+coming, I think."
+
+In came Humphrey. "Well, have ye heard the news? But I see you have.
+'Tis a very strange thing that whenever one of Egdon folk goes to church
+some rum job or other is sure to be doing. The last time one of us was
+there was when neighbour Fairway went in the fall; and that was the day
+you forbad the banns, Mrs. Yeobright."
+
+"Has this cruelly treated girl been able to walk home?" said Clym.
+
+"They say she got better, and went home very well. And now I've told it
+I must be moving homeward myself."
+
+"And I," said Humphrey. "Truly now we shall see if there's anything in
+what folks say about her."
+
+When they were gone into the heath again Yeobright said quietly to his
+mother, "Do you think I have turned teacher too soon?"
+
+"It is right that there should be schoolmasters, and missionaries, and
+all such men," she replied. "But it is right, too, that I should try to
+lift you out of this life into something richer, and that you should not
+come back again, and be as if I had not tried at all."
+
+
+Later in the day Sam, the turf-cutter, entered. "I've come a-borrowing,
+Mrs. Yeobright. I suppose you have heard what's been happening to the
+beauty on the hill?"
+
+"Yes, Sam: half a dozen have been telling us."
+
+"Beauty?" said Clym.
+
+"Yes, tolerably well-favoured," Sam replied. "Lord! all the country owns
+that 'tis one of the strangest things in the world that such a woman
+should have come to live up there."
+
+"Dark or fair?"
+
+"Now, though I've seen her twenty times, that's a thing I cannot call to
+mind."
+
+"Darker than Tamsin," murmured Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"A woman who seems to care for nothing at all, as you may say."
+
+"She is melancholy, then?" inquired Clym.
+
+"She mopes about by herself, and don't mix in with the people."
+
+"Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?"
+
+"Not to my knowledge."
+
+"Doesn't join in with the lads in their games, to get some sort of
+excitement in this lonely place?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Mumming, for instance?"
+
+"No. Her notions be different. I should rather say her thoughts were far
+away from here, with lords and ladies she'll never know, and mansions
+she'll never see again."
+
+Observing that Clym appeared singularly interested Mrs. Yeobright said
+rather uneasily to Sam, "You see more in her than most of us do. Miss
+Vye is to my mind too idle to be charming. I have never heard that
+she is of any use to herself or to other people. Good girls don't get
+treated as witches even on Egdon."
+
+"Nonsense--that proves nothing either way," said Yeobright.
+
+"Well, of course I don't understand such niceties," said Sam,
+withdrawing from a possibly unpleasant argument; "and what she is we
+must wait for time to tell us. The business that I have really called
+about is this, to borrow the longest and strongest rope you have. The
+captain's bucket has dropped into the well, and they are in want of
+water; and as all the chaps are at home today we think we can get it out
+for him. We have three cart-ropes already, but they won't reach to the
+bottom."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright told him that he might have whatever ropes he could find
+in the outhouse, and Sam went out to search. When he passed by the door
+Clym joined him, and accompanied him to the gate.
+
+"Is this young witch-lady going to stay long at Mistover?" he asked.
+
+"I should say so."
+
+"What a cruel shame to ill-use her, She must have suffered greatly--more
+in mind than in body."
+
+"'Twas a graceless trick--such a handsome girl, too. You ought to see
+her, Mr. Yeobright, being a young man come from far, and with a little
+more to show for your years than most of us."
+
+"Do you think she would like to teach children?" said Clym.
+
+Sam shook his head. "Quite a different sort of body from that, I
+reckon."
+
+"O, it was merely something which occurred to me. It would of course be
+necessary to see her and talk it over--not an easy thing, by the way,
+for my family and hers are not very friendly."
+
+"I'll tell you how you mid see her, Mr. Yeobright," said Sam. "We are
+going to grapple for the bucket at six o'clock tonight at her house, and
+you could lend a hand. There's five or six coming, but the well is deep,
+and another might be useful, if you don't mind appearing in that shape.
+She's sure to be walking round."
+
+"I'll think of it," said Yeobright; and they parted.
+
+He thought of it a good deal; but nothing more was said about Eustacia
+inside the house at that time. Whether this romantic martyr to
+superstition and the melancholy mummer he had conversed with under the
+full moon were one and the same person remained as yet a problem.
+
+
+
+
+3--The First Act in a Timeworn Drama
+
+
+The afternoon was fine, and Yeobright walked on the heath for an hour
+with his mother. When they reached the lofty ridge which divided the
+valley of Blooms-End from the adjoining valley they stood still and
+looked round. The Quiet Woman Inn was visible on the low margin of the
+heath in one direction, and afar on the other hand rose Mistover Knap.
+
+"You mean to call on Thomasin?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes. But you need not come this time," said his mother.
+
+"In that case I'll branch off here, Mother. I am going to Mistover."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned to him inquiringly.
+
+"I am going to help them get the bucket out of the captain's well," he
+continued. "As it is so very deep I may be useful. And I should like
+to see this Miss Vye--not so much for her good looks as for another
+reason."
+
+"Must you go?" his mother asked.
+
+"I thought to."
+
+And they parted. "There is no help for it," murmured Clym's mother
+gloomily as he withdrew. "They are sure to see each other. I wish Sam
+would carry his news to other houses than mine."
+
+Clym's retreating figure got smaller and smaller as it rose and
+fell over the hillocks on his way. "He is tender-hearted," said Mrs.
+Yeobright to herself while she watched him; "otherwise it would matter
+little. How he's going on!"
+
+He was, indeed, walking with a will over the furze, as straight as a
+line, as if his life depended upon it. His mother drew a long breath,
+and, abandoning the visit to Thomasin, turned back. The evening films
+began to make nebulous pictures of the valleys, but the high lands still
+were raked by the declining rays of the winter sun, which glanced on
+Clym as he walked forward, eyed by every rabbit and field-fare around, a
+long shadow advancing in front of him.
+
+On drawing near to the furze-covered bank and ditch which fortified
+the captain's dwelling he could hear voices within, signifying that
+operations had been already begun. At the side-entrance gate he stopped
+and looked over.
+
+Half a dozen able-bodied men were standing in a line from the
+well-mouth, holding a rope which passed over the well-roller into the
+depths below. Fairway, with a piece of smaller rope round his body, made
+fast to one of the standards, to guard against accidents, was leaning
+over the opening, his right hand clasping the vertical rope that
+descended into the well.
+
+"Now, silence, folks," said Fairway.
+
+The talking ceased, and Fairway gave a circular motion to the rope,
+as if he were stirring batter. At the end of a minute a dull splashing
+reverberated from the bottom of the well; the helical twist he had
+imparted to the rope had reached the grapnel below.
+
+"Haul!" said Fairway; and the men who held the rope began to gather it
+over the wheel.
+
+"I think we've got sommat," said one of the haulers-in.
+
+"Then pull steady," said Fairway.
+
+They gathered up more and more, till a regular dripping into the well
+could be heard below. It grew smarter with the increasing height of the
+bucket, and presently a hundred and fifty feet of rope had been pulled
+in.
+
+Fairway then lit a lantern, tied it to another cord, and began lowering
+it into the well beside the first: Clym came forward and looked down.
+Strange humid leaves, which knew nothing of the seasons of the year,
+and quaint-natured mosses were revealed on the wellside as the lantern
+descended; till its rays fell upon a confused mass of rope and bucket
+dangling in the dank, dark air.
+
+"We've only got en by the edge of the hoop--steady, for God's sake!"
+said Fairway.
+
+They pulled with the greatest gentleness, till the wet bucket appeared
+about two yards below them, like a dead friend come to earth again.
+Three or four hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz
+went the wheel, the two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating of
+a falling body was heard, receding down the sides of the well, and a
+thunderous uproar arose at the bottom. The bucket was gone again.
+
+"Damn the bucket!" said Fairway.
+
+"Lower again," said Sam.
+
+"I'm as stiff as a ram's horn stooping so long," said Fairway, standing
+up and stretching himself till his joints creaked.
+
+"Rest a few minutes, Timothy," said Yeobright. "I'll take your place."
+
+The grapnel was again lowered. Its smart impact upon the distant water
+reached their ears like a kiss, whereupon Yeobright knelt down, and
+leaning over the well began dragging the grapnel round and round as
+Fairway had done.
+
+"Tie a rope round him--it is dangerous!" cried a soft and anxious voice
+somewhere above them.
+
+Everybody turned. The speaker was a woman, gazing down upon the group
+from an upper window, whose panes blazed in the ruddy glare from the
+west. Her lips were parted and she appeared for the moment to forget
+where she was.
+
+The rope was accordingly tied round his waist, and the work proceeded.
+At the next haul the weight was not heavy, and it was discovered that
+they had only secured a coil of the rope detached from the bucket. The
+tangled mass was thrown into the background. Humphrey took Yeobright's
+place, and the grapnel was lowered again.
+
+Yeobright retired to the heap of recovered rope in a meditative mood. Of
+the identity between the lady's voice and that of the melancholy
+mummer he had not a moment's doubt. "How thoughtful of her!" he said to
+himself.
+
+Eustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect of her
+exclamation upon the group below, was no longer to be seen at the
+window, though Yeobright scanned it wistfully. While he stood there the
+men at the well succeeded in getting up the bucket without a mishap. One
+of them went to inquire for the captain, to learn what orders he wished
+to give for mending the well-tackle. The captain proved to be away from
+home, and Eustacia appeared at the door and came out. She had lapsed
+into an easy and dignified calm, far removed from the intensity of life
+in her words of solicitude for Clym's safety.
+
+"Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?" she inquired.
+
+"No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. And as we can
+do no more now we'll leave off, and come again tomorrow morning."
+
+"No water," she murmured, turning away.
+
+"I can send you up some from Blooms-End," said Clym, coming forward and
+raising his hat as the men retired.
+
+Yeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant, as if each
+had in mind those few moments during which a certain moonlight scene was
+common to both. With the glance the calm fixity of her features sublimed
+itself to an expression of refinement and warmth; it was like garish
+noon rising to the dignity of sunset in a couple of seconds.
+
+"Thank you; it will hardly be necessary," she replied.
+
+"But if you have no water?"
+
+"Well, it is what I call no water," she said, blushing, and lifting
+her long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them were a work requiring
+consideration. "But my grandfather calls it water enough. I'll show you
+what I mean."
+
+She moved away a few yards, and Clym followed. When she reached the
+corner of the enclosure, where the steps were formed for mounting the
+boundary bank, she sprang up with a lightness which seemed strange after
+her listless movement towards the well. It incidentally showed that her
+apparent languor did not arise from lack of force.
+
+Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the top
+of the bank. "Ashes?" he said.
+
+"Yes," said Eustacia. "We had a little bonfire here last Fifth of
+November, and those are the marks of it."
+
+On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.
+
+"That's the only kind of water we have," she continued, tossing a stone
+into the pool, which lay on the outside of the bank like the white of
+an eye without its pupil. The stone fell with a flounce, but no Wildeve
+appeared on the other side, as on a previous occasion there. "My
+grandfather says he lived for more than twenty years at sea on water
+twice as bad as that," she went on, "and considers it quite good enough
+for us here on an emergency."
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities in the water of these
+pools at this time of the year. It has only just rained into them."
+
+She shook her head. "I am managing to exist in a wilderness, but I
+cannot drink from a pond," she said.
+
+Clym looked towards the well, which was now deserted, the men having
+gone home. "It is a long way to send for spring-water," he said, after a
+silence. "But since you don't like this in the pond, I'll try to get you
+some myself." He went back to the well. "Yes, I think I could do it by
+tying on this pail."
+
+"But, since I would not trouble the men to get it, I cannot in
+conscience let you."
+
+"I don't mind the trouble at all."
+
+He made fast the pail to the long coil of rope, put it over the wheel,
+and allowed it to descend by letting the rope slip through his hands.
+Before it had gone far, however, he checked it.
+
+"I must make fast the end first, or we may lose the whole," he said to
+Eustacia, who had drawn near. "Could you hold this a moment, while I do
+it--or shall I call your servant?"
+
+"I can hold it," said Eustacia; and he placed the rope in her hands,
+going then to search for the end.
+
+"I suppose I may let it slip down?" she inquired.
+
+"I would advise you not to let it go far," said Clym. "It will get much
+heavier, you will find."
+
+However, Eustacia had begun to pay out. While he was tying she cried, "I
+cannot stop it!"
+
+Clym ran to her side, and found he could only check the rope by twisting
+the loose part round the upright post, when it stopped with a jerk. "Has
+it hurt you?"
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"Very much?"
+
+"No; I think not." She opened her hands. One of them was bleeding; the
+rope had dragged off the skin. Eustacia wrapped it in her handkerchief.
+
+"You should have let go," said Yeobright. "Why didn't you?"
+
+"You said I was to hold on.... This is the second time I have been
+wounded today."
+
+"Ah, yes; I have heard of it. I blush for my native Egdon. Was it a
+serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?"
+
+There was such an abundance of sympathy in Clym's tone that Eustacia
+slowly drew up her sleeve and disclosed her round white arm. A bright
+red spot appeared on its smooth surface, like a ruby on Parian marble.
+
+"There it is," she said, putting her finger against the spot.
+
+"It was dastardly of the woman," said Clym. "Will not Captain Vye get
+her punished?"
+
+"He is gone from home on that very business. I did not know that I had
+such a magic reputation."
+
+"And you fainted?" said Clym, looking at the scarlet little puncture as
+if he would like to kiss it and make it well.
+
+"Yes, it frightened me. I had not been to church for a long time. And
+now I shall not go again for ever so long--perhaps never. I cannot face
+their eyes after this. Don't you think it dreadfully humiliating? I
+wished I was dead for hours after, but I don't mind now."
+
+"I have come to clean away these cobwebs," said Yeobright. "Would you
+like to help me--by high-class teaching? We might benefit them much."
+
+"I don't quite feel anxious to. I have not much love for my
+fellow-creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them."
+
+"Still I think that if you were to hear my scheme you might take an
+interest in it. There is no use in hating people--if you hate anything,
+you should hate what produced them."
+
+"Do you mean Nature? I hate her already. But I shall be glad to hear
+your scheme at any time."
+
+The situation had now worked itself out, and the next natural thing was
+for them to part. Clym knew this well enough, and Eustacia made a move
+of conclusion; yet he looked at her as if he had one word more to say.
+Perhaps if he had not lived in Paris it would never have been uttered.
+
+"We have met before," he said, regarding her with rather more interest
+than was necessary.
+
+"I do not own it," said Eustacia, with a repressed, still look.
+
+"But I may think what I like."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are lonely here."
+
+"I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season. The heath is a
+cruel taskmaster to me."
+
+"Can you say so?" he asked. "To my mind it is most exhilarating, and
+strengthening, and soothing. I would rather live on these hills than
+anywhere else in the world."
+
+"It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn to draw."
+
+"And there is a very curious druidical stone just out there." He threw a
+pebble in the direction signified. "Do you often go to see it?"
+
+"I was not even aware there existed any such curious druidical stone. I
+am aware that there are boulevards in Paris."
+
+Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground. "That means much," he said.
+
+"It does indeed," said Eustacia.
+
+"I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle. Five years of a
+great city would be a perfect cure for that."
+
+"Heaven send me such a cure! Now, Mr. Yeobright, I will go indoors and
+plaster my wounded hand."
+
+They separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade. She
+seemed full of many things. Her past was a blank, her life had begun.
+The effect upon Clym of this meeting he did not fully discover till some
+time after. During his walk home his most intelligible sensation was
+that his scheme had somehow become glorified. A beautiful woman had been
+intertwined with it.
+
+On reaching the house he went up to the room which was to be made his
+study, and occupied himself during the evening in unpacking his books
+from the boxes and arranging them on shelves. From another box he drew
+a lamp and a can of oil. He trimmed the lamp, arranged his table, and
+said, "Now, I am ready to begin."
+
+He rose early the next morning, read two hours before breakfast by the
+light of his lamp--read all the morning, all the afternoon. Just when
+the sun was going down his eyes felt weary, and he leant back in his
+chair.
+
+His room overlooked the front of the premises and the valley of the
+heath beyond. The lowest beams of the winter sun threw the shadow of the
+house over the palings, across the grass margin of the heath, and far
+up the vale, where the chimney outlines and those of the surrounding
+tree-tops stretched forth in long dark prongs. Having been seated at
+work all day, he decided to take a turn upon the hills before it got
+dark; and, going out forthwith, he struck across the heath towards
+Mistover.
+
+It was an hour and a half later when he again appeared at the garden
+gate. The shutters of the house were closed, and Christian Cantle, who
+had been wheeling manure about the garden all day, had gone home. On
+entering he found that his mother, after waiting a long time for him,
+had finished her meal.
+
+"Where have you been, Clym?" she immediately said. "Why didn't you tell
+me that you were going away at this time?"
+
+"I have been on the heath."
+
+"You'll meet Eustacia Vye if you go up there."
+
+Clym paused a minute. "Yes, I met her this evening," he said, as though
+it were spoken under the sheer necessity of preserving honesty.
+
+"I wondered if you had."
+
+"It was no appointment."
+
+"No; such meetings never are."
+
+"But you are not angry, Mother?"
+
+"I can hardly say that I am not. Angry? No. But when I consider the
+usual nature of the drag which causes men of promise to disappoint the
+world I feel uneasy."
+
+"You deserve credit for the feeling, Mother. But I can assure you that
+you need not be disturbed by it on my account."
+
+"When I think of you and your new crotchets," said Mrs. Yeobright,
+with some emphasis, "I naturally don't feel so comfortable as I did a
+twelvemonth ago. It is incredible to me that a man accustomed to the
+attractive women of Paris and elsewhere should be so easily worked upon
+by a girl in a heath. You could just as well have walked another way."
+
+"I had been studying all day."
+
+"Well, yes," she added more hopefully, "I have been thinking that you
+might get on as a schoolmaster, and rise that way, since you really are
+determined to hate the course you were pursuing."
+
+Yeobright was unwilling to disturb this idea, though his scheme was far
+enough removed from one wherein the education of youth should be made
+a mere channel of social ascent. He had no desires of that sort. He had
+reached the stage in a young man's life when the grimness of the general
+human situation first becomes clear; and the realization of this causes
+ambition to halt awhile. In France it is not uncustomary to commit
+suicide at this stage; in England we do much better, or much worse, as
+the case may be.
+
+The love between the young man and his mother was strangely invisible
+now. Of love it may be said, the less earthly the less demonstrative. In
+its absolutely indestructible form it reaches a profundity in which all
+exhibition of itself is painful. It was so with these. Had conversations
+between them been overheard, people would have said, "How cold they are
+to each other!"
+
+His theory and his wishes about devoting his future to teaching had made
+an impression on Mrs. Yeobright. Indeed, how could it be otherwise
+when he was a part of her--when their discourses were as if carried on
+between the right and the left hands of the same body? He had despaired
+of reaching her by argument; and it was almost as a discovery to him
+that he could reach her by a magnetism which was as superior to words as
+words are to yells.
+
+Strangely enough he began to feel now that it would not be so hard
+to persuade her who was his best friend that comparative poverty was
+essentially the higher course for him, as to reconcile to his feelings
+the act of persuading her. From every provident point of view his mother
+was so undoubtedly right, that he was not without a sickness of heart in
+finding he could shake her.
+
+She had a singular insight into life, considering that she had never
+mixed with it. There are instances of persons who, without clear ideas
+of the things they criticize have yet had clear ideas of the relations
+of those things. Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe
+visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind,
+gave excellent lectures on colour, and taught others the theory of ideas
+which they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted ones
+are mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and
+estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.
+
+What was the great world to Mrs. Yeobright? A multitude whose tendencies
+could be perceived, though not its essences. Communities were seen by
+her as from a distance; she saw them as we see the throngs which cover
+the canvases of Sallaert, Van Alsloot, and others of that school--vast
+masses of beings, jostling, zigzagging, and processioning in definite
+directions, but whose features are indistinguishable by the very
+comprehensiveness of the view.
+
+One could see that, as far as it had gone, her life was very complete on
+its reflective side. The philosophy of her nature, and its limitation by
+circumstances, was almost written in her movements. They had a majestic
+foundation, though they were far from being majestic; and they had a
+ground-work of assurance, but they were not assured. As her once elastic
+walk had become deadened by time, so had her natural pride of life been
+hindered in its blooming by her necessities.
+
+The next slight touch in the shaping of Clym's destiny occurred a few
+days after. A barrow was opened on the heath, and Yeobright attended the
+operation, remaining away from his study during several hours. In the
+afternoon Christian returned from a journey in the same direction, and
+Mrs. Yeobright questioned him.
+
+"They have dug a hole, and they have found things like flowerpots upside
+down, Mis'ess Yeobright; and inside these be real charnel bones. They
+have carried 'em off to men's houses; but I shouldn't like to sleep
+where they will bide. Dead folks have been known to come and claim their
+own. Mr. Yeobright had got one pot of the bones, and was going to bring
+'em home--real skellington bones--but 'twas ordered otherwise. You'll be
+relieved to hear that he gave away his pot and all, on second thoughts;
+and a blessed thing for ye, Mis'ess Yeobright, considering the wind o'
+nights."
+
+"Gave it away?"
+
+"Yes. To Miss Vye. She has a cannibal taste for such churchyard
+furniture seemingly."
+
+"Miss Vye was there too?"
+
+"Ay, 'a b'lieve she was."
+
+When Clym came home, which was shortly after, his mother said, in a
+curious tone, "The urn you had meant for me you gave away."
+
+Yeobright made no reply; the current of her feeling was too pronounced
+to admit it.
+
+The early weeks of the year passed on. Yeobright certainly studied at
+home, but he also walked much abroad, and the direction of his walk was
+always towards some point of a line between Mistover and Rainbarrow.
+
+The month of March arrived, and the heath showed its first signs of
+awakening from winter trance. The awakening was almost feline in its
+stealthiness. The pool outside the bank by Eustacia's dwelling, which
+seemed as dead and desolate as ever to an observer who moved and made
+noises in his observation, would gradually disclose a state of great
+animation when silently watched awhile. A timid animal world had come to
+life for the season. Little tadpoles and efts began to bubble up through
+the water, and to race along beneath it; toads made noises like very
+young ducks, and advanced to the margin in twos and threes; overhead,
+bumblebees flew hither and thither in the thickening light, their drone
+coming and going like the sound of a gong.
+
+On an evening such as this Yeobright descended into the Blooms-End
+valley from beside that very pool, where he had been standing with
+another person quite silently and quite long enough to hear all this
+puny stir of resurrection in nature; yet he had not heard it. His walk
+was rapid as he came down, and he went with a springy trend. Before
+entering upon his mother's premises he stopped and breathed. The light
+which shone forth on him from the window revealed that his face was
+flushed and his eye bright. What it did not show was something which
+lingered upon his lips like a seal set there. The abiding presence of
+this impress was so real that he hardly dared to enter the house, for it
+seemed as if his mother might say, "What red spot is that glowing upon
+your mouth so vividly?"
+
+But he entered soon after. The tea was ready, and he sat down opposite
+his mother. She did not speak many words; and as for him, something
+had been just done and some words had been just said on the hill which
+prevented him from beginning a desultory chat. His mother's taciturnity
+was not without ominousness, but he appeared not to care. He knew why
+she said so little, but he could not remove the cause of her bearing
+towards him. These half-silent sittings were far from uncommon with them
+now. At last Yeobright made a beginning of what was intended to strike
+at the whole root of the matter.
+
+"Five days have we sat like this at meals with scarcely a word. What's
+the use of it, Mother?"
+
+"None," said she, in a heart-swollen tone. "But there is only too good a
+reason."
+
+"Not when you know all. I have been wanting to speak about this, and I
+am glad the subject is begun. The reason, of course, is Eustacia Vye.
+Well, I confess I have seen her lately, and have seen her a good many
+times."
+
+"Yes, yes; and I know what that amounts to. It troubles me, Clym. You
+are wasting your life here; and it is solely on account of her. If
+it had not been for that woman you would never have entertained this
+teaching scheme at all."
+
+Clym looked hard at his mother. "You know that is not it," he said.
+
+"Well, I know you had decided to attempt it before you saw her; but
+that would have ended in intentions. It was very well to talk of, but
+ridiculous to put in practice. I fully expected that in the course of a
+month or two you would have seen the folly of such self-sacrifice, and
+would have been by this time back again to Paris in some business or
+other. I can understand objections to the diamond trade--I really was
+thinking that it might be inadequate to the life of a man like you even
+though it might have made you a millionaire. But now I see how mistaken
+you are about this girl I doubt if you could be correct about other
+things."
+
+"How am I mistaken in her?"
+
+"She is lazy and dissatisfied. But that is not all of it. Supposing her
+to be as good a woman as any you can find, which she certainly is not,
+why do you wish to connect yourself with anybody at present?"
+
+"Well, there are practical reasons," Clym began, and then almost broke
+off under an overpowering sense of the weight of argument which could
+be brought against his statement. "If I take a school an educated woman
+would be invaluable as a help to me."
+
+"What! you really mean to marry her?"
+
+"It would be premature to state that plainly. But consider what obvious
+advantages there would be in doing it. She----"
+
+"Don't suppose she has any money. She hasn't a farthing."
+
+"She is excellently educated, and would make a good matron in a
+boarding-school. I candidly own that I have modified my views a little,
+in deference to you; and it should satisfy you. I no longer adhere to
+my intention of giving with my own mouth rudimentary education to the
+lowest class. I can do better. I can establish a good private school
+for farmers' sons, and without stopping the school I can manage to
+pass examinations. By this means, and by the assistance of a wife like
+her----"
+
+"Oh, Clym!"
+
+"I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools
+in the county."
+
+Yeobright had enunciated the word "her" with a fervour which, in
+conversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a maternal
+heart within the four seas could in such circumstances, have helped
+being irritated at that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new woman.
+
+"You are blinded, Clym," she said warmly. "It was a bad day for you when
+you first set eyes on her. And your scheme is merely a castle in the
+air built on purpose to justify this folly which has seized you, and to
+salve your conscience on the irrational situation you are in."
+
+"Mother, that's not true," he firmly answered.
+
+"Can you maintain that I sit and tell untruths, when all I wish to do
+is to save you from sorrow? For shame, Clym! But it is all through that
+woman--a hussy!"
+
+Clym reddened like fire and rose. He placed his hand upon his mother's
+shoulder and said, in a tone which hung strangely between entreaty and
+command, "I won't hear it. I may be led to answer you in a way which we
+shall both regret."
+
+His mother parted her lips to begin some other vehement truth, but on
+looking at him she saw that in his face which led her to leave the
+words unsaid. Yeobright walked once or twice across the room, and then
+suddenly went out of the house. It was eleven o'clock when he came in,
+though he had not been further than the precincts of the garden. His
+mother was gone to bed. A light was left burning on the table, and
+supper was spread. Without stopping for any food he secured the doors
+and went upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+4--An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness
+
+
+The next day was gloomy enough at Blooms-End. Yeobright remained in
+his study, sitting over the open books; but the work of those hours was
+miserably scant. Determined that there should be nothing in his conduct
+towards his mother resembling sullenness, he had occasionally spoken to
+her on passing matters, and would take no notice of the brevity of her
+replies. With the same resolve to keep up a show of conversation he
+said, about seven o'clock in the evening, "There's an eclipse of the
+moon tonight. I am going out to see it." And, putting on his overcoat,
+he left her.
+
+The low moon was not as yet visible from the front of the house, and
+Yeobright climbed out of the valley until he stood in the full flood
+of her light. But even now he walked on, and his steps were in the
+direction of Rainbarrow.
+
+In half an hour he stood at the top. The sky was clear from verge to
+verge, and the moon flung her rays over the whole heath, but without
+sensibly lighting it, except where paths and water-courses had laid bare
+the white flints and glistening quartz sand, which made streaks upon the
+general shade. After standing awhile he stooped and felt the heather. It
+was dry, and he flung himself down upon the barrow, his face towards the
+moon, which depicted a small image of herself in each of his eyes.
+
+He had often come up here without stating his purpose to his mother;
+but this was the first time that he had been ostensibly frank as to
+his purpose while really concealing it. It was a moral situation which,
+three months earlier, he could hardly have credited of himself. In
+returning to labour in this sequestered spot he had anticipated an
+escape from the chafing of social necessities; yet behold they were
+here also. More than ever he longed to be in some world where personal
+ambition was not the only recognized form of progress--such, perhaps, as
+might have been the case at some time or other in the silvery globe then
+shining upon him. His eye travelled over the length and breadth of that
+distant country--over the Bay of Rainbows, the sombre Sea of Crises,
+the Ocean of Storms, the Lake of Dreams, the vast Walled Plains, and
+the wondrous Ring Mountains--till he almost felt himself to be voyaging
+bodily through its wild scenes, standing on its hollow hills, traversing
+its deserts, descending its vales and old sea bottoms, or mounting to
+the edges of its craters.
+
+While he watched the far-removed landscape a tawny stain grew into being
+on the lower verge--the eclipse had begun. This marked a preconcerted
+moment--for the remote celestial phenomenon had been pressed into
+sublunary service as a lover's signal. Yeobright's mind flew back to
+earth at the sight; he arose, shook himself and listened. Minute after
+minute passed by, perhaps ten minutes passed, and the shadow on the moon
+perceptibly widened. He heard a rustling on his left hand, a cloaked
+figure with an upturned face appeared at the base of the Barrow, and
+Clym descended. In a moment the figure was in his arms, and his lips
+upon hers.
+
+"My Eustacia!"
+
+"Clym, dearest!"
+
+Such a situation had less than three months brought forth.
+
+They remained long without a single utterance, for no language could
+reach the level of their condition--words were as the rusty implements
+of a by-gone barbarous epoch, and only to be occasionally tolerated.
+
+"I began to wonder why you did not come," said Yeobright, when she had
+withdrawn a little from his embrace.
+
+"You said ten minutes after the first mark of shade on the edge of the
+moon, and that's what it is now."
+
+"Well, let us only think that here we are."
+
+Then, holding each other's hand, they were again silent, and the shadow
+on the moon's disc grew a little larger.
+
+"Has it seemed long since you last saw me?" she asked.
+
+"It has seemed sad."
+
+"And not long? That's because you occupy yourself, and so blind yourself
+to my absence. To me, who can do nothing, it has been like living under
+stagnant water."
+
+"I would rather bear tediousness, dear, than have time made short by
+such means as have shortened mine."
+
+"In what way is that? You have been thinking you wished you did not love
+me."
+
+"How can a man wish that, and yet love on? No, Eustacia."
+
+"Men can, women cannot."
+
+"Well, whatever I may have thought, one thing is certain--I do love
+you--past all compass and description. I love you to oppressiveness--I,
+who have never before felt more than a pleasant passing fancy for any
+woman I have ever seen. Let me look right into your moonlit face and
+dwell on every line and curve in it! Only a few hairbreadths make the
+difference between this face and faces I have seen many times before I
+knew you; yet what a difference--the difference between everything and
+nothing at all. One touch on that mouth again! there, and there, and
+there. Your eyes seem heavy, Eustacia."
+
+"No, it is my general way of looking. I think it arises from my feeling
+sometimes an agonizing pity for myself that I ever was born."
+
+"You don't feel it now?"
+
+"No. Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. Nothing can
+ensure the continuance of love. It will evaporate like a spirit, and so
+I feel full of fears."
+
+"You need not."
+
+"Ah, you don't know. You have seen more than I, and have been into
+cities and among people that I have only heard of, and have lived more
+years than I; but yet I am older at this than you. I loved another man
+once, and now I love you."
+
+"In God's mercy don't talk so, Eustacia!"
+
+"But I do not think I shall be the one who wearies first. It will, I
+fear, end in this way: your mother will find out that you meet me, and
+she will influence you against me!"
+
+"That can never be. She knows of these meetings already."
+
+"And she speaks against me?"
+
+"I will not say."
+
+"There, go away! Obey her. I shall ruin you. It is foolish of you
+to meet me like this. Kiss me, and go away forever. Forever--do you
+hear?--forever!"
+
+"Not I."
+
+"It is your only chance. Many a man's love has been a curse to him."
+
+"You are desperate, full of fancies, and wilful; and you misunderstand.
+I have an additional reason for seeing you tonight besides love of you.
+For though, unlike you, I feel our affection may be eternal. I feel with
+you in this, that our present mode of existence cannot last."
+
+"Oh! 'tis your mother. Yes, that's it! I knew it."
+
+"Never mind what it is. Believe this, I cannot let myself lose you. I
+must have you always with me. This very evening I do not like to let
+you go. There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest--you must be my
+wife."
+
+She started--then endeavoured to say calmly, "Cynics say that cures the
+anxiety by curing the love."
+
+"But you must answer me. Shall I claim you some day--I don't mean at
+once?"
+
+"I must think," Eustacia murmured. "At present speak of Paris to me. Is
+there any place like it on earth?"
+
+"It is very beautiful. But will you be mine?"
+
+"I will be nobody else's in the world--does that satisfy you?"
+
+"Yes, for the present."
+
+"Now tell me of the Tuileries, and the Louvre," she continued evasively.
+
+"I hate talking of Paris! Well, I remember one sunny room in the
+Louvre which would make a fitting place for you to live in--the Galerie
+d'Apollon. Its windows are mainly east; and in the early morning,
+when the sun is bright, the whole apartment is in a perfect blaze of
+splendour. The rays bristle and dart from the encrustations of gilding
+to the magnificent inlaid coffers, from the coffers to the gold and
+silver plate, from the plate to the jewels and precious stones, from
+these to the enamels, till there is a perfect network of light which
+quite dazzles the eye. But now, about our marriage----"
+
+"And Versailles--the King's Gallery is some such gorgeous room, is it
+not?"
+
+"Yes. But what's the use of talking of gorgeous rooms? By the way, the
+Little Trianon would suit us beautifully to live in, and you might
+walk in the gardens in the moonlight and think you were in some English
+shrubbery; it is laid out in English fashion."
+
+"I should hate to think that!"
+
+"Then you could keep to the lawn in front of the Grand Palace. All about
+there you would doubtless feel in a world of historical romance."
+
+He went on, since it was all new to her, and described Fontainebleau,
+St. Cloud, the Bois, and many other familiar haunts of the Parisians;
+till she said--
+
+"When used you to go to these places?"
+
+"On Sundays."
+
+"Ah, yes. I dislike English Sundays. How I should chime in with their
+manners over there! Dear Clym, you'll go back again?"
+
+Clym shook his head, and looked at the eclipse.
+
+"If you'll go back again I'll--be something," she said tenderly, putting
+her head near his breast. "If you'll agree I'll give my promise, without
+making you wait a minute longer."
+
+"How extraordinary that you and my mother should be of one mind about
+this!" said Yeobright. "I have vowed not to go back, Eustacia. It is not
+the place I dislike; it is the occupation."
+
+"But you can go in some other capacity."
+
+"No. Besides, it would interfere with my scheme. Don't press that,
+Eustacia. Will you marry me?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+"Now--never mind Paris; it is no better than other spots. Promise,
+sweet!"
+
+"You will never adhere to your education plan, I am quite sure; and then
+it will be all right for me; and so I promise to be yours for ever and
+ever."
+
+Clym brought her face towards his by a gentle pressure of the hand, and
+kissed her.
+
+"Ah! but you don't know what you have got in me," she said. "Sometimes I
+think there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make a good
+homespun wife. Well, let it go--see how our time is slipping, slipping,
+slipping!" She pointed towards the half-eclipsed moon.
+
+"You are too mournful."
+
+"No. Only I dread to think of anything beyond the present. What is, we
+know. We are together now, and it is unknown how long we shall be so;
+the unknown always fills my mind with terrible possibilities, even
+when I may reasonably expect it to be cheerful.... Clym, the eclipsed
+moonlight shines upon your face with a strange foreign colour, and shows
+its shape as if it were cut out in gold. That means that you should be
+doing better things than this."
+
+"You are ambitious, Eustacia--no, not exactly ambitious, luxurious. I
+ought to be of the same vein, to make you happy, I suppose. And yet, far
+from that, I could live and die in a hermitage here, with proper work to
+do."
+
+There was that in his tone which implied distrust of his position as
+a solicitous lover, a doubt if he were acting fairly towards one whose
+tastes touched his own only at rare and infrequent points. She saw his
+meaning, and whispered, in a low, full accent of eager assurance "Don't
+mistake me, Clym--though I should like Paris, I love you for yourself
+alone. To be your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to me; but I
+would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be yours at all.
+It is gain to me either way, and very great gain. There's my too candid
+confession."
+
+"Spoken like a woman. And now I must soon leave you. I'll walk with you
+towards your house."
+
+"But must you go home yet?" she asked. "Yes, the sand has nearly slipped
+away, I see, and the eclipse is creeping on more and more. Don't go yet!
+Stop till the hour has run itself out; then I will not press you any
+more. You will go home and sleep well; I keep sighing in my sleep! Do
+you ever dream of me?"
+
+"I cannot recollect a clear dream of you."
+
+"I see your face in every scene of my dreams, and hear your voice in
+every sound. I wish I did not. It is too much what I feel. They say
+such love never lasts. But it must! And yet once, I remember, I saw an
+officer of the Hussars ride down the street at Budmouth, and though he
+was a total stranger and never spoke to me, I loved him till I thought
+I should really die of love--but I didn't die, and at last I left off
+caring for him. How terrible it would be if a time should come when I
+could not love you, my Clym!"
+
+"Please don't say such reckless things. When we see such a time at hand
+we will say, 'I have outlived my faith and purpose,' and die. There, the
+hour has expired--now let us walk on."
+
+Hand in hand they went along the path towards Mistover. When they were
+near the house he said, "It is too late for me to see your grandfather
+tonight. Do you think he will object to it?"
+
+"I will speak to him. I am so accustomed to be my own mistress that it
+did not occur to me that we should have to ask him."
+
+Then they lingeringly separated, and Clym descended towards Blooms-End.
+
+And as he walked further and further from the charmed atmosphere of his
+Olympian girl his face grew sad with a new sort of sadness. A perception
+of the dilemma in which his love had placed him came back in full force.
+In spite of Eustacia's apparent willingness to wait through the period
+of an unpromising engagement, till he should be established in his new
+pursuit, he could not but perceive at moments that she loved him rather
+as a visitant from a gay world to which she rightly belonged than as
+a man with a purpose opposed to that recent past of his which so
+interested her. It meant that, though she made no conditions as to his
+return to the French capital, this was what she secretly longed for in
+the event of marriage; and it robbed him of many an otherwise pleasant
+hour. Along with that came the widening breach between himself and his
+mother. Whenever any little occurrence had brought into more prominence
+than usual the disappointment that he was causing her it had sent him on
+lone and moody walks; or he was kept awake a great part of the night
+by the turmoil of spirit which such a recognition created. If Mrs.
+Yeobright could only have been led to see what a sound and worthy
+purpose this purpose of his was and how little it was being affected by
+his devotions to Eustacia, how differently would she regard him!
+
+Thus as his sight grew accustomed to the first blinding halo kindled
+about him by love and beauty, Yeobright began to perceive what a
+strait he was in. Sometimes he wished that he had never known Eustacia,
+immediately to retract the wish as brutal. Three antagonistic growths
+had to be kept alive: his mother's trust in him, his plan for becoming a
+teacher, and Eustacia's happiness. His fervid nature could not afford
+to relinquish one of these, though two of the three were as many as
+he could hope to preserve. Though his love was as chaste as that of
+Petrarch for his Laura, it had made fetters of what previously was
+only a difficulty. A position which was not too simple when he stood
+whole-hearted had become indescribably complicated by the addition of
+Eustacia. Just when his mother was beginning to tolerate one scheme
+he had introduced another still bitterer than the first, and the
+combination was more than she could bear.
+
+
+
+
+5--Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
+
+
+When Yeobright was not with Eustacia he was sitting slavishly over his
+books; when he was not reading he was meeting her. These meetings were
+carried on with the greatest secrecy.
+
+One afternoon his mother came home from a morning visit to Thomasin. He
+could see from a disturbance in the lines of her face that something had
+happened.
+
+"I have been told an incomprehensible thing," she said mournfully. "The
+captain has let out at the Woman that you and Eustacia Vye are engaged
+to be married."
+
+"We are," said Yeobright. "But it may not be yet for a very long time."
+
+"I should hardly think it WOULD be yet for a very long time! You will
+take her to Paris, I suppose?" She spoke with weary hopelessness.
+
+"I am not going back to Paris."
+
+"What will you do with a wife, then?"
+
+"Keep a school in Budmouth, as I have told you."
+
+"That's incredible! The place is overrun with schoolmasters. You have no
+special qualifications. What possible chance is there for such as you?"
+
+"There is no chance of getting rich. But with my system of education,
+which is as new as it is true, I shall do a great deal of good to my
+fellow-creatures."
+
+"Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be invented they
+would have found it out at the universities long before this time."
+
+"Never, Mother. They cannot find it out, because their teachers don't
+come in contact with the class which demands such a system--that
+is, those who have had no preliminary training. My plan is one for
+instilling high knowledge into empty minds without first cramming them
+with what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins."
+
+"I might have believed you if you had kept yourself free from
+entanglements; but this woman--if she had been a good girl it would have
+been bad enough; but being----"
+
+"She is a good girl."
+
+"So you think. A Corfu bandmaster's daughter! What has her life been?
+Her surname even is not her true one."
+
+"She is Captain Vye's granddaughter, and her father merely took her
+mother's name. And she is a lady by instinct."
+
+"They call him 'captain,' but anybody is captain."
+
+"He was in the Royal Navy!"
+
+"No doubt he has been to sea in some tub or other. Why doesn't he look
+after her? No lady would rove about the heath at all hours of the day
+and night as she does. But that's not all of it. There was something
+queer between her and Thomasin's husband at one time--I am as sure of it
+as that I stand here."
+
+"Eustacia has told me. He did pay her a little attention a year ago; but
+there's no harm in that. I like her all the better."
+
+"Clym," said his mother with firmness, "I have no proofs against her,
+unfortunately. But if she makes you a good wife, there has never been a
+bad one."
+
+"Believe me, you are almost exasperating," said Yeobright vehemently.
+"And this very day I had intended to arrange a meeting between you. But
+you give me no peace; you try to thwart my wishes in everything."
+
+"I hate the thought of any son of mine marrying badly! I wish I had
+never lived to see this; it is too much for me--it is more than I
+dreamt!" She turned to the window. Her breath was coming quickly, and
+her lips were pale, parted, and trembling.
+
+"Mother," said Clym, "whatever you do, you will always be dear to
+me--that you know. But one thing I have a right to say, which is, that
+at my age I am old enough to know what is best for me."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright remained for some time silent and shaken, as if she could
+say no more. Then she replied, "Best? Is it best for you to injure your
+prospects for such a voluptuous, idle woman as that? Don't you see that
+by the very fact of your choosing her you prove that you do not know
+what is best for you? You give up your whole thought--you set your whole
+soul--to please a woman."
+
+"I do. And that woman is you."
+
+"How can you treat me so flippantly!" said his mother, turning again to
+him with a tearful look. "You are unnatural, Clym, and I did not expect
+it."
+
+"Very likely," said he cheerlessly. "You did not know the measure you
+were going to mete me, and therefore did not know the measure that would
+be returned to you again."
+
+"You answer me; you think only of her. You stick to her in all things."
+
+"That proves her to be worthy. I have never yet supported what is bad.
+And I do not care only for her. I care for you and for myself, and
+for anything that is good. When a woman once dislikes another she is
+merciless!"
+
+"O Clym! please don't go setting down as my fault what is your obstinate
+wrongheadedness. If you wished to connect yourself with an unworthy
+person why did you come home here to do it? Why didn't you do it in
+Paris?--it is more the fashion there. You have come only to distress me,
+a lonely woman, and shorten my days! I wish that you would bestow your
+presence where you bestow your love!"
+
+Clym said huskily, "You are my mother. I will say no more--beyond this,
+that I beg your pardon for having thought this my home. I will no longer
+inflict myself upon you; I'll go." And he went out with tears in his
+eyes.
+
+It was a sunny afternoon at the beginning of summer, and the moist
+hollows of the heath had passed from their brown to their green stage.
+Yeobright walked to the edge of the basin which extended down from
+Mistover and Rainbarrow.
+
+By this time he was calm, and he looked over the landscape. In the minor
+valleys, between the hillocks which diversified the contour of the vale,
+the fresh young ferns were luxuriantly growing up, ultimately to reach
+a height of five or six feet. He descended a little way, flung himself
+down in a spot where a path emerged from one of the small hollows, and
+waited. Hither it was that he had promised Eustacia to bring his mother
+this afternoon, that they might meet and be friends. His attempt had
+utterly failed.
+
+He was in a nest of vivid green. The ferny vegetation round him, though
+so abundant, was quite uniform--it was a grove of machine-made foliage,
+a world of green triangles with saw-edges, and not a single flower. The
+air was warm with a vaporous warmth, and the stillness was unbroken.
+Lizards, grasshoppers, and ants were the only living things to
+be beheld. The scene seemed to belong to the ancient world of the
+carboniferous period, when the forms of plants were few, and of the fern
+kind; when there was neither bud nor blossom, nothing but a monotonous
+extent of leafage, amid which no bird sang.
+
+When he had reclined for some considerable time, gloomily pondering, he
+discerned above the ferns a drawn bonnet of white silk approaching from
+the left, and Yeobright knew directly that it covered the head of her
+he loved. His heart awoke from its apathy to a warm excitement, and,
+jumping to his feet, he said aloud, "I knew she was sure to come."
+
+She vanished in a hollow for a few moments, and then her whole form
+unfolded itself from the brake.
+
+"Only you here?" she exclaimed, with a disappointed air, whose
+hollowness was proved by her rising redness and her half-guilty low
+laugh. "Where is Mrs. Yeobright?"
+
+"She has not come," he replied in a subdued tone.
+
+"I wish I had known that you would be here alone," she said seriously,
+"and that we were going to have such an idle, pleasant time as this.
+Pleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to
+double it. I have not thought once today of having you all to myself
+this afternoon, and the actual moment of a thing is so soon gone."
+
+"It is indeed."
+
+"Poor Clym!" she continued, looking tenderly into his face. "You are
+sad. Something has happened at your home. Never mind what is--let us
+only look at what seems."
+
+"But, darling, what shall we do?" said he.
+
+"Still go on as we do now--just live on from meeting to meeting, never
+minding about another day. You, I know, are always thinking of that--I
+can see you are. But you must not--will you, dear Clym?"
+
+"You are just like all women. They are ever content to build their lives
+on any incidental position that offers itself; whilst men would fain
+make a globe to suit them. Listen to this, Eustacia. There is a subject
+I have determined to put off no longer. Your sentiment on the wisdom
+of Carpe diem does not impress me today. Our present mode of life must
+shortly be brought to an end."
+
+"It is your mother!"
+
+"It is. I love you none the less in telling you; it is only right you
+should know."
+
+"I have feared my bliss," she said, with the merest motion of her lips.
+"It has been too intense and consuming."
+
+"There is hope yet. There are forty years of work in me yet, and why
+should you despair? I am only at an awkward turning. I wish people
+wouldn't be so ready to think that there is no progress without
+uniformity."
+
+"Ah--your mind runs off to the philosophical side of it. Well, these sad
+and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to
+look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to indulge
+in. I have heard of people, who, upon coming suddenly into happiness,
+have died from anxiety lest they should not live to enjoy it. I felt
+myself in that whimsical state of uneasiness lately; but I shall be
+spared it now. Let us walk on."
+
+Clym took the hand which was already bared for him--it was a favourite
+way with them to walk bare hand in bare hand--and led her through the
+ferns. They formed a very comely picture of love at full flush, as they
+walked along the valley that late afternoon, the sun sloping down on
+their right, and throwing their thin spectral shadows, tall as poplar
+trees, far out across the furze and fern. Eustacia went with her head
+thrown back fancifully, a certain glad and voluptuous air of triumph
+pervading her eyes at having won by her own unaided self a man who was
+her perfect complement in attainment, appearance, and age. On the young
+man's part, the paleness of face which he had brought with him
+from Paris, and the incipient marks of time and thought, were less
+perceptible than when he returned, the healthful and energetic
+sturdiness which was his by nature having partially recovered its
+original proportions. They wandered onward till they reached the nether
+margin of the heath, where it became marshy and merged in moorland.
+
+"I must part from you here, Clym," said Eustacia.
+
+They stood still and prepared to bid each other farewell. Everything
+before them was on a perfect level. The sun, resting on the horizon
+line, streamed across the ground from between copper-coloured and lilac
+clouds, stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green. All
+dark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun were overspread by
+a purple haze, against which groups of wailing gnats shone out, rising
+upwards and dancing about like sparks of fire.
+
+"O! this leaving you is too hard to bear!" exclaimed Eustacia in a
+sudden whisper of anguish. "Your mother will influence you too much;
+I shall not be judged fairly, it will get afloat that I am not a good
+girl, and the witch story will be added to make me blacker!"
+
+"They cannot. Nobody dares to speak disrespectfully of you or of me."
+
+"Oh how I wish I was sure of never losing you--that you could not be
+able to desert me anyhow!"
+
+Clym stood silent a moment. His feelings were high, the moment was
+passionate, and he cut the knot.
+
+"You shall be sure of me, darling," he said, folding her in his arms.
+"We will be married at once."
+
+"O Clym!"
+
+"Do you agree to it?"
+
+"If--if we can."
+
+"We certainly can, both being of full age. And I have not followed my
+occupation all these years without having accumulated money; and if you
+will agree to live in a tiny cottage somewhere on the heath, until I
+take a house in Budmouth for the school, we can do it at a very little
+expense."
+
+"How long shall we have to live in the tiny cottage, Clym?"
+
+"About six months. At the end of that time I shall have finished my
+reading--yes, we will do it, and this heart-aching will be over. We
+shall, of course, live in absolute seclusion, and our married life will
+only begin to outward view when we take the house in Budmouth, where I
+have already addressed a letter on the matter. Would your grandfather
+allow you?"
+
+"I think he would--on the understanding that it should not last longer
+than six months."
+
+"I will guarantee that, if no misfortune happens."
+
+"If no misfortune happens," she repeated slowly.
+
+"Which is not likely. Dearest, fix the exact day."
+
+And then they consulted on the question, and the day was chosen. It was
+to be a fortnight from that time.
+
+This was the end of their talk, and Eustacia left him. Clym watched her
+as she retired towards the sun. The luminous rays wrapped her up with
+her increasing distance, and the rustle of her dress over the sprouting
+sedge and grass died away. As he watched, the dead flat of the scenery
+overpowered him, though he was fully alive to the beauty of that
+untarnished early summer green which was worn for the nonce by the
+poorest blade. There was something in its oppressive horizontality which
+too much reminded him of the arena of life; it gave him a sense of bare
+equality with, and no superiority to, a single living thing under the
+sun.
+
+Eustacia was now no longer the goddess but the woman to him, a being
+to fight for, support, help, be maligned for. Now that he had reached
+a cooler moment he would have preferred a less hasty marriage; but the
+card was laid, and he determined to abide by the game. Whether Eustacia
+was to add one other to the list of those who love too hotly to love
+long and well, the forthcoming event was certainly a ready way of
+proving.
+
+
+
+
+6--Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete
+
+
+All that evening smart sounds denoting an active packing up came from
+Yeobright's room to the ears of his mother downstairs.
+
+Next morning he departed from the house and again proceeded across the
+heath. A long day's march was before him, his object being to secure a
+dwelling to which he might take Eustacia when she became his wife.
+Such a house, small, secluded, and with its windows boarded up, he had
+casually observed a month earlier, about two miles beyond the village
+of East Egdon, and six miles distant altogether; and thither he directed
+his steps today.
+
+The weather was far different from that of the evening before. The
+yellow and vapoury sunset which had wrapped up Eustacia from his parting
+gaze had presaged change. It was one of those not infrequent days of
+an English June which are as wet and boisterous as November. The cold
+clouds hastened on in a body, as if painted on a moving slide. Vapours
+from other continents arrived upon the wind, which curled and parted
+round him as he walked on.
+
+At length Clym reached the margin of a fir and beech plantation that had
+been enclosed from heath land in the year of his birth. Here the trees,
+laden heavily with their new and humid leaves, were now suffering more
+damage than during the highest winds of winter, when the boughs are
+especially disencumbered to do battle with the storm. The wet young
+beeches were undergoing amputations, bruises, cripplings, and harsh
+lacerations, from which the wasting sap would bleed for many a day to
+come, and which would leave scars visible till the day of their burning.
+Each stem was wrenched at the root, where it moved like a bone in its
+socket, and at every onset of the gale convulsive sounds came from the
+branches, as if pain were felt. In a neighbouring brake a finch was
+trying to sing; but the wind blew under his feathers till they stood on
+end, twisted round his little tail, and made him give up his song.
+
+Yet a few yards to Yeobright's left, on the open heath, how
+ineffectively gnashed the storm! Those gusts which tore the trees merely
+waved the furze and heather in a light caress. Egdon was made for such
+times as these.
+
+Yeobright reached the empty house about midday. It was almost as lonely
+as that of Eustacia's grandfather, but the fact that it stood near
+a heath was disguised by a belt of firs which almost enclosed the
+premises. He journeyed on about a mile further to the village in which
+the owner lived, and, returning with him to the house, arrangements were
+completed, and the man undertook that one room at least should be ready
+for occupation the next day. Clym's intention was to live there alone
+until Eustacia should join him on their wedding-day.
+
+Then he turned to pursue his way homeward through the drizzle that had
+so greatly transformed the scene. The ferns, among which he had lain in
+comfort yesterday, were dripping moisture from every frond, wetting
+his legs through as he brushed past; and the fur of the rabbits leaping
+before him was clotted into dark locks by the same watery surrounding.
+
+He reached home damp and weary enough after his ten-mile walk. It had
+hardly been a propitious beginning, but he had chosen his course, and
+would show no swerving. The evening and the following morning were spent
+in concluding arrangements for his departure. To stay at home a minute
+longer than necessary after having once come to his determination would
+be, he felt, only to give new pain to his mother by some word, look, or
+deed.
+
+He had hired a conveyance and sent off his goods by two o'clock that
+day. The next step was to get some furniture, which, after serving
+for temporary use in the cottage, would be available for the house
+at Budmouth when increased by goods of a better description. A mart
+extensive enough for the purpose existed at Anglebury, some miles beyond
+the spot chosen for his residence, and there he resolved to pass the
+coming night.
+
+It now only remained to wish his mother good-bye. She was sitting by the
+window as usual when he came downstairs.
+
+"Mother, I am going to leave you," he said, holding out his hand.
+
+"I thought you were, by your packing," replied Mrs. Yeobright in a voice
+from which every particle of emotion was painfully excluded.
+
+"And you will part friends with me?"
+
+"Certainly, Clym."
+
+"I am going to be married on the twenty-fifth."
+
+"I thought you were going to be married."
+
+"And then--and then you must come and see us. You will understand me
+better after that, and our situation will not be so wretched as it is
+now."
+
+"I do not think it likely I shall come to see you."
+
+"Then it will not be my fault or Eustacia's, Mother. Good-bye!"
+
+He kissed her cheek, and departed in great misery, which was several
+hours in lessening itself to a controllable level. The position had
+been such that nothing more could be said without, in the first place,
+breaking down a barrier; and that was not to be done.
+
+No sooner had Yeobright gone from his mother's house than her face
+changed its rigid aspect for one of blank despair. After a while she
+wept, and her tears brought some relief. During the rest of the day she
+did nothing but walk up and down the garden path in a state bordering
+on stupefaction. Night came, and with it but little rest. The next day,
+with an instinct to do something which should reduce prostration
+to mournfulness, she went to her son's room, and with her own hands
+arranged it in order, for an imaginary time when he should return
+again. She gave some attention to her flowers, but it was perfunctorily
+bestowed, for they no longer charmed her.
+
+It was a great relief when, early in the afternoon, Thomasin paid her an
+unexpected visit. This was not the first meeting between the relatives
+since Thomasin's marriage; and past blunders having been in a rough way
+rectified, they could always greet each other with pleasure and ease.
+
+The oblique band of sunlight which followed her through the door became
+the young wife well. It illuminated her as her presence illuminated the
+heath. In her movements, in her gaze, she reminded the beholder of
+the feathered creatures who lived around her home. All similes and
+allegories concerning her began and ended with birds. There was as much
+variety in her motions as in their flight. When she was musing she was
+a kestrel, which hangs in the air by an invisible motion of its wings.
+When she was in a high wind her light body was blown against trees and
+banks like a heron's. When she was frightened she darted noiselessly
+like a kingfisher. When she was serene she skimmed like a swallow, and
+that is how she was moving now.
+
+"You are looking very blithe, upon my word, Tamsie," said Mrs.
+Yeobright, with a sad smile. "How is Damon?"
+
+"He is very well."
+
+"Is he kind to you, Thomasin?" And Mrs. Yeobright observed her narrowly.
+
+"Pretty fairly."
+
+"Is that honestly said?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt. I would tell you if he were unkind." She added, blushing,
+and with hesitation, "He--I don't know if I ought to complain to you
+about this, but I am not quite sure what to do. I want some money, you
+know, Aunt--some to buy little things for myself--and he doesn't give
+me any. I don't like to ask him; and yet, perhaps, he doesn't give it me
+because he doesn't know. Ought I to mention it to him, Aunt?"
+
+"Of course you ought. Have you never said a word on the matter?"
+
+"You see, I had some of my own," said Thomasin evasively, "and I have
+not wanted any of his until lately. I did just say something about it
+last week; but he seems--not to remember."
+
+"He must be made to remember. You are aware that I have a little box
+full of spade-guineas, which your uncle put into my hands to divide
+between yourself and Clym whenever I chose. Perhaps the time has come
+when it should be done. They can be turned into sovereigns at any
+moment."
+
+"I think I should like to have my share--that is, if you don't mind."
+
+"You shall, if necessary. But it is only proper that you should first
+tell your husband distinctly that you are without any, and see what he
+will do."
+
+"Very well, I will.... Aunt, I have heard about Clym. I know you are in
+trouble about him, and that's why I have come."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned away, and her features worked in her attempt to
+conceal her feelings. Then she ceased to make any attempt, and said,
+weeping, "O Thomasin, do you think he hates me? How can he bear to
+grieve me so, when I have lived only for him through all these years?"
+
+"Hate you--no," said Thomasin soothingly. "It is only that he loves her
+too well. Look at it quietly--do. It is not so very bad of him. Do you
+know, I thought it not the worst match he could have made. Miss Vye's
+family is a good one on her mother's side; and her father was a romantic
+wanderer--a sort of Greek Ulysses."
+
+"It is no use, Thomasin; it is no use. Your intention is good; but I
+will not trouble you to argue. I have gone through the whole that can be
+said on either side times, and many times. Clym and I have not parted
+in anger; we have parted in a worse way. It is not a passionate quarrel
+that would have broken my heart; it is the steady opposition and
+persistence in going wrong that he has shown. O Thomasin, he was so good
+as a little boy--so tender and kind!"
+
+"He was, I know."
+
+"I did not think one whom I called mine would grow up to treat me like
+this. He spoke to me as if I opposed him to injure him. As though I
+could wish him ill!"
+
+"There are worse women in the world than Eustacia Vye."
+
+"There are too many better that's the agony of it. It was she, Thomasin,
+and she only, who led your husband to act as he did--I would swear it!"
+
+"No," said Thomasin eagerly. "It was before he knew me that he thought
+of her, and it was nothing but a mere flirtation."
+
+"Very well; we will let it be so. There is little use in unravelling
+that now. Sons must be blind if they will. Why is it that a woman can
+see from a distance what a man cannot see close? Clym must do as he
+will--he is nothing more to me. And this is maternity--to give one's
+best years and best love to ensure the fate of being despised!"
+
+"You are too unyielding. Think how many mothers there are whose sons
+have brought them to public shame by real crimes before you feel so
+deeply a case like this."
+
+"Thomasin, don't lecture me--I can't have it. It is the excess above
+what we expect that makes the force of the blow, and that may not
+be greater in their case than in mine--they may have foreseen the
+worst.... I am wrongly made, Thomasin," she added, with a mournful smile.
+"Some widows can guard against the wounds their children give them by
+turning their hearts to another husband and beginning life again. But I
+always was a poor, weak, one-idea'd creature--I had not the compass of
+heart nor the enterprise for that. Just as forlorn and stupefied as
+I was when my husband's spirit flew away I have sat ever since--never
+attempting to mend matters at all. I was comparatively a young woman
+then, and I might have had another family by this time, and have been
+comforted by them for the failure of this one son."
+
+"It is more noble in you that you did not."
+
+"The more noble, the less wise."
+
+"Forget it, and be soothed, dear Aunt. And I shall not leave you alone
+for long. I shall come and see you every day."
+
+And for one week Thomasin literally fulfilled her word. She endeavoured
+to make light of the wedding; and brought news of the preparations, and
+that she was invited to be present. The next week she was rather unwell,
+and did not appear. Nothing had as yet been done about the guineas, for
+Thomasin feared to address her husband again on the subject, and Mrs.
+Yeobright had insisted upon this.
+
+
+One day just before this time Wildeve was standing at the door of
+the Quiet Woman. In addition to the upward path through the heath
+to Rainbarrow and Mistover, there was a road which branched from the
+highway a short distance below the inn, and ascended to Mistover by a
+circuitous and easy incline. This was the only route on that side for
+vehicles to the captain's retreat. A light cart from the nearest town
+descended the road, and the lad who was driving pulled up in front of
+the inn for something to drink.
+
+"You come from Mistover?" said Wildeve.
+
+"Yes. They are taking in good things up there. Going to be a wedding."
+And the driver buried his face in his mug.
+
+Wildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before, and a sudden
+expression of pain overspread his face. He turned for a moment into the
+passage to hide it. Then he came back again.
+
+"Do you mean Miss Vye?" he said. "How is it--that she can be married so
+soon?"
+
+"By the will of God and a ready young man, I suppose."
+
+"You don't mean Mr. Yeobright?"
+
+"Yes. He has been creeping about with her all the spring."
+
+"I suppose--she was immensely taken with him?"
+
+"She is crazy about him, so their general servant of all work tells me.
+And that lad Charley that looks after the horse is all in a daze about
+it. The stun-poll has got fond-like of her."
+
+"Is she lively--is she glad? Going to be married so soon--well!"
+
+"It isn't so very soon."
+
+"No; not so very soon."
+
+Wildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious heartache within him.
+He rested his elbow upon the mantelpiece and his face upon his hand.
+When Thomasin entered the room he did not tell her of what he had heard.
+The old longing for Eustacia had reappeared in his soul--and it was
+mainly because he had discovered that it was another man's intention to
+possess her.
+
+To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered; to care
+for the remote, to dislike the near; it was Wildeve's nature always.
+This is the true mark of the man of sentiment. Though Wildeve's fevered
+feeling had not been elaborated to real poetical compass, it was of the
+standard sort. His might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon.
+
+
+
+
+7--The Morning and the Evening of a Day
+
+
+The wedding morning came. Nobody would have imagined from appearances
+that Blooms-End had any interest in Mistover that day. A solemn
+stillness prevailed around the house of Clym's mother, and there was no
+more animation indoors. Mrs. Yeobright, who had declined to attend the
+ceremony, sat by the breakfast table in the old room which communicated
+immediately with the porch, her eyes listlessly directed towards the
+open door. It was the room in which, six months earlier, the merry
+Christmas party had met, to which Eustacia came secretly and as a
+stranger. The only living thing that entered now was a sparrow; and
+seeing no movements to cause alarm, he hopped boldly round the
+room, endeavoured to go out by the window, and fluttered among the
+pot-flowers. This roused the lonely sitter, who got up, released the
+bird, and went to the door. She was expecting Thomasin, who had written
+the night before to state that the time had come when she would wish to
+have the money and that she would if possible call this day.
+
+Yet Thomasin occupied Mrs. Yeobright's thoughts but slightly as she
+looked up the valley of the heath, alive with butterflies, and with
+grasshoppers whose husky noises on every side formed a whispered chorus.
+A domestic drama, for which the preparations were now being made a mile
+or two off, was but little less vividly present to her eyes than if
+enacted before her. She tried to dismiss the vision, and walked about
+the garden plot; but her eyes ever and anon sought out the direction
+of the parish church to which Mistover belonged, and her excited fancy
+clove the hills which divided the building from her eyes. The morning
+wore away. Eleven o'clock struck--could it be that the wedding was
+then in progress? It must be so. She went on imagining the scene at
+the church, which he had by this time approached with his bride. She
+pictured the little group of children by the gate as the pony carriage
+drove up in which, as Thomasin had learnt, they were going to perform
+the short journey. Then she saw them enter and proceed to the chancel
+and kneel; and the service seemed to go on.
+
+She covered her face with her hands. "O, it is a mistake!" she groaned.
+"And he will rue it some day, and think of me!"
+
+While she remained thus, overcome by her forebodings, the old clock
+indoors whizzed forth twelve strokes. Soon after, faint sounds floated
+to her ear from afar over the hills. The breeze came from that quarter,
+and it had brought with it the notes of distant bells, gaily starting
+off in a peal: one, two, three, four, five. The ringers at East Egdon
+were announcing the nuptials of Eustacia and her son.
+
+"Then it is over," she murmured. "Well, well! and life too will be over
+soon. And why should I go on scalding my face like this? Cry about one
+thing in life, cry about all; one thread runs through the whole piece.
+And yet we say, 'a time to laugh!'"
+
+Towards evening Wildeve came. Since Thomasin's marriage Mrs. Yeobright
+had shown him that grim friendliness which at last arises in all such
+cases of undesired affinity. The vision of what ought to have been
+is thrown aside in sheer weariness, and browbeaten human endeavour
+listlessly makes the best of the fact that is. Wildeve, to do him
+justice, had behaved very courteously to his wife's aunt; and it was
+with no surprise that she saw him enter now.
+
+"Thomasin has not been able to come, as she promised to do," he replied
+to her inquiry, which had been anxious, for she knew that her niece was
+badly in want of money. "The captain came down last night and
+personally pressed her to join them today. So, not to be unpleasant,
+she determined to go. They fetched her in the pony-chaise, and are
+going to bring her back."
+
+"Then it is done," said Mrs. Yeobright. "Have they gone to their new
+home?"
+
+"I don't know. I have had no news from Mistover since Thomasin left to
+go."
+
+"You did not go with her?" said she, as if there might be good reasons
+why.
+
+"I could not," said Wildeve, reddening slightly. "We could not both
+leave the house; it was rather a busy morning, on account of Anglebury
+Great Market. I believe you have something to give to Thomasin? If you
+like, I will take it."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright hesitated, and wondered if Wildeve knew what the
+something was. "Did she tell you of this?" she inquired.
+
+"Not particularly. She casually dropped a remark about having arranged
+to fetch some article or other."
+
+"It is hardly necessary to send it. She can have it whenever she chooses
+to come."
+
+"That won't be yet. In the present state of her health she must not go
+on walking so much as she has done." He added, with a faint twang of
+sarcasm, "What wonderful thing is it that I cannot be trusted to take?"
+
+"Nothing worth troubling you with."
+
+"One would think you doubted my honesty," he said, with a laugh, though
+his colour rose in a quick resentfulness frequent with him.
+
+"You need think no such thing," said she drily. "It is simply that I,
+in common with the rest of the world, feel that there are certain things
+which had better be done by certain people than by others."
+
+"As you like, as you like," said Wildeve laconically. "It is not worth
+arguing about. Well, I think I must turn homeward again, as the inn must
+not be left long in charge of the lad and the maid only."
+
+He went his way, his farewell being scarcely so courteous as his
+greeting. But Mrs. Yeobright knew him thoroughly by this time, and took
+little notice of his manner, good or bad.
+
+When Wildeve was gone Mrs. Yeobright stood and considered what would be
+the best course to adopt with regard to the guineas, which she had not
+liked to entrust to Wildeve. It was hardly credible that Thomasin had
+told him to ask for them, when the necessity for them had arisen
+from the difficulty of obtaining money at his hands. At the same time
+Thomasin really wanted them, and might be unable to come to Blooms-End
+for another week at least. To take or send the money to her at the inn
+would be impolite, since Wildeve would pretty surely be present, or
+would discover the transaction; and if, as her aunt suspected, he
+treated her less kindly than she deserved to be treated, he might
+then get the whole sum out of her gentle hands. But on this particular
+evening Thomasin was at Mistover, and anything might be conveyed to
+her there without the knowledge of her husband. Upon the whole the
+opportunity was worth taking advantage of.
+
+Her son, too, was there, and was now married. There could be no more
+proper moment to render him his share of the money than the present.
+And the chance that would be afforded her, by sending him this gift,
+of showing how far she was from bearing him ill-will, cheered the sad
+mother's heart.
+
+She went upstairs and took from a locked drawer a little box, out of
+which she poured a hoard of broad unworn guineas that had lain there
+many a year. There were a hundred in all, and she divided them into two
+heaps, fifty in each. Tying up these in small canvas bags, she went down
+to the garden and called to Christian Cantle, who was loitering about in
+hope of a supper which was not really owed him. Mrs. Yeobright gave
+him the moneybags, charged him to go to Mistover, and on no account
+to deliver them into any one's hands save her son's and Thomasin's. On
+further thought she deemed it advisable to tell Christian precisely
+what the two bags contained, that he might be fully impressed with their
+importance. Christian pocketed the moneybags, promised the greatest
+carefulness, and set out on his way.
+
+"You need not hurry," said Mrs. Yeobright. "It will be better not to get
+there till after dusk, and then nobody will notice you. Come back here
+to supper, if it is not too late."
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock when he began to ascend the vale towards
+Mistover; but the long days of summer being at their climax, the first
+obscurity of evening had only just begun to tan the landscape. At
+this point of his journey Christian heard voices, and found that they
+proceeded from a company of men and women who were traversing a hollow
+ahead of him, the tops only of their heads being visible.
+
+He paused and thought of the money he carried. It was almost too early
+even for Christian seriously to fear robbery; nevertheless he took
+a precaution which ever since his boyhood he had adopted whenever he
+carried more than two or three shillings upon his person--a precaution
+somewhat like that of the owner of the Pitt Diamond when filled with
+similar misgivings. He took off his boots, untied the guineas, and
+emptied the contents of one little bag into the right boot, and of
+the other into the left, spreading them as flatly as possible over the
+bottom of each, which was really a spacious coffer by no means limited
+to the size of the foot. Pulling them on again and lacing them to the
+very top, he proceeded on his way, more easy in his head than under his
+soles.
+
+His path converged towards that of the noisy company, and on coming
+nearer he found to his relief that they were several Egdon people whom
+he knew very well, while with them walked Fairway, of Blooms-End.
+
+"What! Christian going too?" said Fairway as soon as he recognized the
+newcomer. "You've got no young woman nor wife to your name to gie a
+gown-piece to, I'm sure."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" said Christian.
+
+"Why, the raffle. The one we go to every year. Going to the raffle as
+well as ourselves?"
+
+"Never knew a word o't. Is it like cudgel playing or other sportful
+forms of bloodshed? I don't want to go, thank you, Mister Fairway, and
+no offence."
+
+"Christian don't know the fun o't, and 'twould be a fine sight for him,"
+said a buxom woman. "There's no danger at all, Christian. Every man
+puts in a shilling apiece, and one wins a gown-piece for his wife or
+sweetheart if he's got one."
+
+"Well, as that's not my fortune there's no meaning in it to me. But I
+should like to see the fun, if there's nothing of the black art in it,
+and if a man may look on without cost or getting into any dangerous
+wrangle?"
+
+"There will be no uproar at all," said Timothy. "Sure, Christian, if
+you'd like to come we'll see there's no harm done."
+
+"And no ba'dy gaieties, I suppose? You see, neighbours, if so, it
+would be setting father a bad example, as he is so light moral'd. But
+a gown-piece for a shilling, and no black art--'tis worth looking in to
+see, and it wouldn't hinder me half an hour. Yes, I'll come, if you'll
+step a little way towards Mistover with me afterwards, supposing night
+should have closed in, and nobody else is going that way?"
+
+One or two promised; and Christian, diverging from his direct path,
+turned round to the right with his companions towards the Quiet Woman.
+
+When they entered the large common room of the inn they found assembled
+there about ten men from among the neighbouring population, and the
+group was increased by the new contingent to double that number. Most of
+them were sitting round the room in seats divided by wooden elbows like
+those of crude cathedral stalls, which were carved with the initials of
+many an illustrious drunkard of former times who had passed his days
+and his nights between them, and now lay as an alcoholic cinder in the
+nearest churchyard. Among the cups on the long table before the
+sitters lay an open parcel of light drapery--the gown-piece, as it was
+called--which was to be raffled for. Wildeve was standing with his back
+to the fireplace smoking a cigar; and the promoter of the raffle, a
+packman from a distant town, was expatiating upon the value of the
+fabric as material for a summer dress.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," he continued, as the newcomers drew up to the table,
+"there's five have entered, and we want four more to make up the number.
+I think, by the faces of those gentlemen who have just come in, that
+they are shrewd enough to take advantage of this rare opportunity of
+beautifying their ladies at a very trifling expense."
+
+Fairway, Sam, and another placed their shillings on the table, and the
+man turned to Christian.
+
+"No, sir," said Christian, drawing back, with a quick gaze of misgiving.
+"I am only a poor chap come to look on, an it please ye, sir. I don't
+so much as know how you do it. If so be I was sure of getting it I would
+put down the shilling; but I couldn't otherwise."
+
+"I think you might almost be sure," said the pedlar. "In fact, now I
+look into your face, even if I can't say you are sure to win, I can say
+that I never saw anything look more like winning in my life."
+
+"You'll anyhow have the same chance as the rest of us," said Sam.
+
+"And the extra luck of being the last comer," said another.
+
+"And I was born wi' a caul, and perhaps can be no more ruined than
+drowned?" Christian added, beginning to give way.
+
+Ultimately Christian laid down his shilling, the raffle began, and the
+dice went round. When it came to Christian's turn he took the box with a
+trembling hand, shook it fearfully, and threw a pair-royal. Three of the
+others had thrown common low pairs, and all the rest mere points.
+
+"The gentleman looked like winning, as I said," observed the chapman
+blandly. "Take it, sir; the article is yours."
+
+"Haw-haw-haw!" said Fairway. "I'm damned if this isn't the quarest start
+that ever I knowed!"
+
+"Mine?" asked Christian, with a vacant stare from his target eyes. "I--I
+haven't got neither maid, wife, nor widder belonging to me at all, and
+I'm afeard it will make me laughed at to ha'e it, Master Traveller. What
+with being curious to join in I never thought of that! What shall I do
+wi' a woman's clothes in MY bedroom, and not lose my decency!"
+
+"Keep 'em, to be sure," said Fairway, "if it is only for luck. Perhaps
+'twill tempt some woman that thy poor carcase had no power over when
+standing empty-handed."
+
+"Keep it, certainly," said Wildeve, who had idly watched the scene from
+a distance.
+
+The table was then cleared of the articles, and the men began to drink.
+
+"Well, to be sure!" said Christian, half to himself. "To think I should
+have been born so lucky as this, and not have found it out until now!
+What curious creatures these dice be--powerful rulers of us all, and
+yet at my command! I am sure I never need be afeared of anything after
+this." He handled the dice fondly one by one. "Why, sir," he said in a
+confidential whisper to Wildeve, who was near his left hand, "if I could
+only use this power that's in me of multiplying money I might do some
+good to a near relation of yours, seeing what I've got about me of
+hers--eh?" He tapped one of his money-laden boots upon the floor.
+
+"What do you mean?" said Wildeve.
+
+"That's a secret. Well, I must be going now." He looked anxiously
+towards Fairway.
+
+"Where are you going?" Wildeve asked.
+
+"To Mistover Knap. I have to see Mrs. Thomasin there--that's all."
+
+"I am going there, too, to fetch Mrs. Wildeve. We can walk together."
+
+Wildeve became lost in thought, and a look of inward illumination came
+into his eyes. It was money for his wife that Mrs. Yeobright could not
+trust him with. "Yet she could trust this fellow," he said to himself.
+"Why doesn't that which belongs to the wife belong to the husband too?"
+
+He called to the pot-boy to bring him his hat, and said, "Now,
+Christian, I am ready."
+
+"Mr. Wildeve," said Christian timidly, as he turned to leave the room,
+"would you mind lending me them wonderful little things that carry my
+luck inside 'em, that I might practise a bit by myself, you know?" He
+looked wistfully at the dice and box lying on the mantlepiece.
+
+"Certainly," said Wildeve carelessly. "They were only cut out by some
+lad with his knife, and are worth nothing." And Christian went back and
+privately pocketed them.
+
+Wildeve opened the door and looked out. The night was warm and cloudy.
+"By Gad! 'tis dark," he continued. "But I suppose we shall find our
+way."
+
+"If we should lose the path it might be awkward," said Christian. "A
+lantern is the only shield that will make it safe for us."
+
+"Let's have a lantern by all means." The stable lantern was fetched and
+lighted. Christian took up his gownpiece, and the two set out to ascend
+the hill.
+
+Within the room the men fell into chat till their attention was for a
+moment drawn to the chimney-corner. This was large, and, in addition
+to its proper recess, contained within its jambs, like many on Egdon, a
+receding seat, so that a person might sit there absolutely unobserved,
+provided there was no fire to light him up, as was the case now and
+throughout the summer. From the niche a single object protruded into the
+light from the candles on the table. It was a clay pipe, and its colour
+was reddish. The men had been attracted to this object by a voice behind
+the pipe asking for a light.
+
+"Upon my life, it fairly startled me when the man spoke!" said Fairway,
+handing a candle. "Oh--'tis the reddleman! You've kept a quiet tongue,
+young man."
+
+"Yes, I had nothing to say," observed Venn. In a few minutes he arose
+and wished the company good night.
+
+Meanwhile Wildeve and Christian had plunged into the heath.
+
+It was a stagnant, warm, and misty night, full of all the heavy perfumes
+of new vegetation not yet dried by hot sun, and among these particularly
+the scent of the fern. The lantern, dangling from Christian's hand,
+brushed the feathery fronds in passing by, disturbing moths and other
+winged insects, which flew out and alighted upon its horny panes.
+
+"So you have money to carry to Mrs. Wildeve?" said Christian's
+companion, after a silence. "Don't you think it very odd that it
+shouldn't be given to me?"
+
+"As man and wife be one flesh, 'twould have been all the same, I should
+think," said Christian. "But my strict documents was, to give the money
+into Mrs. Wildeve's hand--and 'tis well to do things right."
+
+"No doubt," said Wildeve. Any person who had known the circumstances
+might have perceived that Wildeve was mortified by the discovery that
+the matter in transit was money, and not, as he had supposed when at
+Blooms-End, some fancy nick-nack which only interested the two women
+themselves. Mrs. Yeobright's refusal implied that his honour was not
+considered to be of sufficiently good quality to make him a safer bearer
+of his wife's property.
+
+"How very warm it is tonight, Christian!" he said, panting, when they
+were nearly under Rainbarrow. "Let us sit down for a few minutes, for
+Heaven's sake."
+
+Wildeve flung himself down on the soft ferns; and Christian, placing the
+lantern and parcel on the ground, perched himself in a cramped position
+hard by, his knees almost touching his chin. He presently thrust one
+hand into his coat-pocket and began shaking it about.
+
+"What are you rattling in there?" said Wildeve.
+
+"Only the dice, sir," said Christian, quickly withdrawing his hand.
+"What magical machines these little things be, Mr. Wildeve! 'Tis a
+game I should never get tired of. Would you mind my taking 'em out and
+looking at 'em for a minute, to see how they are made? I didn't like
+to look close before the other men, for fear they should think it bad
+manners in me." Christian took them out and examined them in the hollow
+of his hand by the lantern light. "That these little things should carry
+such luck, and such charm, and such a spell, and such power in 'em,
+passes all I ever heard or zeed," he went on, with a fascinated gaze at
+the dice, which, as is frequently the case in country places, were made
+of wood, the points being burnt upon each face with the end of a wire.
+
+"They are a great deal in a small compass, You think?"
+
+"Yes. Do ye suppose they really be the devil's playthings, Mr. Wildeve?
+If so, 'tis no good sign that I be such a lucky man."
+
+"You ought to win some money, now that you've got them. Any woman would
+marry you then. Now is your time, Christian, and I would recommend you
+not to let it slip. Some men are born to luck, some are not. I belong to
+the latter class."
+
+"Did you ever know anybody who was born to it besides myself?"
+
+"O yes. I once heard of an Italian, who sat down at a gaming table with
+only a louis, (that's a foreign sovereign), in his pocket. He played on
+for twenty-four hours, and won ten thousand pounds, stripping the
+bank he had played against. Then there was another man who had lost a
+thousand pounds, and went to the broker's next day to sell stock, that
+he might pay the debt. The man to whom he owed the money went with him
+in a hackney-coach; and to pass the time they tossed who should pay
+the fare. The ruined man won, and the other was tempted to continue the
+game, and they played all the way. When the coachman stopped he was told
+to drive home again: the whole thousand pounds had been won back by the
+man who was going to sell."
+
+"Ha--ha--splendid!" exclaimed Christian. "Go on--go on!"
+
+"Then there was a man of London, who was only a waiter at White's
+clubhouse. He began playing first half-crown stakes, and then higher and
+higher, till he became very rich, got an appointment in India, and rose
+to be Governor of Madras. His daughter married a member of Parliament,
+and the Bishop of Carlisle stood godfather to one of the children."
+
+"Wonderful! wonderful!"
+
+"And once there was a young man in America who gambled till he had lost
+his last dollar. He staked his watch and chain, and lost as before;
+staked his umbrella, lost again; staked his hat, lost again; staked his
+coat and stood in his shirt-sleeves, lost again. Began taking off his
+breeches, and then a looker-on gave him a trifle for his pluck. With
+this he won. Won back his coat, won back his hat, won back his umbrella,
+his watch, his money, and went out of the door a rich man."
+
+"Oh, 'tis too good--it takes away my breath! Mr. Wildeve, I think I will
+try another shilling with you, as I am one of that sort; no danger can
+come o't, and you can afford to lose."
+
+"Very well," said Wildeve, rising. Searching about with the lantern, he
+found a large flat stone, which he placed between himself and Christian,
+and sat down again. The lantern was opened to give more light, and its
+rays directed upon the stone. Christian put down a shilling, Wildeve
+another, and each threw. Christian won. They played for two, Christian
+won again.
+
+"Let us try four," said Wildeve. They played for four. This time the
+stakes were won by Wildeve.
+
+"Ah, those little accidents will, of course, sometimes happen, to the
+luckiest man," he observed.
+
+"And now I have no more money!" explained Christian excitedly. "And yet,
+if I could go on, I should get it back again, and more. I wish this was
+mine." He struck his boot upon the ground, so that the guineas chinked
+within.
+
+"What! you have not put Mrs. Wildeve's money there?"
+
+"Yes. 'Tis for safety. Is it any harm to raffle with a married lady's
+money when, if I win, I shall only keep my winnings, and give her her
+own all the same; and if t'other man wins, her money will go to the
+lawful owner?"
+
+"None at all."
+
+Wildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean estimation
+in which he was held by his wife's friends; and it cut his heart
+severely. As the minutes passed he had gradually drifted into a
+revengeful intention without knowing the precise moment of forming it.
+This was to teach Mrs. Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be;
+in other words, to show her if he could that her niece's husband was the
+proper guardian of her niece's money.
+
+"Well, here goes!" said Christian, beginning to unlace one boot. "I
+shall dream of it nights and nights, I suppose; but I shall always swear
+my flesh don't crawl when I think o't!"
+
+He thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one of poor Thomasin's
+precious guineas, piping hot. Wildeve had already placed a sovereign on
+the stone. The game was then resumed. Wildeve won first, and Christian
+ventured another, winning himself this time. The game fluctuated, but
+the average was in Wildeve's favour. Both men became so absorbed in
+the game that they took no heed of anything but the pigmy objects
+immediately beneath their eyes, the flat stone, the open lantern, the
+dice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves which lay under the light,
+were the whole world to them.
+
+At length Christian lost rapidly; and presently, to his horror, the
+whole fifty guineas belonging to Thomasin had been handed over to his
+adversary.
+
+"I don't care--I don't care!" he moaned, and desperately set about
+untying his left boot to get at the other fifty. "The devil will toss me
+into the flames on his three-pronged fork for this night's work, I know!
+But perhaps I shall win yet, and then I'll get a wife to sit up with
+me o' nights and I won't be afeard, I won't! Here's another for'ee, my
+man!" He slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and the dice-box
+was rattled again.
+
+Time passed on. Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself.
+When commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than
+a bitter practical joke on Mrs. Yeobright. To win the money, fairly
+or otherwise, and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt's
+presence, had been the dim outline of his purpose. But men are drawn
+from their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and
+it was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been
+reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than that
+of winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was now no longer
+gambling for his wife's money, but for Yeobright's; though of this fact
+Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards.
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian
+placed Yeobright's last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty
+seconds it had gone the way of its companions.
+
+Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of
+remorse, "O, what shall I do with my wretched self?" he groaned. "What
+shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?"
+
+"Do? Live on just the same."
+
+"I won't live on just the same! I'll die! I say you are a--a----"
+
+"A man sharper than my neighbour."
+
+"Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!"
+
+"Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly."
+
+"I don't know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You've got money
+that isn't your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym's."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Because I had to gie fifty of 'em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so."
+
+"Oh?... Well, 'twould have been more graceful of her to have given them
+to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now."
+
+Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could be
+heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and tottered
+away out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to return to
+the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to meet his wife,
+who was to be driven home in the captain's four-wheel. While he was
+closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a neighbouring
+bush and came forward into the lantern light. It was the reddleman
+approaching.
+
+
+
+
+8--A New Force Disturbs the Current
+
+
+Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word
+being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been
+seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid
+it on the stone.
+
+"You have been watching us from behind that bush?" said Wildeve.
+
+The reddleman nodded. "Down with your stake," he said. "Or haven't you
+pluck enough to go on?"
+
+Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily begun
+with full pockets than left off with the same; and though Wildeve in
+a cooler temper might have prudently declined this invitation, the
+excitement of his recent success carried him completely away. He placed
+one of the guineas on a slab beside the reddleman's sovereign. "Mine is
+a guinea," he said.
+
+"A guinea that's not your own," said Venn sarcastically.
+
+"It is my own," answered Wildeve haughtily. "It is my wife's, and what
+is hers is mine."
+
+"Very well; let's make a beginning." He shook the box, and threw eight,
+ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.
+
+This encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts amounted
+to forty-five.
+
+Down went another of the reddleman's sovereigns against his first one
+which Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no
+pair. The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed
+the stakes.
+
+"Here you are again," said Wildeve contemptuously. "Double the stakes."
+He laid two of Thomasin's guineas, and the reddleman his two pounds.
+Venn won again. New stakes were laid on the stone, and the gamblers
+proceeded as before.
+
+Wildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game was beginning
+to tell upon his temper. He writhed, fumed, shifted his seat, and the
+beating of his heart was almost audible. Venn sat with lips impassively
+closed and eyes reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles; he scarcely
+appeared to breathe. He might have been an Arab, or an automaton; he
+would have been like a red sandstone statue but for the motion of his
+arm with the dice-box.
+
+The game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour of the other,
+without any great advantage on the side of either. Nearly twenty minutes
+were passed thus. The light of the candle had by this time attracted
+heath-flies, moths, and other winged creatures of night, which floated
+round the lantern, flew into the flame, or beat about the faces of the
+two players.
+
+But neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes
+being concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an
+arena vast and important as a battlefield. By this time a change had
+come over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty
+guineas--Thomasin's fifty, and ten of Clym's--had passed into his hands.
+Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated.
+
+"'Won back his coat,'" said Venn slily.
+
+Another throw, and the money went the same way.
+
+"'Won back his hat,'" continued Venn.
+
+"Oh, oh!" said Wildeve.
+
+"'Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out of the door a
+rich man,'" added Venn sentence by sentence, as stake after stake passed
+over to him.
+
+"Five more!" shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. "And three casts
+be hanged--one shall decide."
+
+The red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded, and followed
+his example. Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and five
+points. He clapped his hands; "I have done it this time--hurrah!"
+
+"There are two playing, and only one has thrown," said the reddleman,
+quietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so intently
+converged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were visible,
+like rays in a fog.
+
+Venn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes was disclosed.
+
+Wildeve was full of fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes
+Wildeve seized the dice and hurled them, box and all, into the darkness,
+uttering a fearful imprecation. Then he arose and began stamping up and
+down like a madman.
+
+"It is all over, then?" said Venn.
+
+"No, no!" cried Wildeve. "I mean to have another chance yet. I must!"
+
+"But, my good man, what have you done with the dice?"
+
+"I threw them away--it was a momentary irritation. What a fool I am!
+Here--come and help me to look for them--we must find them again."
+
+Wildeve snatched up the lantern and began anxiously prowling among the
+furze and fern.
+
+"You are not likely to find them there," said Venn, following. "What did
+you do such a crazy thing as that for? Here's the box. The dice can't be
+far off."
+
+Wildeve turned the light eagerly upon the spot where Venn had found
+the box, and mauled the herbage right and left. In the course of a few
+minutes one of the dice was found. They searched on for some time, but
+no other was to be seen.
+
+"Never mind," said Wildeve; "let's play with one."
+
+"Agreed," said Venn.
+
+Down they sat again, and recommenced with single guinea stakes; and the
+play went on smartly. But Fortune had unmistakably fallen in love
+with the reddleman tonight. He won steadily, till he was the owner of
+fourteen more of the gold pieces. Seventy-nine of the hundred guineas
+were his, Wildeve possessing only twenty-one. The aspect of the two
+opponents was now singular. Apart from motions, a complete diorama
+of the fluctuations of the game went on in their eyes. A diminutive
+candle-flame was mirrored in each pupil, and it would have been possible
+to distinguish therein between the moods of hope and the moods of
+abandonment, even as regards the reddleman, though his facial muscles
+betrayed nothing at all. Wildeve played on with the recklessness of
+despair.
+
+"What's that?" he suddenly exclaimed, hearing a rustle; and they both
+looked up.
+
+They were surrounded by dusky forms between four and five feet high,
+standing a few paces beyond the rays of the lantern. A moment's
+inspection revealed that the encircling figures were heath-croppers,
+their heads being all towards the players, at whom they gazed intently.
+
+"Hoosh!" said Wildeve, and the whole forty or fifty animals at once
+turned and galloped away. Play was again resumed.
+
+Ten minutes passed away. Then a large death's head moth advanced from
+the obscure outer air, wheeled twice round the lantern, flew straight
+at the candle, and extinguished it by the force of the blow. Wildeve had
+just thrown, but had not lifted the box to see what he had cast; and now
+it was impossible.
+
+"What the infernal!" he shrieked. "Now, what shall we do? Perhaps I have
+thrown six--have you any matches?"
+
+"None," said Venn.
+
+"Christian had some--I wonder where he is. Christian!"
+
+But there was no reply to Wildeve's shout, save a mournful whining
+from the herons which were nesting lower down the vale. Both men looked
+blankly round without rising. As their eyes grew accustomed to the
+darkness they perceived faint greenish points of light among the
+grass and fern. These lights dotted the hillside like stars of a low
+magnitude.
+
+"Ah--glowworms," said Wildeve. "Wait a minute. We can continue the
+game."
+
+Venn sat still, and his companion went hither and thither till he had
+gathered thirteen glowworms--as many as he could find in a space of four
+or five minutes--upon a fox-glove leaf which he pulled for the purpose.
+The reddleman vented a low humorous laugh when he saw his adversary
+return with these. "Determined to go on, then?" he said drily.
+
+"I always am!" said Wildeve angrily. And shaking the glowworms from
+the leaf he ranged them with a trembling hand in a circle on the stone,
+leaving a space in the middle for the descent of the dice-box, over
+which the thirteen tiny lamps threw a pale phosphoric shine. The game
+was again renewed. It happened to be that season of the year at which
+glowworms put forth their greatest brilliancy, and the light they
+yielded was more than ample for the purpose, since it is possible on
+such nights to read the handwriting of a letter by the light of two or
+three.
+
+The incongruity between the men's deeds and their environment was great.
+Amid the soft juicy vegetation of the hollow in which they sat, the
+motionless and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of guineas,
+the rattle of dice, the exclamations of the reckless players.
+
+Wildeve had lifted the box as soon as the lights were obtained, and the
+solitary die proclaimed that the game was still against him.
+
+"I won't play any more--you've been tampering with the dice," he
+shouted.
+
+"How--when they were your own?" said the reddleman.
+
+"We'll change the game: the lowest point shall win the stake--it may cut
+off my ill luck. Do you refuse?"
+
+"No--go on," said Venn.
+
+"O, there they are again--damn them!" cried Wildeve, looking up. The
+heath-croppers had returned noiselessly, and were looking on with erect
+heads just as before, their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as if they
+were wondering what mankind and candlelight could have to do in these
+haunts at this untoward hour.
+
+"What a plague those creatures are--staring at me so!" he said, and
+flung a stone, which scattered them; when the game was continued as
+before.
+
+Wildeve had now ten guineas left; and each laid five. Wildeve threw
+three points; Venn two, and raked in the coins. The other seized the
+die, and clenched his teeth upon it in sheer rage, as if he would bite
+it in pieces. "Never give in--here are my last five!" he cried, throwing
+them down. "Hang the glowworms--they are going out. Why don't you burn,
+you little fools? Stir them up with a thorn."
+
+He probed the glowworms with a bit of stick, and rolled them over, till
+the bright side of their tails was upwards.
+
+"There's light enough. Throw on," said Venn.
+
+Wildeve brought down the box within the shining circle and looked
+eagerly. He had thrown ace. "Well done!--I said it would turn, and it
+has turned." Venn said nothing; but his hand shook slightly.
+
+He threw ace also.
+
+"O!" said Wildeve. "Curse me!"
+
+The die smacked the stone a second time. It was ace again. Venn looked
+gloomy, threw--the die was seen to be lying in two pieces, the cleft
+sides uppermost.
+
+"I've thrown nothing at all," he said.
+
+"Serves me right--I split the die with my teeth. Here--take your money.
+Blank is less than one."
+
+"I don't wish it."
+
+"Take it, I say--you've won it!" And Wildeve threw the stakes against
+the reddleman's chest. Venn gathered them up, arose, and withdrew from
+the hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.
+
+When he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the extinguished
+lantern in his hand, went towards the highroad. On reaching it he stood
+still. The silence of night pervaded the whole heath except in one
+direction; and that was towards Mistover. There he could hear the noise
+of light wheels, and presently saw two carriagelamps descending the
+hill. Wildeve screened himself under a bush and waited.
+
+The vehicle came on and passed before him. It was a hired carriage,
+and behind the coachman were two persons whom he knew well. There sat
+Eustacia and Yeobright, the arm of the latter being round her waist.
+They turned the sharp corner at the bottom towards the temporary home
+which Clym had hired and furnished, about five miles to the eastward.
+
+Wildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight of his lost love,
+whose preciousness in his eyes was increasing in geometrical progression
+with each new incident that reminded him of their hopeless division.
+Brimming with the subtilized misery that he was capable of feeling, he
+followed the opposite way towards the inn.
+
+About the same moment that Wildeve stepped into the highway Venn also
+had reached it at a point a hundred yards further on; and he, hearing
+the same wheels, likewise waited till the carriage should come up. When
+he saw who sat therein he seemed to be disappointed. Reflecting a minute
+or two, during which interval the carriage rolled on, he crossed the
+road, and took a short cut through the furze and heath to a point where
+the turnpike road bent round in ascending a hill. He was now again in
+front of the carriage, which presently came up at a walking pace. Venn
+stepped forward and showed himself.
+
+Eustacia started when the lamp shone upon him, and Clym's arm was
+involuntarily withdrawn from her waist. He said, "What, Diggory? You are
+having a lonely walk."
+
+"Yes--I beg your pardon for stopping you," said Venn. "But I am
+waiting about for Mrs. Wildeve: I have something to give her from Mrs.
+Yeobright. Can you tell me if she's gone home from the party yet?"
+
+"No. But she will be leaving soon. You may possibly meet her at the
+corner."
+
+Venn made a farewell obeisance, and walked back to his former position,
+where the byroad from Mistover joined the highway. Here he remained
+fixed for nearly half an hour, and then another pair of lights came down
+the hill. It was the old-fashioned wheeled nondescript belonging to the
+captain, and Thomasin sat in it alone, driven by Charley.
+
+The reddleman came up as they slowly turned the corner. "I beg pardon
+for stopping you, Mrs. Wildeve," he said. "But I have something to
+give you privately from Mrs. Yeobright." He handed a small parcel; it
+consisted of the hundred guineas he had just won, roughly twisted up in
+a piece of paper.
+
+Thomasin recovered from her surprise, and took the packet. "That's all,
+ma'am--I wish you good night," he said, and vanished from her view.
+
+Thus Venn, in his anxiety to rectify matters, had placed in Thomasin's
+hands not only the fifty guineas which rightly belonged to her, but also
+the fifty intended for her cousin Clym. His mistake had been based upon
+Wildeve's words at the opening of the game, when he indignantly denied
+that the guinea was not his own. It had not been comprehended by the
+reddleman that at halfway through the performance the game was continued
+with the money of another person; and it was an error which afterwards
+helped to cause more misfortune than treble the loss in money value
+could have done.
+
+The night was now somewhat advanced; and Venn plunged deeper into the
+heath, till he came to a ravine where his van was standing--a spot
+not more than two hundred yards from the site of the gambling bout. He
+entered this movable home of his, lit his lantern, and, before closing
+his door for the night, stood reflecting on the circumstances of the
+preceding hours. While he stood the dawn grew visible in the northeast
+quarter of the heavens, which, the clouds having cleared off, was bright
+with a soft sheen at this midsummer time, though it was only between one
+and two o'clock. Venn, thoroughly weary, then shut his door and flung
+himself down to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR -- THE CLOSED DOOR
+
+
+
+
+1--The Rencounter by the Pool
+
+
+The July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson heather to scarlet.
+It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season,
+in which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the
+second or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial changes
+which alone were possible here; it followed the green or young-fern
+period, representing the morn, and preceded the brown period, when the
+heathbells and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be in
+turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period, representing night.
+
+Clym and Eustacia, in their little house at Alderworth, beyond East
+Egdon, were living on with a monotony which was delightful to them. The
+heath and changes of weather were quite blotted out from their eyes for
+the present. They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid
+from them surroundings of any inharmonious colour, and gave to all
+things the character of light. When it rained they were charmed, because
+they could remain indoors together all day with such a show of reason;
+when it was fine they were charmed, because they could sit together on
+the hills. They were like those double stars which revolve round and
+round each other, and from a distance appear to be one. The absolute
+solitude in which they lived intensified their reciprocal thoughts; yet
+some might have said that it had the disadvantage of consuming their
+mutual affections at a fearfully prodigal rate. Yeobright did not fear
+for his own part; but recollection of Eustacia's old speech about the
+evanescence of love, now apparently forgotten by her, sometimes caused
+him to ask himself a question; and he recoiled at the thought that the
+quality of finiteness was not foreign to Eden.
+
+When three or four weeks had been passed thus, Yeobright resumed his
+reading in earnest. To make up for lost time he studied indefatigably,
+for he wished to enter his new profession with the least possible delay.
+
+Now, Eustacia's dream had always been that, once married to Clym,
+she would have the power of inducing him to return to Paris. He had
+carefully withheld all promise to do so; but would he be proof against
+her coaxing and argument? She had calculated to such a degree on the
+probability of success that she had represented Paris, and not Budmouth,
+to her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home. Her hopes
+were bound up in this dream. In the quiet days since their marriage,
+when Yeobright had been poring over her lips, her eyes, and the lines of
+her face, she had mused and mused on the subject, even while in the
+act of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the books, indicating a
+future which was antagonistic to her dream, struck her with a positively
+painful jar. She was hoping for the time when, as the mistress of some
+pretty establishment, however small, near a Parisian Boulevard, she
+would be passing her days on the skirts at least of the gay world, and
+catching stray wafts from those town pleasures she was so well fitted
+to enjoy. Yet Yeobright was as firm in the contrary intention as if
+the tendency of marriage were rather to develop the fantasies of young
+philanthropy than to sweep them away.
+
+Her anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something in Clym's
+undeviating manner which made her hesitate before sounding him on the
+subject. At this point in their experience, however, an incident helped
+her. It occurred one evening about six weeks after their union, and
+arose entirely out of the unconscious misapplication of Venn of the
+fifty guineas intended for Yeobright.
+
+A day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin had sent a note to
+her aunt to thank her. She had been surprised at the largeness of the
+amount; but as no sum had ever been mentioned she set that down to her
+late uncle's generosity. She had been strictly charged by her aunt to
+say nothing to her husband of this gift; and Wildeve, as was natural
+enough, had not brought himself to mention to his wife a single
+particular of the midnight scene in the heath. Christian's terror,
+in like manner, had tied his tongue on the share he took in that
+proceeding; and hoping that by some means or other the money had gone
+to its proper destination, he simply asserted as much, without giving
+details.
+
+Therefore, when a week or two had passed away, Mrs. Yeobright began to
+wonder why she never heard from her son of the receipt of the present;
+and to add gloom to her perplexity came the possibility that resentment
+might be the cause of his silence. She could hardly believe as much, but
+why did he not write? She questioned Christian, and the confusion in his
+answers would at once have led her to believe that something was wrong,
+had not one-half of his story been corroborated by Thomasin's note.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was in this state of uncertainty when she was informed
+one morning that her son's wife was visiting her grandfather at
+Mistover. She determined to walk up the hill, see Eustacia, and
+ascertain from her daughter-in-law's lips whether the family guineas,
+which were to Mrs. Yeobright what family jewels are to wealthier
+dowagers, had miscarried or not.
+
+When Christian learnt where she was going his concern reached its
+height. At the moment of her departure he could prevaricate no longer,
+and, confessing to the gambling, told her the truth as far as he knew
+it--that the guineas had been won by Wildeve.
+
+"What, is he going to keep them?" Mrs. Yeobright cried.
+
+"I hope and trust not!" moaned Christian. "He's a good man, and perhaps
+will do right things. He said you ought to have gied Mr. Clym's share to
+Eustacia, and that's perhaps what he'll do himself."
+
+To Mrs. Yeobright, as soon as she could calmly reflect, there was much
+likelihood in this, for she could hardly believe that Wildeve would
+really appropriate money belonging to her son. The intermediate course
+of giving it to Eustacia was the sort of thing to please Wildeve's
+fancy. But it filled the mother with anger none the less. That Wildeve
+should have got command of the guineas after all, and should rearrange
+the disposal of them, placing Clym's share in Clym's wife's hands,
+because she had been his own sweetheart, and might be so still, was as
+irritating a pain as any that Mrs. Yeobright had ever borne.
+
+She instantly dismissed the wretched Christian from her employ for his
+conduct in the affair; but, feeling quite helpless and unable to do
+without him, told him afterwards that he might stay a little longer
+if he chose. Then she hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less
+promising emotion towards her daughter-in-law than she had felt half an
+hour earlier, when planning her journey. At that time it was to inquire
+in a friendly spirit if there had been any accidental loss; now it was
+to ask plainly if Wildeve had privately given her money which had been
+intended as a sacred gift to Clym.
+
+She started at two o'clock, and her meeting with Eustacia was hastened
+by the appearance of the young lady beside the pool and bank which
+bordered her grandfather's premises, where she stood surveying the
+scene, and perhaps thinking of the romantic enactments it had witnessed
+in past days. When Mrs. Yeobright approached, Eustacia surveyed her with
+the calm stare of a stranger.
+
+The mother-in-law was the first to speak. "I was coming to see you," she
+said.
+
+"Indeed!" said Eustacia with surprise, for Mrs. Yeobright, much to the
+girl's mortification, had refused to be present at the wedding. "I did
+not at all expect you."
+
+"I was coming on business only," said the visitor, more coldly than at
+first. "Will you excuse my asking this--Have you received a gift from
+Thomasin's husband?"
+
+"A gift?"
+
+"I mean money!"
+
+"What--I myself?"
+
+"Well, I meant yourself, privately--though I was not going to put it in
+that way."
+
+"Money from Mr. Wildeve? No--never! Madam, what do you mean by that?"
+Eustacia fired up all too quickly, for her own consciousness of the old
+attachment between herself and Wildeve led her to jump to the conclusion
+that Mrs. Yeobright also knew of it, and might have come to accuse her
+of receiving dishonourable presents from him now.
+
+"I simply ask the question," said Mrs. Yeobright. "I have been----"
+
+"You ought to have better opinions of me--I feared you were against me
+from the first!" exclaimed Eustacia.
+
+"No. I was simply for Clym," replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much
+emphasis in her earnestness. "It is the instinct of everyone to look
+after their own."
+
+"How can you imply that he required guarding against me?" cried
+Eustacia, passionate tears in her eyes. "I have not injured him by
+marrying him! What sin have I done that you should think so ill of me?
+You had no right to speak against me to him when I have never wronged
+you."
+
+"I only did what was fair under the circumstances," said Mrs. Yeobright
+more softly. "I would rather not have gone into this question at
+present, but you compel me. I am not ashamed to tell you the honest
+truth. I was firmly convinced that he ought not to marry you--therefore
+I tried to dissuade him by all the means in my power. But it is done
+now, and I have no idea of complaining any more. I am ready to welcome
+you."
+
+"Ah, yes, it is very well to see things in that business point of view,"
+murmured Eustacia with a smothered fire of feeling. "But why should you
+think there is anything between me and Mr. Wildeve? I have a spirit
+as well as you. I am indignant; and so would any woman be. It was a
+condescension in me to be Clym's wife, and not a manoeuvre, let me
+remind you; and therefore I will not be treated as a schemer whom it
+becomes necessary to bear with because she has crept into the family."
+
+"Oh!" said Mrs. Yeobright, vainly endeavouring to control her anger. "I
+have never heard anything to show that my son's lineage is not as
+good as the Vyes'--perhaps better. It is amusing to hear you talk of
+condescension."
+
+"It was condescension, nevertheless," said Eustacia vehemently. "And if
+I had known then what I know now, that I should be living in this wild
+heath a month after my marriage, I--I should have thought twice before
+agreeing."
+
+"It would be better not to say that; it might not sound truthful. I
+am not aware that any deception was used on his part--I know there was
+not--whatever might have been the case on the other side."
+
+"This is too exasperating!" answered the younger woman huskily, her face
+crimsoning, and her eyes darting light. "How can you dare to speak to me
+like that? I insist upon repeating to you that had I known that my life
+would from my marriage up to this time have been as it is, I should have
+said NO. I don't complain. I have never uttered a sound of such a thing
+to him; but it is true. I hope therefore that in the future you will be
+silent on my eagerness. If you injure me now you injure yourself."
+
+"Injure you? Do you think I am an evil-disposed person?"
+
+"You injured me before my marriage, and you have now suspected me of
+secretly favouring another man for money!"
+
+"I could not help what I thought. But I have never spoken of you outside
+my house."
+
+"You spoke of me within it, to Clym, and you could not do worse."
+
+"I did my duty."
+
+"And I'll do mine."
+
+"A part of which will possibly be to set him against his mother. It is
+always so. But why should I not bear it as others have borne it before
+me!"
+
+"I understand you," said Eustacia, breathless with emotion. "You
+think me capable of every bad thing. Who can be worse than a wife who
+encourages a lover, and poisons her husband's mind against his relative?
+Yet that is now the character given to me. Will you not come and drag
+him out of my hands?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright gave back heat for heat.
+
+"Don't rage at me, madam! It ill becomes your beauty, and I am not worth
+the injury you may do it on my account, I assure you. I am only a poor
+old woman who has lost a son."
+
+"If you had treated me honourably you would have had him still."
+Eustacia said, while scalding tears trickled from her eyes. "You have
+brought yourself to folly; you have caused a division which can never be
+healed!"
+
+"I have done nothing. This audacity from a young woman is more than I
+can bear."
+
+"It was asked for; you have suspected me, and you have made me speak of
+my husband in a way I would not have done. You will let him know that I
+have spoken thus, and it will cause misery between us. Will you go away
+from me? You are no friend!"
+
+"I will go when I have spoken a word. If anyone says I have come here to
+question you without good grounds for it, that person speaks untruly.
+If anyone says that I attempted to stop your marriage by any but honest
+means, that person, too, does not speak the truth. I have fallen on an
+evil time; God has been unjust to me in letting you insult me! Probably
+my son's happiness does not lie on this side of the grave, for he is a
+foolish man who neglects the advice of his parent. You, Eustacia, stand
+on the edge of a precipice without knowing it. Only show my son one-half
+the temper you have shown me today--and you may before long--and you
+will find that though he is as gentle as a child with you now, he can be
+as hard as steel!"
+
+The excited mother then withdrew, and Eustacia, panting, stood looking
+into the pool.
+
+
+
+
+2--He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song
+
+
+The result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia, instead
+of passing the afternoon with her grandfather, hastily returned home to
+Clym, where she arrived three hours earlier than she had been expected.
+
+She came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes still showing
+traces of her recent excitement. Yeobright looked up astonished; he had
+never seen her in any way approaching to that state before. She
+passed him by, and would have gone upstairs unnoticed, but Clym was so
+concerned that he immediately followed her.
+
+"What is the matter, Eustacia?" he said. She was standing on the
+hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in
+front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer;
+and then she replied in a low voice--
+
+"I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!"
+
+A weight fell like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustacia
+had arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a wish
+that she would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her mother-in-
+law, or adopt any other means she might think fit to bring about a
+reconciliation. She had set out gaily; and he had hoped for much.
+
+"Why is this?" he asked.
+
+"I cannot tell--I cannot remember. I met your mother. And I will never
+meet her again."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now? I won't have wicked opinions
+passed on me by anybody. O! it was too humiliating to be asked if I
+had received any money from him, or encouraged him, or something of the
+sort--I don't exactly know what!"
+
+"How could she have asked you that?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"Then there must have been some meaning in it. What did my mother say
+besides?"
+
+"I don't know what she said, except in so far as this, that we both said
+words which can never be forgiven!"
+
+"Oh, there must be some misapprehension. Whose fault was it that her
+meaning was not made clear?"
+
+"I would rather not say. It may have been the fault of the
+circumstances, which were awkward at the very least. O Clym--I cannot
+help expressing it--this is an unpleasant position that you have placed
+me in. But you must improve it--yes, say you will--for I hate it all
+now! Yes, take me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation, Clym! I
+don't mind how humbly we live there at first, if it can only be Paris,
+and not Egdon Heath."
+
+"But I have quite given up that idea," said Yeobright, with surprise.
+"Surely I never led you to expect such a thing?"
+
+"I own it. Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept out of mind, and
+that one was mine. Must I not have a voice in the matter, now I am your
+wife and the sharer of your doom?"
+
+"Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale of discussion;
+and I thought this was specially so, and by mutual agreement."
+
+"Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear," she said in a low voice; and her
+eyes drooped, and she turned away.
+
+This indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia's bosom
+disconcerted her husband. It was the first time that he had confronted
+the fact of the indirectness of a woman's movement towards her desire.
+But his intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia well. All the
+effect that her remark had upon him was a resolve to chain himself more
+closely than ever to his books, so as to be the sooner enabled to appeal
+to substantial results from another course in arguing against her whim.
+
+Next day the mystery of the guineas was explained. Thomasin paid them
+a hurried visit, and Clym's share was delivered up to him by her own
+hands. Eustacia was not present at the time.
+
+"Then this is what my mother meant," exclaimed Clym. "Thomasin, do you
+know that they have had a bitter quarrel?"
+
+There was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin's manner
+towards her cousin. It is the effect of marriage to engender in several
+directions some of the reserve it annihilates in one. "Your mother
+told me," she said quietly. "She came back to my house after seeing
+Eustacia."
+
+"The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass. Was Mother much disturbed
+when she came to you, Thomasin?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very much indeed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered his
+eyes with his hand.
+
+"Don't trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends."
+
+He shook his head. "Not two people with inflammable natures like theirs.
+Well, what must be will be."
+
+"One thing is cheerful in it--the guineas are not lost."
+
+"I would rather have lost them twice over than have had this happen."
+
+
+Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to be
+indispensable--that he should speedily make some show of progress in his
+scholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hours during
+many nights.
+
+One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with a
+strange sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon the
+window-blind, and at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obliged
+him to close his eyelids quickly. At every new attempt to look about
+him the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, and excoriating
+tears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged to tie a bandage over his brow
+while dressing; and during the day it could not be abandoned. Eustacia
+was thoroughly alarmed. On finding that the case was no better the next
+morning they decided to send to Anglebury for a surgeon.
+
+Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acute
+inflammation induced by Clym's night studies, continued in spite of a
+cold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.
+
+Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was so
+anxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shut
+up in a room from which all light was excluded, and his condition would
+have been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him by the
+glimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon be over;
+but at the surgeon's third visit he learnt to his dismay that although
+he might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the course of a
+month, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print of any
+description, would have to be given up for a long time to come.
+
+One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten the
+gloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia, but
+she carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Suppose
+he should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficient
+strength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial to
+her feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling among
+the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to cohere into
+substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after day passed
+by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this mournful
+groove, and she would go away from him into the garden and weep
+despairing tears.
+
+Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought he
+would not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more unhappy;
+and the seclusion of their life was such that she would hardly be likely
+to learn the news except through a special messenger. Endeavouring to
+take the trouble as philosophically as possible, he waited on till the
+third week had arrived, when he went into the open air for the first
+time since the attack. The surgeon visited him again at this stage, and
+Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion. The young man learnt with
+added surprise that the date at which he might expect to resume his
+labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes being in that peculiar state
+which, though affording him sight enough for walking about, would not
+admit of their being strained upon any definite object without incurring
+the risk of reproducing ophthalmia in its acute form.
+
+Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quiet
+firmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was not
+to be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world through
+smoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and fatal to any
+kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in the face
+of mishaps which only affected his social standing; and, apart from
+Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if it could be
+made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To keep a cottage
+night-school was one such form; and his affliction did not master his
+spirit as it might otherwise have done.
+
+He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon with
+which he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old home.
+He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron,
+and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of a
+man who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and Yeobright
+learnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.
+
+Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym's condition, and added, "Now, if
+yours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just the
+same."
+
+"Yes, I could," said Yeobright musingly. "How much do you get for
+cutting these faggots?"
+
+"Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well on
+the wages."
+
+During the whole of Yeobright's walk home to Alderworth he was lost in
+reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up to
+the house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went across
+to her.
+
+"Darling," he said, "I am much happier. And if my mother were reconciled
+to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite."
+
+"I fear that will never be," she said, looking afar with her beautiful
+stormy eyes. "How CAN you say 'I am happier,' and nothing changed?"
+
+"It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and get
+a living at, in this time of misfortune."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I am going to be a furze- and turf-cutter."
+
+"No, Clym!" she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in her
+face going off again, and leaving her worse than before.
+
+"Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the
+little money we've got when I can keep down expenditures by an honest
+occupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but that
+in a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?"
+
+"But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance."
+
+"We don't require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly well
+off."
+
+"In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and such
+people!" A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia's face, which he did not
+see. There had been nonchalance in his tone, showing her that he felt no
+absolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive horror.
+
+The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowed of
+him leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook, to use till he should be
+able to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth with his new
+fellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the
+furze grew thickest he struck the first blow in his adopted calling. His
+sight, like the wings in Rasselas, though useless to him for his grand
+purpose, sufficed for this strait, and he found that when a little
+practice should have hardened his palms against blistering he would be
+able to work with ease.
+
+Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and went
+off to the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from four
+o'clock in the morning till noon; then, when the heat of the day was at
+its highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards coming
+out again and working till dusk at nine.
+
+This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements,
+and by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that his
+closest friend might have passed by without recognizing him. He was a
+brown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, and nothing
+more. Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actually at work,
+owing to thoughts of Eustacia's position and his mother's estrangement,
+when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully disposed and calm.
+
+His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world being
+limited to a circuit of a few feet from his person. His familiars were
+creeping and winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their band.
+Bees hummed around his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at the
+heath and furze-flowers at his side in such numbers as to weigh them
+down to the sod. The strange amber-coloured butterflies which Egdon
+produced, and which were never seen elsewhere, quivered in the breath of
+his lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and sported with the
+glittering point of his hook as he flourished it up and down. Tribes of
+emerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet, falling awkwardly on
+their backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance might
+rule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations under the fern-fronds
+with silent ones of homely hue. Huge flies, ignorant of larders and
+wire-netting, and quite in a savage state, buzzed about him without
+knowing that he was a man. In and out of the fern-dells snakes glided
+in their most brilliant blue and yellow guise, it being the season
+immediately following the shedding of their old skins, when their
+colours are brightest. Litters of young rabbits came out from their
+forms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the hot beams blazing through the
+delicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing it to a blood-red
+transparency in which the veins could be seen. None of them feared
+him.
+
+The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself
+a pleasure. A forced limitation of effort offered a justification of
+homely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly have
+allowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers were unimpeded.
+Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged to accompany
+Humphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would amuse his
+companion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and so while
+away the time.
+
+On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in the
+direction of Yeobright's place of work. He was busily chopping away
+at the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from his
+position representing the labour of the day. He did not observe her
+approach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent of
+song. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earning
+money by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; but to
+hear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which, however
+satisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated lady-
+wife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he still went
+on singing:--
+
+            "Le point du jour
+          A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;
+            Flore est plus belle a son retour;
+            L'oiseau reprend doux chant d'amour;
+            Tout celebre dans la nature
+              Le point du jour.
+
+            "Le point du jour
+          Cause parfois, cause douleur extreme;
+            Que l'espace des nuits est court
+            Pour le berger brulant d'amour,
+            Force de quitter ce qu'il aime
+              Au point du jour!"
+
+It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much about
+social failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in sick
+despair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of that mood
+and condition in him. Then she came forward.
+
+"I would starve rather than do it!" she exclaimed vehemently. "And you
+can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!"
+
+"Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving," he
+said gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, and
+took her hand. "Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only a
+little old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and now
+just applies to my life with you. Has your love for me all died, then,
+because my appearance is no longer that of a fine gentleman?"
+
+"Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make me not
+love you."
+
+"Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing that?"
+
+"Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won't give in to mine when
+I wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything you
+dislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am your wife,
+and why will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!"
+
+"I know what that tone means."
+
+"What tone?"
+
+"The tone in which you said, 'Your wife indeed.' It meant, 'Your wife,
+worse luck.'"
+
+"It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may have
+reason, though she is not without heart, and if I felt 'worse luck,' it
+was no ignoble feeling--it was only too natural. There, you see that at
+any rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how, before we were
+married, I warned you that I had not good wifely qualities?"
+
+"You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noble
+course would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me,
+Eustacia, though I may no longer be king of you."
+
+"You are my husband. Does not that content you?"
+
+"Not unless you are my wife without regret."
+
+"I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a serious
+matter on your hands."
+
+"Yes, I saw that."
+
+"Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen any such
+thing; you are too severe upon me, Clym--I won't like your speaking so
+at all."
+
+"Well, I married you in spite of it, and don't regret doing so. How
+cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was a
+warmer heart than yours."
+
+"Yes, I fear we are cooling--I see it as well as you," she sighed
+mournfully. "And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never tired
+of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have thought
+then that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright to yours,
+nor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months--is it possible? Yes,
+'tis too true!"
+
+"You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that's a hopeful
+sign."
+
+"No. I don't sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh for,
+or any other woman in my place."
+
+"That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste an
+unfortunate man?"
+
+"Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity as
+much as you. As much?--I think I deserve it more. For you can sing! It
+would be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a cloud
+as this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would astonish
+and confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you felt careless
+about your own affliction, you might have refrained from singing out
+of sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a position I would
+curse rather than sing."
+
+Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. "Now, don't you suppose, my
+inexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,
+against the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam and
+smoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see of
+life the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great in
+its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small in mine of
+furze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings vouchsafed to us
+are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any great hardship when
+they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time. Have you indeed lost
+all tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a few cheerful moments?"
+
+"I have still some tenderness left for you."
+
+"Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with good
+fortune!"
+
+"I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly," she said in a
+broken voice. "I will go home."
+
+
+
+
+3--She Goes Out to Battle against Depression
+
+
+A few days later, before the month of August has expired, Eustacia and
+Yeobright sat together at their early dinner.
+
+Eustacia's manner had become of late almost apathetic. There was a
+forlorn look about her beautiful eyes which, whether she deserved it or
+not, would have excited pity in the breast of anyone who had known her
+during the full flush of her love for Clym. The feelings of husband and
+wife varied, in some measure, inversely with their positions. Clym, the
+afflicted man, was cheerful; and he even tried to comfort her, who had
+never felt a moment of physical suffering in her whole life.
+
+"Come, brighten up, dearest; we shall be all right again. Some day
+perhaps I shall see as well as ever. And I solemnly promise that I'll
+leave off cutting furze as soon as I have the power to do anything
+better. You cannot seriously wish me to stay idling at home all day?"
+
+"But it is so dreadful--a furze-cutter! and you a man who have lived
+about the world, and speak French, and German, and who are fit for what
+is so much better than this."
+
+"I suppose when you first saw me and heard about me I was wrapped in a
+sort of golden halo to your eyes--a man who knew glorious things,
+and had mixed in brilliant scenes--in short, an adorable, delightful,
+distracting hero?"
+
+"Yes," she said, sobbing.
+
+"And now I am a poor fellow in brown leather."
+
+"Don't taunt me. But enough of this. I will not be depressed any more.
+I am going from home this afternoon, unless you greatly object. There is
+to be a village picnic--a gipsying, they call it--at East Egdon, and I
+shall go."
+
+"To dance?"
+
+"Why not? You can sing."
+
+"Well, well, as you will. Must I come to fetch you?"
+
+"If you return soon enough from your work. But do not inconvenience
+yourself about it. I know the way home, and the heath has no terror for
+me."
+
+"And can you cling to gaiety so eagerly as to walk all the way to a
+village festival in search of it?"
+
+"Now, you don't like my going alone! Clym, you are not jealous?"
+
+"No. But I would come with you if it could give you any pleasure;
+though, as things stand, perhaps you have too much of me already. Still,
+I somehow wish that you did not want to go. Yes, perhaps I am jealous;
+and who could be jealous with more reason than I, a half-blind man, over
+such a woman as you?"
+
+"Don't think like it. Let me go, and don't take all my spirits away!"
+
+"I would rather lose all my own, my sweet wife. Go and do whatever you
+like. Who can forbid your indulgence in any whim? You have all my heart
+yet, I believe; and because you bear with me, who am in truth a drag
+upon you, I owe you thanks. Yes, go alone and shine. As for me, I will
+stick to my doom. At that kind of meeting people would shun me. My hook
+and gloves are like the St. Lazarus rattle of the leper, warning the
+world to get out of the way of a sight that would sadden them." He
+kissed her, put on his leggings, and went out.
+
+When he was gone she rested her head upon her hands and said to herself,
+"Two wasted lives--his and mine. And I am come to this! Will it drive me
+out of my mind?"
+
+She cast about for any possible course which offered the least
+improvement on the existing state of things, and could find none. She
+imagined how all those Budmouth ones who should learn what had become
+of her would say, "Look at the girl for whom nobody was good enough!"
+To Eustacia the situation seemed such a mockery of her hopes that death
+appeared the only door of relief if the satire of Heaven should go much
+further.
+
+Suddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, "But I'll shake it off. Yes,
+I WILL shake it off! No one shall know my suffering. I'll be bitterly
+merry, and ironically gay, and I'll laugh in derision. And I'll begin by
+going to this dance on the green."
+
+She ascended to her bedroom and dressed herself with scrupulous care.
+To an onlooker her beauty would have made her feelings almost
+seem reasonable. The gloomy corner into which accident as much as
+indiscretion had brought this woman might have led even a moderate
+partisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking the Supreme
+Power by what right a being of such exquisite finish had been placed
+in circumstances calculated to make of her charms a curse rather than a
+blessing.
+
+It was five in the afternoon when she came out from the house ready
+for her walk. There was material enough in the picture for twenty new
+conquests. The rebellious sadness that was rather too apparent when she
+sat indoors without a bonnet was cloaked and softened by her outdoor
+attire, which always had a sort of nebulousness about it, devoid of
+harsh edges anywhere; so that her face looked from its environment as
+from a cloud, with no noticeable lines of demarcation between flesh and
+clothes. The heat of the day had scarcely declined as yet, and she went
+along the sunny hills at a leisurely pace, there being ample time for
+her idle expedition. Tall ferns buried her in their leafage whenever her
+path lay through them, which now formed miniature forests, though not
+one stem of them would remain to bud the next year.
+
+The site chosen for the village festivity was one of the lawnlike oases
+which were occasionally, yet not often, met with on the plateaux of the
+heath district. The brakes of furze and fern terminated abruptly round
+the margin, and the grass was unbroken. A green cattletrack skirted the
+spot, without, however, emerging from the screen of fern, and this path
+Eustacia followed, in order to reconnoitre the group before joining it.
+The lusty notes of the East Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and
+she now beheld the musicians themselves, sitting in a blue wagon with
+red wheels scrubbed as bright as new, and arched with sticks, to which
+boughs and flowers were tied. In front of this was the grand central
+dance of fifteen or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferior
+individuals whose gyrations were not always in strict keeping with the
+tune.
+
+The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a flush on their
+faces footed it to the girls, who, with the excitement and the exercise,
+blushed deeper than the pink of their numerous ribbons. Fair ones with
+long curls, fair ones with short curls, fair ones with lovelocks, fair
+ones with braids, flew round and round; and a beholder might well have
+wondered how such a prepossessing set of young women of like size, age,
+and disposition, could have been collected together where there were
+only one or two villages to choose from. In the background was one happy
+man dancing by himself, with closed eyes, totally oblivious of all the
+rest. A fire was burning under a pollard thorn a few paces off, over
+which three kettles hung in a row. Hard by was a table where elderly
+dames prepared tea, but Eustacia looked among them in vain for the
+cattle-dealer's wife who had suggested that she should come, and had
+promised to obtain a courteous welcome for her.
+
+This unexpected absence of the only local resident whom Eustacia knew
+considerably damaged her scheme for an afternoon of reckless gaiety.
+Joining in became a matter of difficulty, notwithstanding that, were she
+to advance, cheerful dames would come forward with cups of tea and make
+much of her as a stranger of superior grace and knowledge to themselves.
+Having watched the company through the figures of two dances, she
+decided to walk a little further, to a cottage where she might get some
+refreshment, and then return homeward in the shady time of evening.
+
+This she did, and by the time that she retraced her steps towards the
+scene of the gipsying, which it was necessary to repass on her way to
+Alderworth, the sun was going down. The air was now so still that she
+could hear the band afar off, and it seemed to be playing with more
+spirit, if that were possible, than when she had come away. On reaching
+the hill the sun had quite disappeared; but this made little difference
+either to Eustacia or to the revellers, for a round yellow moon was
+rising before her, though its rays had not yet outmastered those from
+the west. The dance was going on just the same, but strangers had
+arrived and formed a ring around the figure, so that Eustacia could
+stand among these without a chance of being recognized.
+
+A whole village-full of sensuous emotion, scattered abroad all the year
+long, surged here in a focus for an hour. The forty hearts of those
+waving couples were beating as they had not done since, twelve months
+before, they had come together in similar jollity. For the time paganism
+was revived in their hearts, the pride of life was all in all, and they
+adored none other than themselves.
+
+How many of those impassioned but temporary embraces were destined to
+become perpetual was possibly the wonder of some of those who indulged
+in them, as well as of Eustacia who looked on. She began to envy those
+pirouetters, to hunger for the hope and happiness which the fascination
+of the dance seemed to engender within them. Desperately fond of
+dancing herself, one of Eustacia's expectations of Paris had been the
+opportunity it might afford her of indulgence in this favourite pastime.
+Unhappily, that expectation was now extinct within her for ever.
+
+Whilst she abstractedly watched them spinning and fluctuating in the
+increasing moonlight she suddenly heard her name whispered by a voice
+over her shoulder. Turning in surprise, she beheld at her elbow one
+whose presence instantly caused her to flush to the temples.
+
+It was Wildeve. Till this moment he had not met her eye since the
+morning of his marriage, when she had been loitering in the church,
+and had startled him by lifting her veil and coming forward to sign the
+register as witness. Yet why the sight of him should have instigated
+that sudden rush of blood she could not tell.
+
+Before she could speak he whispered, "Do you like dancing as much as
+ever?"
+
+"I think I do," she replied in a low voice.
+
+"Will you dance with me?"
+
+"It would be a great change for me; but will it not seem strange?"
+
+"What strangeness can there be in relations dancing together?"
+
+"Ah--yes, relations. Perhaps none."
+
+"Still, if you don't like to be seen, pull down your veil; though there
+is not much risk of being known by this light. Lots of strangers are
+here."
+
+She did as he suggested; and the act was a tacit acknowledgment that she
+accepted his offer.
+
+Wildeve gave her his arm and took her down on the outside of the ring
+to the bottom of the dance, which they entered. In two minutes more they
+were involved in the figure and began working their way upwards to the
+top. Till they had advanced halfway thither Eustacia wished more than
+once that she had not yielded to his request; from the middle to the
+top she felt that, since she had come out to seek pleasure, she was only
+doing a natural thing to obtain it. Fairly launched into the ceaseless
+glides and whirls which their new position as top couple opened up to
+them, Eustacia's pulses began to move too quickly for long rumination of
+any kind.
+
+Through the length of five-and-twenty couples they threaded their giddy
+way, and a new vitality entered her form. The pale ray of evening lent
+a fascination to the experience. There is a certain degree and tone
+of light which tends to disturb the equilibrium of the senses, and to
+promote dangerously the tenderer moods; added to movement, it drives
+the emotions to rankness, the reason becoming sleepy and unperceiving in
+inverse proportion; and this light fell now upon these two from the disc
+of the moon. All the dancing girls felt the symptoms, but Eustacia most
+of all. The grass under their feet became trodden away, and the hard,
+beaten surface of the sod, when viewed aslant towards the moonlight,
+shone like a polished table. The air became quite still, the flag above
+the wagon which held the musicians clung to the pole, and the players
+appeared only in outline against the sky; except when the circular
+mouths of the trombone, ophicleide, and French horn gleamed out like
+huge eyes from the shade of their figures. The pretty dresses of the
+maids lost their subtler day colours and showed more or less of a misty
+white. Eustacia floated round and round on Wildeve's arm, her face
+rapt and statuesque; her soul had passed away from and forgotten her
+features, which were left empty and quiescent, as they always are when
+feeling goes beyond their register.
+
+How near she was to Wildeve! it was terrible to think of. She could feel
+his breathing, and he, of course, could feel hers. How badly she had
+treated him! yet, here they were treading one measure. The enchantment
+of the dance surprised her. A clear line of difference divided like
+a tangible fence her experience within this maze of motion from her
+experience without it. Her beginning to dance had been like a change
+of atmosphere; outside, she had been steeped in arctic frigidity by
+comparison with the tropical sensations here. She had entered the dance
+from the troubled hours of her late life as one might enter a brilliant
+chamber after a night walk in a wood. Wildeve by himself would have been
+merely an agitation; Wildeve added to the dance, and the moonlight, and
+the secrecy, began to be a delight. Whether his personality supplied the
+greater part of this sweetly compounded feeling, or whether the dance
+and the scene weighed the more therein, was a nice point upon which
+Eustacia herself was entirely in a cloud.
+
+People began to say "Who are they?" but no invidious inquiries were
+made. Had Eustacia mingled with the other girls in their ordinary
+daily walks the case would have been different: here she was not
+inconvenienced by excessive inspection, for all were wrought to their
+brightest grace by the occasion. Like the planet Mercury surrounded
+by the lustre of sunset, her permanent brilliancy passed without much
+notice in the temporary glory of the situation.
+
+As for Wildeve, his feelings are easy to guess. Obstacles were a
+ripening sun to his love, and he was at this moment in a delirium of
+exquisite misery. To clasp as his for five minutes what was another
+man's through all the rest of the year was a kind of thing he of all men
+could appreciate. He had long since begun to sigh again for Eustacia;
+indeed, it may be asserted that signing the marriage register with
+Thomasin was the natural signal to his heart to return to its first
+quarters, and that the extra complication of Eustacia's marriage was the
+one addition required to make that return compulsory.
+
+Thus, for different reasons, what was to the rest an exhilarating
+movement was to these two a riding upon the whirlwind. The dance had
+come like an irresistible attack upon whatever sense of social order
+there was in their minds, to drive them back into old paths which were
+now doubly irregular. Through three dances in succession they spun their
+way; and then, fatigued with the incessant motion, Eustacia turned to
+quit the circle in which she had already remained too long. Wildeve
+led her to a grassy mound a few yards distant, where she sat down, her
+partner standing beside her. From the time that he addressed her at the
+beginning of the dance till now they had not exchanged a word.
+
+"The dance and the walking have tired you?" he said tenderly.
+
+"No; not greatly."
+
+"It is strange that we should have met here of all places, after missing
+each other so long."
+
+"We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose."
+
+"Yes. But you began that proceeding--by breaking a promise."
+
+"It is scarcely worth while to talk of that now. We have formed other
+ties since then--you no less than I."
+
+"I am sorry to hear that your husband is ill."
+
+"He is not ill--only incapacitated."
+
+"Yes--that is what I mean. I sincerely sympathize with you in your
+trouble. Fate has treated you cruelly."
+
+She was silent awhile. "Have you heard that he has chosen to work as a
+furze-cutter?" she said in a low, mournful voice.
+
+"It has been mentioned to me," answered Wildeve hesitatingly. "But I
+hardly believed it."
+
+"It is true. What do you think of me as a furze-cutter's wife?"
+
+"I think the same as ever of you, Eustacia. Nothing of that sort can
+degrade you--you ennoble the occupation of your husband."
+
+"I wish I could feel it."
+
+"Is there any chance of Mr. Yeobright getting better?"
+
+"He thinks so. I doubt it."
+
+"I was quite surprised to hear that he had taken a cottage. I thought,
+in common with other people, that he would have taken you off to a home
+in Paris immediately after you had married him. 'What a gay, bright
+future she has before her!' I thought. He will, I suppose, return there
+with you, if his sight gets strong again?"
+
+Observing that she did not reply he regarded her more closely. She was
+almost weeping. Images of a future never to be enjoyed, the revived
+sense of her bitter disappointment, the picture of the neighbour's
+suspended ridicule which was raised by Wildeve's words, had been too
+much for proud Eustacia's equanimity.
+
+Wildeve could hardly control his own too forward feelings when he saw
+her silent perturbation. But he affected not to notice this, and she
+soon recovered her calmness.
+
+"You do not intend to walk home by yourself?" he asked.
+
+"O yes," said Eustacia. "What could hurt me on this heath, who have
+nothing?"
+
+"By diverging a little I can make my way home the same as yours. I
+shall be glad to keep you company as far as Throope Corner." Seeing that
+Eustacia sat on in hesitation he added, "Perhaps you think it unwise to
+be seen in the same road with me after the events of last summer?"
+
+"Indeed I think no such thing," she said haughtily. "I shall accept
+whose company I choose, for all that may be said by the miserable
+inhabitants of Egdon."
+
+"Then let us walk on--if you are ready. Our nearest way is towards that
+holly bush with the dark shadow that you see down there."
+
+Eustacia arose, and walked beside him in the direction signified,
+brushing her way over the damping heath and fern, and followed by the
+strains of the merrymakers, who still kept up the dance. The moon had
+now waxed bright and silvery, but the heath was proof against such
+illumination, and there was to be observed the striking scene of a dark,
+rayless tract of country under an atmosphere charged from its zenith to
+its extremities with whitest light. To an eye above them their two
+faces would have appeared amid the expanse like two pearls on a table of
+ebony.
+
+On this account the irregularities of the path were not visible, and
+Wildeve occasionally stumbled; whilst Eustacia found it necessary
+to perform some graceful feats of balancing whenever a small tuft of
+heather or root of furze protruded itself through the grass of the
+narrow track and entangled her feet. At these junctures in her progress
+a hand was invariably stretched forward to steady her, holding her
+firmly until smooth ground was again reached, when the hand was again
+withdrawn to a respectful distance.
+
+They performed the journey for the most part in silence, and drew near
+to Throope Corner, a few hundred yards from which a short path branched
+away to Eustacia's house. By degrees they discerned coming towards them
+a pair of human figures, apparently of the male sex.
+
+When they came a little nearer Eustacia broke the silence by saying,
+"One of those men is my husband. He promised to come to meet me."
+
+"And the other is my greatest enemy," said Wildeve.
+
+"It looks like Diggory Venn."
+
+"That is the man."
+
+"It is an awkward meeting," said she; "but such is my fortune. He knows
+too much about me, unless he could know more, and so prove to himself
+that what he now knows counts for nothing. Well, let it be--you must
+deliver me up to them."
+
+"You will think twice before you direct me to do that. Here is a man
+who has not forgotten an item in our meetings at Rainbarrow--he is in
+company with your husband. Which of them, seeing us together here, will
+believe that our meeting and dancing at the gipsy party was by chance?"
+
+"Very well," she whispered gloomily. "Leave me before they come up."
+
+Wildeve bade her a tender farewell, and plunged across the fern and
+furze, Eustacia slowly walking on. In two or three minutes she met her
+husband and his companion.
+
+"My journey ends here for tonight, reddleman," said Yeobright as soon as
+he perceived her. "I turn back with this lady. Good night."
+
+"Good night, Mr. Yeobright," said Venn. "I hope to see you better soon."
+
+The moonlight shone directly upon Venn's face as he spoke, and revealed
+all its lines to Eustacia. He was looking suspiciously at her. That
+Venn's keen eye had discerned what Yeobright's feeble vision had not--a
+man in the act of withdrawing from Eustacia's side--was within the
+limits of the probable.
+
+If Eustacia had been able to follow the reddleman she would soon have
+found striking confirmation of her thought. No sooner had Clym given her
+his arm and led her off the scene than the reddleman turned back from
+the beaten track towards East Egdon, whither he had been strolling
+merely to accompany Clym in his walk, Diggory's van being again in the
+neighbourhood. Stretching out his long legs, he crossed the pathless
+portion of the heath somewhat in the direction which Wildeve had taken.
+Only a man accustomed to nocturnal rambles could at this hour have
+descended those shaggy slopes with Venn's velocity without falling
+headlong into a pit, or snapping off his leg by jamming his foot into
+some rabbit burrow. But Venn went on without much inconvenience to
+himself, and the course of his scamper was towards the Quiet Woman Inn.
+This place he reached in about half an hour, and he was well aware that
+no person who had been near Throope Corner when he started could have
+got down here before him.
+
+The lonely inn was not yet closed, though scarcely an individual was
+there, the business done being chiefly with travellers who passed the
+inn on long journeys, and these had now gone on their way. Venn went to
+the public room, called for a mug of ale, and inquired of the maid in an
+indifferent tone if Mr. Wildeve was at home.
+
+Thomasin sat in an inner room and heard Venn's voice. When customers
+were present she seldom showed herself, owing to her inherent dislike
+for the business; but perceiving that no one else was there tonight she
+came out.
+
+"He is not at home yet, Diggory," she said pleasantly. "But I expected
+him sooner. He has been to East Egdon to buy a horse."
+
+"Did he wear a light wideawake?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I saw him at Throope Corner, leading one home," said Venn drily.
+"A beauty, with a white face and a mane as black as night. He will soon
+be here, no doubt." Rising and looking for a moment at the pure, sweet
+face of Thomasin, over which a shadow of sadness had passed since the
+time when he had last seen her, he ventured to add, "Mr. Wildeve seems
+to be often away at this time."
+
+"O yes," cried Thomasin in what was intended to be a tone of gaiety.
+"Husbands will play the truant, you know. I wish you could tell me of
+some secret plan that would help me to keep him home at my will in the
+evenings."
+
+"I will consider if I know of one," replied Venn in that same light
+tone which meant no lightness. And then he bowed in a manner of his own
+invention and moved to go. Thomasin offered him her hand; and without a
+sigh, though with food for many, the reddleman went out.
+
+When Wildeve returned, a quarter of an hour later Thomasin said simply,
+and in the abashed manner usual with her now, "Where is the horse,
+Damon?"
+
+"O, I have not bought it, after all. The man asks too much."
+
+"But somebody saw you at Throope Corner leading it home--a beauty, with
+a white face and a mane as black as night."
+
+"Ah!" said Wildeve, fixing his eyes upon her; "who told you that?"
+
+"Venn the reddleman."
+
+The expression of Wildeve's face became curiously condensed. "That is
+a mistake--it must have been someone else," he said slowly and testily,
+for he perceived that Venn's countermoves had begun again.
+
+
+
+
+4--Rough Coercion Is Employed
+
+
+Those words of Thomasin, which seemed so little, but meant so much,
+remained in the ears of Diggory Venn: "Help me to keep him home in the
+evenings."
+
+On this occasion Venn had arrived on Egdon Heath only to cross to the
+other side--he had no further connection with the interests of the
+Yeobright family, and he had a business of his own to attend to. Yet
+he suddenly began to feel himself drifting into the old track of
+manoeuvring on Thomasin's account.
+
+He sat in his van and considered. From Thomasin's words and manner
+he had plainly gathered that Wildeve neglected her. For whom could
+he neglect her if not for Eustacia? Yet it was scarcely credible
+that things had come to such a head as to indicate that Eustacia
+systematically encouraged him. Venn resolved to reconnoitre somewhat
+carefully the lonely road which led along the vale from Wildeve's
+dwelling to Clym's house at Alderworth.
+
+At this time, as has been seen, Wildeve was quite innocent of any
+predetermined act of intrigue, and except at the dance on the green he
+had not once met Eustacia since her marriage. But that the spirit of
+intrigue was in him had been shown by a recent romantic habit of his--a
+habit of going out after dark and strolling towards Alderworth, there
+looking at the moon and stars, looking at Eustacia's house, and walking
+back at leisure.
+
+Accordingly, when watching on the night after the festival, the
+reddleman saw him ascend by the little path, lean over the front gate
+of Clym's garden, sigh, and turn to go back again. It was plain that
+Wildeve's intrigue was rather ideal than real. Venn retreated before him
+down the hill to a place where the path was merely a deep groove
+between the heather; here he mysteriously bent over the ground for a few
+minutes, and retired. When Wildeve came on to that spot his ankle was
+caught by something, and he fell headlong.
+
+As soon as he had recovered the power of respiration he sat up and
+listened. There was not a sound in the gloom beyond the spiritless stir
+of the summer wind. Feeling about for the obstacle which had flung
+him down, he discovered that two tufts of heath had been tied together
+across the path, forming a loop, which to a traveller was certain
+overthrow. Wildeve pulled off the string that bound them, and went on
+with tolerable quickness. On reaching home he found the cord to be of a
+reddish colour. It was just what he had expected.
+
+Although his weaknesses were not specially those akin to physical fear,
+this species of coup-de-Jarnac from one he knew too well troubled the
+mind of Wildeve. But his movements were unaltered thereby. A night
+or two later he again went along the vale to Alderworth, taking the
+precaution of keeping out of any path. The sense that he was watched,
+that craft was employed to circumvent his errant tastes, added piquancy
+to a journey so entirely sentimental, so long as the danger was of no
+fearful sort. He imagined that Venn and Mrs. Yeobright were in league,
+and felt that there was a certain legitimacy in combating such a
+coalition.
+
+The heath tonight appeared to be totally deserted; and Wildeve, after
+looking over Eustacia's garden gate for some little time, with a cigar
+in his mouth, was tempted by the fascination that emotional smuggling
+had for his nature to advance towards the window, which was not quite
+closed, the blind being only partly drawn down. He could see into the
+room, and Eustacia was sitting there alone. Wildeve contemplated her
+for a minute, and then retreating into the heath beat the ferns lightly,
+whereupon moths flew out alarmed. Securing one, he returned to the
+window, and holding the moth to the chink, opened his hand. The moth
+made towards the candle upon Eustacia's table, hovered round it two or
+three times, and flew into the flame.
+
+Eustacia started up. This had been a well-known signal in old times when
+Wildeve had used to come secretly wooing to Mistover. She at once knew
+that Wildeve was outside, but before she could consider what to do her
+husband came in from upstairs. Eustacia's face burnt crimson at the
+unexpected collision of incidents, and filled it with an animation that
+it too frequently lacked.
+
+"You have a very high colour, dearest," said Yeobright, when he came
+close enough to see it. "Your appearance would be no worse if it were
+always so."
+
+"I am warm," said Eustacia. "I think I will go into the air for a few
+minutes."
+
+"Shall I go with you?"
+
+"O no. I am only going to the gate."
+
+She arose, but before she had time to get out of the room a loud rapping
+began upon the front door.
+
+"I'll go--I'll go," said Eustacia in an unusually quick tone for her;
+and she glanced eagerly towards the window whence the moth had flown;
+but nothing appeared there.
+
+"You had better not at this time of the evening," he said. Clym stepped
+before her into the passage, and Eustacia waited, her somnolent manner
+covering her inner heat and agitation.
+
+She listened, and Clym opened the door. No words were uttered outside,
+and presently he closed it and came back, saying, "Nobody was there. I
+wonder what that could have meant?"
+
+He was left to wonder during the rest of the evening, for no explanation
+offered itself, and Eustacia said nothing, the additional fact that she
+knew of only adding more mystery to the performance.
+
+Meanwhile a little drama had been acted outside which saved Eustacia
+from all possibility of compromising herself that evening at least.
+Whilst Wildeve had been preparing his moth-signal another person had
+come behind him up to the gate. This man, who carried a gun in his hand,
+looked on for a moment at the other's operation by the window, walked
+up to the house, knocked at the door, and then vanished round the corner
+and over the hedge.
+
+"Damn him!" said Wildeve. "He has been watching me again."
+
+As his signal had been rendered futile by this uproarious rapping
+Wildeve withdrew, passed out at the gate, and walked quickly down the
+path without thinking of anything except getting away unnoticed. Halfway
+down the hill the path ran near a knot of stunted hollies, which in the
+general darkness of the scene stood as the pupil in a black eye. When
+Wildeve reached this point a report startled his ear, and a few spent
+gunshots fell among the leaves around him.
+
+There was no doubt that he himself was the cause of that gun's
+discharge; and he rushed into the clump of hollies, beating the bushes
+furiously with his stick; but nobody was there. This attack was a
+more serious matter than the last, and it was some time before Wildeve
+recovered his equanimity. A new and most unpleasant system of menace
+had begun, and the intent appeared to be to do him grievous bodily harm.
+Wildeve had looked upon Venn's first attempt as a species of horseplay,
+which the reddleman had indulged in for want of knowing better; but
+now the boundary line was passed which divides the annoying from the
+perilous.
+
+Had Wildeve known how thoroughly in earnest Venn had become he might
+have been still more alarmed. The reddleman had been almost exasperated
+by the sight of Wildeve outside Clym's house, and he was prepared to go
+to any lengths short of absolutely shooting him, to terrify the young
+innkeeper out of his recalcitrant impulses. The doubtful legitimacy of
+such rough coercion did not disturb the mind of Venn. It troubles few
+such minds in such cases, and sometimes this is not to be regretted.
+From the impeachment of Strafford to Farmer Lynch's short way with the
+scamps of Virginia there have been many triumphs of justice which are
+mockeries of law.
+
+About half a mile below Clym's secluded dwelling lay a hamlet where
+lived one of the two constables who preserved the peace in the parish of
+Alderworth, and Wildeve went straight to the constable's cottage. Almost
+the first thing that he saw on opening the door was the constable's
+truncheon hanging to a nail, as if to assure him that here were the
+means to his purpose. On inquiry, however, of the constable's wife he
+learnt that the constable was not at home. Wildeve said he would wait.
+
+The minutes ticked on, and the constable did not arrive. Wildeve cooled
+down from his state of high indignation to a restless dissatisfaction
+with himself, the scene, the constable's wife, and the whole set of
+circumstances. He arose and left the house. Altogether, the experience
+of that evening had had a cooling, not to say a chilling, effect on
+misdirected tenderness, and Wildeve was in no mood to ramble again to
+Alderworth after nightfall in hope of a stray glance from Eustacia.
+
+Thus far the reddleman had been tolerably successful in his rude
+contrivances for keeping down Wildeve's inclination to rove in the
+evening. He had nipped in the bud the possible meeting between Eustacia
+and her old lover this very night. But he had not anticipated that the
+tendency of his action would be to divert Wildeve's movement rather than
+to stop it. The gambling with the guineas had not conduced to make him a
+welcome guest to Clym; but to call upon his wife's relative was natural,
+and he was determined to see Eustacia. It was necessary to choose some
+less untoward hour than ten o'clock at night. "Since it is unsafe to go
+in the evening," he said, "I'll go by day."
+
+Meanwhile Venn had left the heath and gone to call upon Mrs. Yeobright,
+with whom he had been on friendly terms since she had learnt what a
+providential countermove he had made towards the restitution of the
+family guineas. She wondered at the lateness of his call, but had no
+objection to see him.
+
+He gave her a full account of Clym's affliction, and of the state in
+which he was living; then, referring to Thomasin, touched gently upon
+the apparent sadness of her days. "Now, ma'am, depend upon it," he said,
+"you couldn't do a better thing for either of 'em than to make yourself
+at home in their houses, even if there should be a little rebuff at
+first."
+
+"Both she and my son disobeyed me in marrying; therefore I have no
+interest in their households. Their troubles are of their own making."
+Mrs. Yeobright tried to speak severely; but the account of her son's
+state had moved her more than she cared to show.
+
+"Your visits would make Wildeve walk straighter than he is inclined to
+do, and might prevent unhappiness down the heath."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I saw something tonight out there which I didn't like at all. I wish
+your son's house and Mr. Wildeve's were a hundred miles apart instead of
+four or five."
+
+"Then there WAS an understanding between him and Clym's wife when he
+made a fool of Thomasin!"
+
+"We'll hope there's no understanding now."
+
+"And our hope will probably be very vain. O Clym! O Thomasin!"
+
+"There's no harm done yet. In fact, I've persuaded Wildeve to mind his
+own business."
+
+"How?"
+
+"O, not by talking--by a plan of mine called the silent system."
+
+"I hope you'll succeed."
+
+"I shall if you help me by calling and making friends with your son.
+You'll have a chance then of using your eyes."
+
+"Well, since it has come to this," said Mrs. Yeobright sadly, "I will
+own to you, reddleman, that I thought of going. I should be much happier
+if we were reconciled. The marriage is unalterable, my life may be cut
+short, and I should wish to die in peace. He is my only son; and since
+sons are made of such stuff I am not sorry I have no other. As for
+Thomasin, I never expected much from her; and she has not disappointed
+me. But I forgave her long ago; and I forgive him now. I'll go."
+
+At this very time of the reddleman's conversation with Mrs. Yeobright
+at Blooms-End another conversation on the same subject was languidly
+proceeding at Alderworth.
+
+All the day Clym had borne himself as if his mind were too full of its
+own matter to allow him to care about outward things, and his words now
+showed what had occupied his thoughts. It was just after the mysterious
+knocking that he began the theme. "Since I have been away today,
+Eustacia, I have considered that something must be done to heal up this
+ghastly breach between my dear mother and myself. It troubles me."
+
+"What do you propose to do?" said Eustacia abstractedly, for she could
+not clear away from her the excitement caused by Wildeve's recent
+manoeuvre for an interview.
+
+"You seem to take a very mild interest in what I propose, little or
+much," said Clym, with tolerable warmth.
+
+"You mistake me," she answered, reviving at his reproach. "I am only
+thinking."
+
+"What of?"
+
+"Partly of that moth whose skeleton is getting burnt up in the wick of
+the candle," she said slowly. "But you know I always take an interest in
+what you say."
+
+"Very well, dear. Then I think I must go and call upon her." ...He went
+on with tender feeling: "It is a thing I am not at all too proud to do,
+and only a fear that I might irritate her has kept me away so long. But
+I must do something. It is wrong in me to allow this sort of thing to go
+on."
+
+"What have you to blame yourself about?"
+
+"She is getting old, and her life is lonely, and I am her only son."
+
+"She has Thomasin."
+
+"Thomasin is not her daughter; and if she were that would not excuse me.
+But this is beside the point. I have made up my mind to go to her, and
+all I wish to ask you is whether you will do your best to help me--that
+is, forget the past; and if she shows her willingness to be reconciled,
+meet her halfway by welcoming her to our house, or by accepting a
+welcome to hers?"
+
+At first Eustacia closed her lips as if she would rather do anything
+on the whole globe than what he suggested. But the lines of her mouth
+softened with thought, though not so far as they might have softened,
+and she said, "I will put nothing in your way; but after what has passed
+it is asking too much that I go and make advances."
+
+"You never distinctly told me what did pass between you."
+
+"I could not do it then, nor can I now. Sometimes more bitterness is
+sown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that
+may be the case here." She paused a few moments, and added, "If you had
+never returned to your native place, Clym, what a blessing it would have
+been for you!... It has altered the destinies of----"
+
+"Three people."
+
+"Five," Eustacia thought; but she kept that in.
+
+
+
+
+5--The Journey across the Heath
+
+
+Thursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series of days during
+which snug houses were stifling, and when cool draughts were treats;
+when cracks appeared in clayey gardens, and were called "earthquakes" by
+apprehensive children; when loose spokes were discovered in the wheels
+of carts and carriages; and when stinging insects haunted the air, the
+earth, and every drop of water that was to be found.
+
+In Mrs. Yeobright's garden large-leaved plants of a tender kind flagged
+by ten o'clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward at eleven; and even
+stiff cabbages were limp by noon.
+
+It was about eleven o'clock on this day that Mrs. Yeobright started
+across the heath towards her son's house, to do her best in getting
+reconciled with him and Eustacia, in conformity with her words to the
+reddleman. She had hoped to be well advanced in her walk before the heat
+of the day was at its highest, but after setting out she found that this
+was not to be done. The sun had branded the whole heath with its mark,
+even the purple heath-flowers having put on a brownness under the dry
+blazes of the few preceding days. Every valley was filled with air like
+that of a kiln, and the clean quartz sand of the winter water-courses,
+which formed summer paths, had undergone a species of incineration since
+the drought had set in.
+
+In cool, fresh weather Mrs. Yeobright would have found no inconvenience
+in walking to Alderworth, but the present torrid attack made the journey
+a heavy undertaking for a woman past middle age; and at the end of the
+third mile she wished that she had hired Fairway to drive her a portion
+at least of the distance. But from the point at which she had arrived it
+was as easy to reach Clym's house as to get home again. So she went on,
+the air around her pulsating silently, and oppressing the earth with
+lassitude. She looked at the sky overhead, and saw that the sapphirine
+hue of the zenith in spring and early summer had been replaced by a
+metallic violet.
+
+Occasionally she came to a spot where independent worlds of ephemerons
+were passing their time in mad carousal, some in the air, some on the
+hot ground and vegetation, some in the tepid and stringy water of a
+nearly dried pool. All the shallower ponds had decreased to a vaporous
+mud amid which the maggoty shapes of innumerable obscure creatures could
+be indistinctly seen, heaving and wallowing with enjoyment. Being a
+woman not disinclined to philosophize she sometimes sat down under her
+umbrella to rest and to watch their happiness, for a certain hopefulness
+as to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind, and between
+important thoughts left it free to dwell on any infinitesimal matter
+which caught her eyes.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright had never before been to her son's house, and its exact
+position was unknown to her. She tried one ascending path and another,
+and found that they led her astray. Retracing her steps, she came again
+to an open level, where she perceived at a distance a man at work. She
+went towards him and inquired the way.
+
+The labourer pointed out the direction, and added, "Do you see that
+furze-cutter, ma'am, going up that footpath yond?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright strained her eyes, and at last said that she did perceive
+him.
+
+"Well, if you follow him you can make no mistake. He's going to the same
+place, ma'am."
+
+She followed the figure indicated. He appeared of a russet hue, not more
+distinguishable from the scene around him than the green caterpillar
+from the leaf it feeds on. His progress when actually walking was more
+rapid than Mrs. Yeobright's; but she was enabled to keep at an equable
+distance from him by his habit of stopping whenever he came to a brake
+of brambles, where he paused awhile. On coming in her turn to each of
+these spots she found half a dozen long limp brambles which he had cut
+from the bush during his halt and laid out straight beside the path.
+They were evidently intended for furze-faggot bonds which he meant to
+collect on his return.
+
+The silent being who thus occupied himself seemed to be of no more
+account in life than an insect. He appeared as a mere parasite of
+the heath, fretting its surface in his daily labour as a moth frets a
+garment, entirely engrossed with its products, having no knowledge of
+anything in the world but fern, furze, heath, lichens, and moss.
+
+The furze-cutter was so absorbed in the business of his journey that he
+never turned his head; and his leather-legged and gauntleted form at
+length became to her as nothing more than a moving handpost to show her
+the way. Suddenly she was attracted to his individuality by observing
+peculiarities in his walk. It was a gait she had seen somewhere before;
+and the gait revealed the man to her, as the gait of Ahimaaz in the
+distant plain made him known to the watchman of the king. "His walk
+is exactly as my husband's used to be," she said; and then the thought
+burst upon her that the furze-cutter was her son.
+
+She was scarcely able to familiarize herself with this strange reality.
+She had been told that Clym was in the habit of cutting furze, but she
+had supposed that he occupied himself with the labour only at odd times,
+by way of useful pastime; yet she now beheld him as a furze-cutter and
+nothing more--wearing the regulation dress of the craft, and thinking
+the regulation thoughts, to judge by his motions. Planning a dozen hasty
+schemes for at once preserving him and Eustacia from this mode of life,
+she throbbingly followed the way, and saw him enter his own door.
+
+At one side of Clym's house was a knoll, and on the top of the knoll a
+clump of fir trees so highly thrust up into the sky that their foliage
+from a distance appeared as a black spot in the air above the crown
+of the hill. On reaching this place Mrs. Yeobright felt distressingly
+agitated, weary, and unwell. She ascended, and sat down under their
+shade to recover herself, and to consider how best to break the ground
+with Eustacia, so as not to irritate a woman underneath whose apparent
+indolence lurked passions even stronger and more active than her own.
+
+The trees beneath which she sat were singularly battered, rude, and
+wild, and for a few minutes Mrs. Yeobright dismissed thoughts of her own
+storm-broken and exhausted state to contemplate theirs. Not a bough in
+the nine trees which composed the group but was splintered, lopped,
+and distorted by the fierce weather that there held them at its mercy
+whenever it prevailed. Some were blasted and split as if by lightning,
+black stains as from fire marking their sides, while the ground at their
+feet was strewn with dead fir-needles and heaps of cones blown down in
+the gales of past years. The place was called the Devil's Bellows, and
+it was only necessary to come there on a March or November night to
+discover the forcible reasons for that name. On the present heated
+afternoon, when no perceptible wind was blowing, the trees kept up a
+perpetual moan which one could hardly believe to be caused by the air.
+
+Here she sat for twenty minutes or more ere she could summon resolution
+to go down to the door, her courage being lowered to zero by her
+physical lassitude. To any other person than a mother it might have
+seemed a little humiliating that she, the elder of the two women, should
+be the first to make advances. But Mrs. Yeobright had well considered
+all that, and she only thought how best to make her visit appear to
+Eustacia not abject but wise.
+
+From her elevated position the exhausted woman could perceive the roof
+of the house below, and the garden and the whole enclosure of the
+little domicile. And now, at the moment of rising, she saw a second man
+approaching the gate. His manner was peculiar, hesitating, and not that
+of a person come on business or by invitation. He surveyed the house
+with interest, and then walked round and scanned the outer boundary
+of the garden, as one might have done had it been the birthplace of
+Shakespeare, the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Chateau of Hougomont.
+After passing round and again reaching the gate he went in. Mrs.
+Yeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on finding her son and his
+wife by themselves; but a moment's thought showed her that the
+presence of an acquaintance would take off the awkwardness of her first
+appearance in the house, by confining the talk to general matters until
+she had begun to feel comfortable with them. She came down the hill to
+the gate, and looked into the hot garden.
+
+There lay the cat asleep on the bare gravel of the path, as if beds,
+rugs, and carpets were unendurable. The leaves of the hollyhocks hung
+like half-closed umbrellas, the sap almost simmered in the stems, and
+foliage with a smooth surface glared like metallic mirrors. A small
+apple tree, of the sort called Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate, the
+only one which throve in the garden, by reason of the lightness of
+the soil; and among the fallen apples on the ground beneath were wasps
+rolling drunk with the juice, or creeping about the little caves in each
+fruit which they had eaten out before stupefied by its sweetness. By the
+door lay Clym's furze-hook and the last handful of faggot-bonds she had
+seen him gather; they had plainly been thrown down there as he entered
+the house.
+
+
+
+
+6--A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian
+
+
+Wildeve, as has been stated, was determined to visit Eustacia boldly, by
+day, and on the easy terms of a relation, since the reddleman had spied
+out and spoilt his walks to her by night. The spell that she had thrown
+over him in the moonlight dance made it impossible for a man having no
+strong puritanic force within him to keep away altogether. He merely
+calculated on meeting her and her husband in an ordinary manner,
+chatting a little while, and leaving again. Every outward sign was to be
+conventional; but the one great fact would be there to satisfy him--he
+would see her. He did not even desire Clym's absence, since it was just
+possible that Eustacia might resent any situation which could compromise
+her dignity as a wife, whatever the state of her heart towards him.
+Women were often so.
+
+He went accordingly; and it happened that the time of his arrival
+coincided with that of Mrs. Yeobright's pause on the hill near the
+house. When he had looked round the premises in the manner she had
+noticed he went and knocked at the door. There was a few minutes'
+interval, and then the key turned in the lock, the door opened, and
+Eustacia herself confronted him.
+
+Nobody could have imagined from her bearing now that here stood the
+woman who had joined with him in the impassioned dance of the week
+before, unless indeed he could have penetrated below the surface and
+gauged the real depth of that still stream.
+
+"I hope you reached home safely?" said Wildeve.
+
+"O yes," she carelessly returned.
+
+"And were you not tired the next day? I feared you might be."
+
+"I was rather. You need not speak low--nobody will over-hear us. My
+small servant is gone on an errand to the village."
+
+"Then Clym is not at home?"
+
+"Yes, he is."
+
+"O! I thought that perhaps you had locked the door because you were
+alone and were afraid of tramps."
+
+"No--here is my husband."
+
+They had been standing in the entry. Closing the front door and turning
+the key, as before, she threw open the door of the adjoining room and
+asked him to walk in. Wildeve entered, the room appearing to be empty;
+but as soon as he had advanced a few steps he started. On the hearthrug
+lay Clym asleep. Beside him were the leggings, thick boots, leather
+gloves, and sleeve-waistcoat in which he worked.
+
+"You may go in; you will not disturb him," she said, following behind.
+"My reason for fastening the door is that he may not be intruded upon
+by any chance comer while lying here, if I should be in the garden or
+upstairs."
+
+"Why is he sleeping there?" said Wildeve in low tones.
+
+"He is very weary. He went out at half-past four this morning, and has
+been working ever since. He cuts furze because it is the only thing he
+can do that does not put any strain upon his poor eyes." The contrast
+between the sleeper's appearance and Wildeve's at this moment was
+painfully apparent to Eustacia, Wildeve being elegantly dressed in a new
+summer suit and light hat; and she continued: "Ah! you don't know how
+differently he appeared when I first met him, though it is such a little
+while ago. His hands were as white and soft as mine; and look at them
+now, how rough and brown they are! His complexion is by nature fair, and
+that rusty look he has now, all of a colour with his leather clothes, is
+caused by the burning of the sun."
+
+"Why does he go out at all!" Wildeve whispered.
+
+"Because he hates to be idle; though what he earns doesn't add much to
+our exchequer. However, he says that when people are living upon their
+capital they must keep down current expenses by turning a penny where
+they can."
+
+"The fates have not been kind to you, Eustacia Yeobright."
+
+"I have nothing to thank them for."
+
+"Nor has he--except for their one great gift to him."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Wildeve looked her in the eyes.
+
+Eustacia blushed for the first time that day. "Well, I am a questionable
+gift," she said quietly. "I thought you meant the gift of content--which
+he has, and I have not."
+
+"I can understand content in such a case--though how the outward
+situation can attract him puzzles me."
+
+"That's because you don't know him. He's an enthusiast about ideas, and
+careless about outward things. He often reminds me of the Apostle Paul."
+
+"I am glad to hear that he's so grand in character as that."
+
+"Yes; but the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent as a man in
+the Bible he would hardly have done in real life."
+
+Their voices had instinctively dropped lower, though at first they had
+taken no particular care to avoid awakening Clym. "Well, if that means
+that your marriage is a misfortune to you, you know who is to blame,"
+said Wildeve.
+
+"The marriage is no misfortune in itself," she retorted with some little
+petulance. "It is simply the accident which has happened since that has
+been the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for figs in a
+worldly sense, but how could I tell what time would bring forth?"
+
+"Sometimes, Eustacia, I think it is a judgment upon you. You rightly
+belonged to me, you know; and I had no idea of losing you."
+
+"No, it was not my fault! Two could not belong to you; and remember
+that, before I was aware, you turned aside to another woman. It was
+cruel levity in you to do that. I never dreamt of playing such a game on
+my side till you began it on yours."
+
+"I meant nothing by it," replied Wildeve. "It was a mere interlude. Men
+are given to the trick of having a passing fancy for somebody else in
+the midst of a permanent love, which reasserts itself afterwards just as
+before. On account of your rebellious manner to me I was tempted to go
+further than I should have done; and when you still would keep playing
+the same tantalizing part I went further still, and married her."
+Turning and looking again at the unconscious form of Clym, he murmured,
+"I am afraid that you don't value your prize, Clym.... He ought to be
+happier than I in one thing at least. He may know what it is to come
+down in the world, and to be afflicted with a great personal calamity;
+but he probably doesn't know what it is to lose the woman he loved."
+
+"He is not ungrateful for winning her," whispered Eustacia, "and in that
+respect he is a good man. Many women would go far for such a husband.
+But do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called life--music,
+poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that are going on
+in the great arteries of the world? That was the shape of my youthful
+dream; but I did not get it. Yet I thought I saw the way to it in my
+Clym."
+
+"And you only married him on that account?"
+
+"There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I won't
+say that I didn't love him partly because I thought I saw a promise of
+that life in him."
+
+"You have dropped into your old mournful key."
+
+"But I am not going to be depressed," she cried perversely. "I began a
+new system by going to that dance, and I mean to stick to it. Clym can
+sing merrily; why should not I?"
+
+Wildeve looked thoughtfully at her. "It is easier to say you will sing
+than to do it; though if I could I would encourage you in your attempt.
+But as life means nothing to me, without one thing which is now
+impossible, you will forgive me for not being able to encourage you."
+
+"Damon, what is the matter with you, that you speak like that?" she
+asked, raising her deep shady eyes to his.
+
+"That's a thing I shall never tell plainly; and perhaps if I try to tell
+you in riddles you will not care to guess them."
+
+Eustacia remained silent for a minute, and she said, "We are in a
+strange relationship today. You mince matters to an uncommon nicety. You
+mean, Damon, that you still love me. Well, that gives me sorrow, for I
+am not made so entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing to spurn
+you for the information, as I ought to do. But we have said too much
+about this. Do you mean to wait until my husband is awake?"
+
+"I thought to speak to him; but it is unnecessary, Eustacia, if I offend
+you by not forgetting you, you are right to mention it; but do not talk
+of spurning."
+
+She did not reply, and they stood looking musingly at Clym as he slept
+on in that profound sleep which is the result of physical labour carried
+on in circumstances that wake no nervous fear.
+
+"God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!" said Wildeve. "I have not slept
+like that since I was a boy--years and years ago."
+
+While they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible, and a knock
+came to the door. Eustacia went to a window and looked out.
+
+Her countenance changed. First she became crimson, and then the red
+subsided till it even partially left her lips.
+
+"Shall I go away?" said Wildeve, standing up.
+
+"I hardly know."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Mrs. Yeobright. O, what she said to me that day! I cannot understand
+this visit--what does she mean? And she suspects that past time of
+ours."
+
+"I am in your hands. If you think she had better not see me here I'll go
+into the next room."
+
+"Well, yes--go."
+
+Wildeve at once withdrew; but before he had been half a minute in the
+adjoining apartment Eustacia came after him.
+
+"No," she said, "we won't have any of this. If she comes in she must see
+you--and think if she likes there's something wrong! But how can I open
+the door to her, when she dislikes me--wishes to see not me, but her
+son? I won't open the door!"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright knocked again more loudly.
+
+"Her knocking will, in all likelihood, awaken him," continued Eustacia,
+"and then he will let her in himself. Ah--listen."
+
+They could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if disturbed by the
+knocking, and he uttered the word "Mother."
+
+"Yes--he is awake--he will go to the door," she said, with a breath of
+relief. "Come this way. I have a bad name with her, and you must not
+be seen. Thus I am obliged to act by stealth, not because I do ill, but
+because others are pleased to say so."
+
+By this time she had taken him to the back door, which was open,
+disclosing a path leading down the garden. "Now, one word, Damon," she
+remarked as he stepped forth. "This is your first visit here; let it
+be your last. We have been hot lovers in our time, but it won't do now.
+Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Wildeve. "I have had all I came for, and I am
+satisfied."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"A sight of you. Upon my eternal honour I came for no more."
+
+Wildeve kissed his hand to the beautiful girl he addressed, and passed
+into the garden, where she watched him down the path, over the stile at
+the end, and into the ferns outside, which brushed his hips as he went
+along till he became lost in their thickets. When he had quite gone she
+slowly turned, and directed her attention to the interior of the house.
+
+But it was possible that her presence might not be desired by Clym and
+his mother at this moment of their first meeting, or that it would be
+superfluous. At all events, she was in no hurry to meet Mrs. Yeobright.
+She resolved to wait till Clym came to look for her, and glided back
+into the garden. Here she idly occupied herself for a few minutes, till
+finding no notice was taken of her she retraced her steps through the
+house to the front, where she listened for voices in the parlour. But
+hearing none she opened the door and went in. To her astonishment Clym
+lay precisely as Wildeve and herself had left him, his sleep apparently
+unbroken. He had been disturbed and made to dream and murmur by the
+knocking, but he had not awakened. Eustacia hastened to the door, and in
+spite of her reluctance to open it to a woman who had spoken of her
+so bitterly, she unfastened it and looked out. Nobody was to be seen.
+There, by the scraper, lay Clym's hook and the handful of faggot-bonds
+he had brought home; in front of her were the empty path, the garden
+gate standing slightly ajar; and, beyond, the great valley of purple
+heath thrilling silently in the sun. Mrs. Yeobright was gone.
+
+
+Clym's mother was at this time following a path which lay hidden from
+Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill. Her walk thither from the garden
+gate had been hasty and determined, as of a woman who was now no less
+anxious to escape from the scene than she had previously been to enter
+it. Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights were
+graven--that of Clym's hook and brambles at the door, and that of a
+woman's face at a window. Her lips trembled, becoming unnaturally thin
+as she murmured, "'Tis too much--Clym, how can he bear to do it! He is
+at home; and yet he lets her shut the door against me!"
+
+In her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house she had
+diverged from the straightest path homeward, and while looking about
+to regain it she came upon a little boy gathering whortleberries in a
+hollow. The boy was Johnny Nunsuch, who had been Eustacia's stoker
+at the bonfire, and, with the tendency of a minute body to gravitate
+towards a greater, he began hovering round Mrs. Yeobright as soon as she
+appeared, and trotted on beside her without perceptible consciousness of
+his act.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke to him as one in a mesmeric sleep. "'Tis a long way
+home, my child, and we shall not get there till evening."
+
+"I shall," said her small companion. "I am going to play marnels afore
+supper, and we go to supper at six o'clock, because Father comes home.
+Does your father come home at six too?"
+
+"No, he never comes; nor my son either, nor anybody."
+
+"What have made you so down? Have you seen a ooser?"
+
+"I have seen what's worse--a woman's face looking at me through a
+windowpane."
+
+"Is that a bad sight?"
+
+"Yes. It is always a bad sight to see a woman looking out at a weary
+wayfarer and not letting her in."
+
+"Once when I went to Throope Great Pond to catch effets I seed myself
+looking up at myself, and I was frightened and jumped back like
+anything."
+
+..."If they had only shown signs of meeting my advances halfway how well
+it might have been done! But there is no chance. Shut out! She must have
+set him against me. Can there be beautiful bodies without hearts inside?
+I think so. I would not have done it against a neighbour's cat on such a
+fiery day as this!"
+
+"What is it you say?"
+
+"Never again--never! Not even if they send for me!"
+
+"You must be a very curious woman to talk like that."
+
+"O no, not at all," she said, returning to the boy's prattle. "Most
+people who grow up and have children talk as I do. When you grow up your
+mother will talk as I do too."
+
+"I hope she won't; because 'tis very bad to talk nonsense."
+
+"Yes, child; it is nonsense, I suppose. Are you not nearly spent with
+the heat?"
+
+"Yes. But not so much as you be."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Your face is white and wet, and your head is hanging-down-like."
+
+"Ah, I am exhausted from inside."
+
+"Why do you, every time you take a step, go like this?" The child in
+speaking gave to his motion the jerk and limp of an invalid.
+
+"Because I have a burden which is more than I can bear."
+
+The little boy remained silently pondering, and they tottered on side
+by side until more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when Mrs.
+Yeobright, whose weakness plainly increased, said to him, "I must sit
+down here to rest."
+
+When she had seated herself he looked long in her face and said, "How
+funny you draw your breath--like a lamb when you drive him till he's
+nearly done for. Do you always draw your breath like that?"
+
+"Not always." Her voice was now so low as to be scarcely above a
+whisper.
+
+"You will go to sleep there, I suppose, won't you? You have shut your
+eyes already."
+
+"No. I shall not sleep much till--another day, and then I hope to have
+a long, long one--very long. Now can you tell me if Rimsmoor Pond is dry
+this summer?"
+
+"Rimsmoor Pond is, but Oker's Pool isn't, because he is deep, and is
+never dry--'tis just over there."
+
+"Is the water clear?"
+
+"Yes, middling--except where the heath-croppers walk into it."
+
+"Then, take this, and go as fast as you can, and dip me up the clearest
+you can find. I am very faint."
+
+She drew from the small willow reticule that she carried in her hand an
+old-fashioned china teacup without a handle; it was one of half a dozen
+of the same sort lying in the reticule, which she had preserved ever
+since her childhood, and had brought with her today as a small present
+for Clym and Eustacia.
+
+The boy started on his errand, and soon came back with the water, such
+as it was. Mrs. Yeobright attempted to drink, but it was so warm as to
+give her nausea, and she threw it away. Afterwards she still remained
+sitting, with her eyes closed.
+
+The boy waited, played near her, caught several of the little brown
+butterflies which abounded, and then said as he waited again, "I like
+going on better than biding still. Will you soon start again?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I wish I might go on by myself," he resumed, fearing, apparently, that
+he was to be pressed into some unpleasant service. "Do you want me any
+more, please?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright made no reply.
+
+"What shall I tell Mother?" the boy continued.
+
+"Tell her you have seen a broken-hearted woman cast off by her son."
+
+Before quite leaving her he threw upon her face a wistful glance, as if
+he had misgivings on the generosity of forsaking her thus. He gazed into
+her face in a vague, wondering manner, like that of one examining some
+strange old manuscript the key to whose characters is undiscoverable. He
+was not so young as to be absolutely without a sense that sympathy
+was demanded, he was not old enough to be free from the terror felt
+in childhood at beholding misery in adult quarters hither-to deemed
+impregnable; and whether she were in a position to cause trouble or to
+suffer from it, whether she and her affliction were something to pity or
+something to fear, it was beyond him to decide. He lowered his eyes
+and went on without another word. Before he had gone half a mile he had
+forgotten all about her, except that she was a woman who had sat down to
+rest.
+
+Mrs. Yeobright's exertions, physical and emotional, had well-nigh
+prostrated her; but she continued to creep along in short stages with
+long breaks between. The sun had now got far to the west of south and
+stood directly in her face, like some merciless incendiary, brand in
+hand, waiting to consume her. With the departure of the boy all visible
+animation disappeared from the landscape, though the intermittent husky
+notes of the male grasshoppers from every tuft of furze were enough to
+show that amid the prostration of the larger animal species an unseen
+insect world was busy in all the fullness of life.
+
+In two hours she reached a slope about three-fourths the whole
+distance from Alderworth to her own home, where a little patch of
+shepherd's-thyme intruded upon the path; and she sat down upon the
+perfumed mat it formed there. In front of her a colony of ants
+had established a thoroughfare across the way, where they toiled a
+never-ending and heavy-laden throng. To look down upon them was like
+observing a city street from the top of a tower. She remembered
+that this bustle of ants had been in progress for years at the same
+spot--doubtless those of the old times were the ancestors of these which
+walked there now. She leant back to obtain more thorough rest, and the
+soft eastern portion of the sky was as great a relief to her eyes as the
+thyme was to her head. While she looked a heron arose on that side of
+the sky and flew on with his face towards the sun. He had come dripping
+wet from some pool in the valleys, and as he flew the edges and lining
+of his wings, his thighs and his breast were so caught by the bright
+sunbeams that he appeared as if formed of burnished silver. Up in the
+zenith where he was seemed a free and happy place, away from all contact
+with the earthly ball to which she was pinioned; and she wished that she
+could arise uncrushed from its surface and fly as he flew then.
+
+But, being a mother, it was inevitable that she should soon cease to
+ruminate upon her own condition. Had the track of her next thought been
+marked by a streak in the air, like the path of a meteor, it would have
+shown a direction contrary to the heron's, and have descended to the
+eastward upon the roof of Clym's house.
+
+
+
+
+7--The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends
+
+
+He in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up, and looked
+around. Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard by him, and though she held
+a book in her hand she had not looked into it for some time.
+
+"Well, indeed!" said Clym, brushing his eyes with his hands. "How
+soundly I have slept! I have had such a tremendous dream, too--one I
+shall never forget."
+
+"I thought you had been dreaming," said she.
+
+"Yes. It was about my mother. I dreamt that I took you to her house to
+make up differences, and when we got there we couldn't get in, though
+she kept on crying to us for help. However, dreams are dreams. What
+o'clock is it, Eustacia?"
+
+"Half-past two."
+
+"So late, is it? I didn't mean to stay so long. By the time I have had
+something to eat it will be after three."
+
+"Ann is not come back from the village, and I thought I would let you
+sleep on till she returned."
+
+Clym went to the window and looked out. Presently he said, musingly,
+"Week after week passes, and yet Mother does not come. I thought I
+should have heard something from her long before this."
+
+Misgiving, regret, fear, resolution, ran their swift course of
+expression in Eustacia's dark eyes. She was face to face with
+a monstrous difficulty, and she resolved to get free of it by
+postponement.
+
+"I must certainly go to Blooms-End soon," he continued, "and I think I
+had better go alone." He picked up his leggings and gloves, threw them
+down again, and added, "As dinner will be so late today I will not go
+back to the heath, but work in the garden till the evening, and then,
+when it will be cooler, I will walk to Blooms-End. I am quite sure that
+if I make a little advance Mother will be willing to forget all. It will
+be rather late before I can get home, as I shall not be able to do the
+distance either way in less than an hour and a half. But you will not
+mind for one evening, dear? What are you thinking of to make you look so
+abstracted?"
+
+"I cannot tell you," she said heavily. "I wish we didn't live here,
+Clym. The world seems all wrong in this place."
+
+"Well--if we make it so. I wonder if Thomasin has been to Blooms-End
+lately. I hope so. But probably not, as she is, I believe, expecting to
+be confined in a month or so. I wish I had thought of that before. Poor
+Mother must indeed be very lonely."
+
+"I don't like you going tonight."
+
+"Why not tonight?"
+
+"Something may be said which will terribly injure me."
+
+"My mother is not vindictive," said Clym, his colour faintly rising.
+
+"But I wish you would not go," Eustacia repeated in a low tone. "If you
+agree not to go tonight I promise to go by myself to her house tomorrow,
+and make it up with her, and wait till you fetch me."
+
+"Why do you want to do that at this particular time, when at every
+previous time that I have proposed it you have refused?"
+
+"I cannot explain further than that I should like to see her alone
+before you go," she answered, with an impatient move of her head, and
+looking at him with an anxiety more frequently seen upon those of a
+sanguine temperament than upon such as herself.
+
+"Well, it is very odd that just when I had decided to go myself you
+should want to do what I proposed long ago. If I wait for you to go
+tomorrow another day will be lost; and I know I shall be unable to rest
+another night without having been. I want to get this settled, and will.
+You must visit her afterwards--it will be all the same."
+
+"I could even go with you now?"
+
+"You could scarcely walk there and back without a longer rest than I
+shall take. No, not tonight, Eustacia."
+
+"Let it be as you say, then," she replied in the quiet way of one who,
+though willing to ward off evil consequences by a mild effort, would let
+events fall out as they might sooner than wrestle hard to direct them.
+
+Clym then went into the garden; and a thoughtful languor stole
+over Eustacia for the remainder of the afternoon, which her husband
+attributed to the heat of the weather.
+
+In the evening he set out on the journey. Although the heat of summer
+was yet intense the days had considerably shortened, and before he had
+advanced a mile on his way all the heath purples, browns, and greens
+had merged in a uniform dress without airiness or graduation, and broken
+only by touches of white where the little heaps of clean quartz sand
+showed the entrance to a rabbit burrow, or where the white flints of a
+footpath lay like a thread over the slopes. In almost every one of
+the isolated and stunted thorns which grew here and there a nighthawk
+revealed his presence by whirring like the clack of a mill as long as he
+could hold his breath, then stopping, flapping his wings, wheeling round
+the bush, alighting, and after a silent interval of listening beginning
+to whirr again. At each brushing of Clym's feet white millermoths
+flew into the air just high enough to catch upon their dusty wings the
+mellowed light from the west, which now shone across the depressions and
+levels of the ground without falling thereon to light them up.
+
+Yeobright walked on amid this quiet scene with a hope that all would
+soon be well. Three miles on he came to a spot where a soft perfume was
+wafted across his path, and he stood still for a moment to inhale the
+familiar scent. It was the place at which, four hours earlier,
+his mother had sat down exhausted on the knoll covered with
+shepherd's-thyme. While he stood a sound between a breathing and a moan
+suddenly reached his ears.
+
+He looked to where the sound came from; but nothing appeared there save
+the verge of the hillock stretching against the sky in an unbroken line.
+He moved a few steps in that direction, and now he perceived a recumbent
+figure almost close to his feet.
+
+Among the different possibilities as to the person's individuality there
+did not for a moment occur to Yeobright that it might be one of his own
+family. Sometimes furze-cutters had been known to sleep out of doors at
+these times, to save a long journey homeward and back again; but
+Clym remembered the moan and looked closer, and saw that the form was
+feminine; and a distress came over him like cold air from a cave. But he
+was not absolutely certain that the woman was his mother till he stooped
+and beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes.
+
+His breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry of anguish
+which would have escaped him died upon his lips. During the momentary
+interval that elapsed before he became conscious that something must be
+done all sense of time and place left him, and it seemed as if he and
+his mother were as when he was a child with her many years ago on this
+heath at hours similar to the present. Then he awoke to activity; and
+bending yet lower he found that she still breathed, and that her breath
+though feeble was regular, except when disturbed by an occasional gasp.
+
+"O, what is it! Mother, are you very ill--you are not dying?" he cried,
+pressing his lips to her face. "I am your Clym. How did you come here?
+What does it all mean?"
+
+At that moment the chasm in their lives which his love for Eustacia had
+caused was not remembered by Yeobright, and to him the present joined
+continuously with that friendly past that had been their experience
+before the division.
+
+She moved her lips, appeared to know him, but could not speak; and then
+Clym strove to consider how best to move her, as it would be necessary
+to get her away from the spot before the dews were intense. He was
+able-bodied, and his mother was thin. He clasped his arms round her,
+lifted her a little, and said, "Does that hurt you?"
+
+She shook her head, and he lifted her up; then, at a slow pace, went
+onward with his load. The air was now completely cool; but whenever he
+passed over a sandy patch of ground uncarpeted with vegetation there was
+reflected from its surface into his face the heat which it had imbibed
+during the day. At the beginning of his undertaking he had thought
+but little of the distance which yet would have to be traversed before
+Blooms-End could be reached; but though he had slept that afternoon he
+soon began to feel the weight of his burden. Thus he proceeded, like
+Aeneas with his father; the bats circling round his head, nightjars
+flapping their wings within a yard of his face, and not a human being
+within call.
+
+While he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother exhibited signs
+of restlessness under the constraint of being borne along, as if his
+arms were irksome to her. He lowered her upon his knees and looked
+around. The point they had now reached, though far from any road, was
+not more than a mile from the Blooms-End cottages occupied by Fairway,
+Sam, Humphrey, and the Cantles. Moreover, fifty yards off stood a hut,
+built of clods and covered with thin turves, but now entirely disused.
+The simple outline of the lonely shed was visible, and thither he
+determined to direct his steps. As soon as he arrived he laid her down
+carefully by the entrance, and then ran and cut with his pocketknife
+an armful of the dryest fern. Spreading this within the shed, which was
+entirely open on one side, he placed his mother thereon; then he ran
+with all his might towards the dwelling of Fairway.
+
+Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, disturbed only by the broken
+breathing of the sufferer, when moving figures began to animate the
+line between heath and sky. In a few moments Clym arrived with Fairway,
+Humphrey, and Susan Nunsuch; Olly Dowden, who had chanced to be at
+Fairway's, Christian and Grandfer Cantle following helter-skelter
+behind. They had brought a lantern and matches, water, a pillow, and a
+few other articles which had occurred to their minds in the hurry of the
+moment. Sam had been despatched back again for brandy, and a boy brought
+Fairway's pony, upon which he rode off to the nearest medical man, with
+directions to call at Wildeve's on his way, and inform Thomasin that her
+aunt was unwell.
+
+Sam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered by the light of
+the lantern; after which she became sufficiently conscious to signify
+by signs that something was wrong with her foot. Olly Dowden at length
+understood her meaning, and examined the foot indicated. It was swollen
+and red. Even as they watched the red began to assume a more livid
+colour, in the midst of which appeared a scarlet speck, smaller than a
+pea, and it was found to consist of a drop of blood, which rose above
+the smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere.
+
+"I know what it is," cried Sam. "She has been stung by an adder!"
+
+"Yes," said Clym instantly. "I remember when I was a child seeing just
+such a bite. O, my poor mother!"
+
+"It was my father who was bit," said Sam. "And there's only one way to
+cure it. You must rub the place with the fat of other adders, and the
+only way to get that is by frying them. That's what they did for him."
+
+"'Tis an old remedy," said Clym distrustfully, "and I have doubts about
+it. But we can do nothing else till the doctor comes."
+
+"'Tis a sure cure," said Olly Dowden, with emphasis. "I've used it when
+I used to go out nursing."
+
+"Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them," said Clym gloomily.
+
+"I will see what I can do," said Sam.
+
+He took a green hazel which he had used as a walking stick, split it at
+the end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand
+went out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and
+despatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying pan. Before she had returned Sam
+came in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in the
+cleft of the stick, and the other two hanging dead across it.
+
+"I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to be,"
+said Sam. "These limp ones are two I killed today at work; but as they
+don't die till the sun goes down they can't be very stale meat."
+
+The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its
+small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back
+seemed to intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature,
+and the creature saw her--she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes.
+
+"Look at that," murmured Christian Cantle. "Neighbours, how do we know
+but that something of the old serpent in God's garden, that gied the
+apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes
+still? Look at his eye--for all the world like a villainous sort of
+black currant. 'Tis to be hoped he can't ill-wish us! There's folks in
+heath who've been overlooked already. I will never kill another adder as
+long as I live."
+
+"Well, 'tis right to be afeard of things, if folks can't help it," said
+Grandfer Cantle. "'Twould have saved me many a brave danger in my time."
+
+"I fancy I heard something outside the shed," said Christian. "I wish
+troubles would come in the daytime, for then a man could show his
+courage, and hardly beg for mercy of the most broomstick old woman he
+should see, if he was a brave man, and able to run out of her sight!"
+
+"Even such an ignorant fellow as I should know better than do that,"
+said Sam.
+
+"Well, there's calamities where we least expect it, whether or no.
+Neighbours, if Mrs. Yeobright were to die, d'ye think we should be took
+up and tried for the manslaughter of a woman?"
+
+"No, they couldn't bring it in as that," said Sam, "unless they could
+prove we had been poachers at some time of our lives. But she'll fetch
+round."
+
+"Now, if I had been stung by ten adders I should hardly have lost a
+day's work for't," said Grandfer Cantle. "Such is my spirit when I am on
+my mettle. But perhaps 'tis natural in a man trained for war. Yes, I've
+gone through a good deal; but nothing ever came amiss to me after I
+joined the Locals in four." He shook his head and smiled at a mental
+picture of himself in uniform. "I was always first in the most
+galliantest scrapes in my younger days!"
+
+"I suppose that was because they always used to put the biggest fool
+afore," said Fairway from the fire, beside which he knelt, blowing it
+with his breath.
+
+"D'ye think so, Timothy?" said Grandfer Cantle, coming forward to
+Fairway's side with sudden depression in his face. "Then a man may feel
+for years that he is good solid company, and be wrong about himself
+after all?"
+
+"Never mind that question, Grandfer. Stir your stumps and get some more
+sticks. 'Tis very nonsense of an old man to prattle so when life and
+death's in mangling."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Grandfer Cantle, with melancholy conviction. "Well,
+this is a bad night altogether for them that have done well in their
+time; and if I were ever such a dab at the hautboy or tenor viol, I
+shouldn't have the heart to play tunes upon 'em now."
+
+Susan now arrived with the frying pan, when the live adder was killed
+and the heads of the three taken off. The remainders, being cut into
+lengths and split open, were tossed into the pan, which began hissing
+and crackling over the fire. Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from the
+carcases, whereupon Clym dipped the corner of his handkerchief into the
+liquid and anointed the wound.
+
+
+
+
+8--Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil
+
+
+In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth,
+had become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The
+consequences which might result from Clym's discovery that his mother
+had been turned from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable,
+and this was a quality in events which she hated as much as the
+dreadful.
+
+To be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome to her at any
+time, and this evening it was more irksome than usual by reason of
+the excitements of the past hours. The two visits had stirred her into
+restlessness. She was not wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness by
+the probability of appearing in an ill light in the discussion between
+Clym and his mother, but she was wrought to vexation, and her slumbering
+activities were quickened to the extent of wishing that she had opened
+the door. She had certainly believed that Clym was awake, and the excuse
+would be an honest one as far as it went; but nothing could save her
+from censure in refusing to answer at the first knock. Yet, instead of
+blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders
+of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who had framed her
+situation and ruled her lot.
+
+At this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by night than by day,
+and when Clym had been absent about an hour she suddenly resolved to go
+out in the direction of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting him on his
+return. When she reached the garden gate she heard wheels approaching,
+and looking round beheld her grandfather coming up in his car.
+
+"I can't stay a minute, thank ye," he answered to her greeting. "I am
+driving to East Egdon; but I came round here just to tell you the news.
+Perhaps you have heard--about Mr. Wildeve's fortune?"
+
+"No," said Eustacia blankly.
+
+"Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand pounds--uncle died
+in Canada, just after hearing that all his family, whom he was sending
+home, had gone to the bottom in the Cassiopeia; so Wildeve has come into
+everything, without in the least expecting it."
+
+Eustacia stood motionless awhile. "How long has he known of this?" she
+asked.
+
+"Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew it at ten
+o'clock, when Charley came back. Now, he is what I call a lucky man.
+What a fool you were, Eustacia!"
+
+"In what way?" she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness.
+
+"Why, in not sticking to him when you had him."
+
+"Had him, indeed!"
+
+"I did not know there had ever been anything between you till lately;
+and, faith, I should have been hot and strong against it if I had known;
+but since it seems that there was some sniffing between ye, why the
+deuce didn't you stick to him?"
+
+Eustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could say as much upon
+that subject as he if she chose.
+
+"And how is your poor purblind husband?" continued the old man. "Not a
+bad fellow either, as far as he goes."
+
+"He is quite well."
+
+"It is a good thing for his cousin what-d'ye-call-her? By George, you
+ought to have been in that galley, my girl! Now I must drive on. Do you
+want any assistance? What's mine is yours, you know."
+
+"Thank you, Grandfather, we are not in want at present," she said
+coldly. "Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly as a useful pastime,
+because he can do nothing else."
+
+"He is paid for his pastime, isn't he? Three shillings a hundred, I
+heard."
+
+"Clym has money," she said, colouring, "but he likes to earn a little."
+
+"Very well; good night." And the captain drove on.
+
+When her grandfather was gone Eustacia went on her way mechanically;
+but her thoughts were no longer concerning her mother-in-law and Clym.
+Wildeve, notwithstanding his complaints against his fate, had been
+seized upon by destiny and placed in the sunshine once more. Eleven
+thousand pounds! From every Egdon point of view he was a rich man. In
+Eustacia's eyes, too, it was an ample sum--one sufficient to supply
+those wants of hers which had been stigmatized by Clym in his more
+austere moods as vain and luxurious. Though she was no lover of money
+she loved what money could bring; and the new accessories she
+imagined around him clothed Wildeve with a great deal of interest. She
+recollected now how quietly well-dressed he had been that morning--he
+had probably put on his newest suit, regardless of damage by briars and
+thorns. And then she thought of his manner towards herself.
+
+"O I see it, I see it," she said. "How much he wishes he had me now,
+that he might give me all I desire!"
+
+In recalling the details of his glances and words--at the time scarcely
+regarded--it became plain to her how greatly they had been dictated
+by his knowledge of this new event. "Had he been a man to bear a jilt
+ill-will he would have told me of his good fortune in crowing tones;
+instead of doing that he mentioned not a word, in deference to my
+misfortunes, and merely implied that he loved me still, as one superior
+to him."
+
+Wildeve's silence that day on what had happened to him was just the kind
+of behaviour calculated to make an impression on such a woman. Those
+delicate touches of good taste were, in fact, one of the strong points
+in his demeanour towards the other sex. The peculiarity of Wildeve was
+that, while at one time passionate, upbraiding, and resentful towards a
+woman, at another he would treat her with such unparalleled grace as
+to make previous neglect appear as no discourtesy, injury as no insult,
+interference as a delicate attention, and the ruin of her honour as
+excess of chivalry. This man, whose admiration today Eustacia had
+disregarded, whose good wishes she had scarcely taken the trouble to
+accept, whom she had shown out of the house by the back door, was
+the possessor of eleven thousand pounds--a man of fair professional
+education, and one who had served his articles with a civil engineer.
+
+So intent was Eustacia upon Wildeve's fortunes that she forgot how much
+closer to her own course were those of Clym; and instead of walking on
+to meet him at once she sat down upon a stone. She was disturbed in her
+reverie by a voice behind, and turning her head beheld the old lover and
+fortunate inheritor of wealth immediately beside her.
+
+She remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look might have told
+any man who knew her so well as Wildeve that she was thinking of him.
+
+"How did you come here?" she said in her clear low tone. "I thought you
+were at home."
+
+"I went on to the village after leaving your garden; and now I have come
+back again--that's all. Which way are you walking, may I ask?"
+
+She waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. "I am going to meet
+my husband. I think I may possibly have got into trouble whilst you were
+with me today."
+
+"How could that be?"
+
+"By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright."
+
+"I hope that visit of mine did you no harm."
+
+"None. It was not your fault," she said quietly.
+
+By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on
+together, without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia
+broke silence by saying, "I assume I must congratulate you."
+
+"On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since I
+didn't get something else, I must be content with getting that."
+
+"You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn't you tell me today when
+you came?" she said in the tone of a neglected person. "I heard of it
+quite by accident."
+
+"I did mean to tell you," said Wildeve. "But I--well, I will speak
+frankly--I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your
+star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work,
+as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you
+would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I
+could not help feeling too that in many respects he was a richer man
+than I."
+
+At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, "What, would you
+exchange with him--your fortune for me?"
+
+"I certainly would," said Wildeve.
+
+"As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change
+the subject?"
+
+"Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you care
+to hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds, keep one
+thousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand travel for a
+year or so."
+
+"Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?"
+
+"From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then I
+shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot weather
+comes on. In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a plan not
+yet settled, I shall go to Australia and round to India. By that time
+I shall have begun to have had enough of it. Then I shall probably come
+back to Paris again, and there I shall stay as long as I can afford to."
+
+"Back to Paris again," she murmured in a voice that was nearly a sigh.
+She had never once told Wildeve of the Parisian desires which Clym's
+description had sown in her; yet here was he involuntarily in a position
+to gratify them. "You think a good deal of Paris?" she added.
+
+"Yes. In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot of the world."
+
+"And in mine! And Thomasin will go with you?"
+
+"Yes, if she cares to. She may prefer to stay at home."
+
+"So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!"
+
+"I suppose you will. But we know whose fault that is."
+
+"I am not blaming you," she said quickly.
+
+"Oh, I thought you were. If ever you SHOULD be inclined to blame me,
+think of a certain evening by Rainbarrow, when you promised to meet me
+and did not. You sent me a letter; and my heart ached to read that as
+I hope yours never will. That was one point of divergence. I then did
+something in haste.... But she is a good woman, and I will say no more."
+
+"I know that the blame was on my side that time," said Eustacia. "But it
+had not always been so. However, it is my misfortune to be too sudden in
+feeling. O, Damon, don't reproach me any more--I can't bear that."
+
+They went on silently for a distance of two or three miles, when
+Eustacia said suddenly, "Haven't you come out of your way, Mr. Wildeve?"
+
+"My way is anywhere tonight. I will go with you as far as the hill on
+which we can see Blooms-End, as it is getting late for you to be alone."
+
+"Don't trouble. I am not obliged to be out at all. I think I would
+rather you did not accompany me further. This sort of thing would have
+an odd look if known."
+
+"Very well, I will leave you." He took her hand unexpectedly, and kissed
+it--for the first time since her marriage. "What light is that on the
+hill?" he added, as it were to hide the caress.
+
+She looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding from the open side
+of a hovel a little way before them. The hovel, which she had hitherto
+always found empty, seemed to be inhabited now.
+
+"Since you have come so far," said Eustacia, "will you see me safely
+past that hut? I thought I should have met Clym somewhere about here,
+but as he doesn't appear I will hasten on and get to Blooms-End before
+he leaves."
+
+They advanced to the turf-shed, and when they got near it the firelight
+and the lantern inside showed distinctly enough the form of a woman
+reclining on a bed of fern, a group of heath men and women standing
+around her. Eustacia did not recognize Mrs. Yeobright in the reclining
+figure, nor Clym as one of the standers-by till she came close. Then
+she quickly pressed her hand up on Wildeve's arm and signified to him to
+come back from the open side of the shed into the shadow.
+
+"It is my husband and his mother," she whispered in an agitated voice.
+"What can it mean? Will you step forward and tell me?"
+
+Wildeve left her side and went to the back wall of the hut. Presently
+Eustacia perceived that he was beckoning to her, and she advanced and
+joined him.
+
+"It is a serious case," said Wildeve.
+
+From their position they could hear what was proceeding inside.
+
+"I cannot think where she could have been going," said Clym to someone.
+"She had evidently walked a long way, but even when she was able to
+speak just now she would not tell me where. What do you really think of
+her?"
+
+"There is a great deal to fear," was gravely answered, in a voice which
+Eustacia recognized as that of the only surgeon in the district. "She
+has suffered somewhat from the bite of the adder; but it is exhaustion
+which has overpowered her. My impression is that her walk must have been
+exceptionally long."
+
+"I used to tell her not to overwalk herself this weather," said Clym,
+with distress. "Do you think we did well in using the adder's fat?"
+
+"Well, it is a very ancient remedy--the old remedy of the
+viper-catchers, I believe," replied the doctor. "It is mentioned as
+an infallible ointment by Hoffman, Mead, and I think the Abbe Fontana.
+Undoubtedly it was as good a thing as you could do; though I question if
+some other oils would not have been equally efficacious."
+
+"Come here, come here!" was then rapidly said in anxious female tones,
+and Clym and the doctor could be heard rushing forward from the back
+part of the shed to where Mrs. Yeobright lay.
+
+"Oh, what is it?" whispered Eustacia.
+
+"'Twas Thomasin who spoke," said Wildeve. "Then they have fetched her. I
+wonder if I had better go in--yet it might do harm."
+
+For a long time there was utter silence among the group within; and it
+was broken at last by Clym saying, in an agonized voice, "O Doctor, what
+does it mean?"
+
+The doctor did not reply at once; ultimately he said, "She is sinking
+fast. Her heart was previously affected, and physical exhaustion has
+dealt the finishing blow."
+
+Then there was a weeping of women, then waiting, then hushed
+exclamations, then a strange gasping sound, then a painful stillness.
+
+"It is all over," said the doctor.
+
+Further back in the hut the cotters whispered, "Mrs. Yeobright is dead."
+
+Almost at the same moment the two watchers observed the form of a
+small old-fashioned child entering at the open side of the shed. Susan
+Nunsuch, whose boy it was, went forward to the opening and silently
+beckoned to him to go back.
+
+"I've got something to tell 'ee, Mother," he cried in a shrill tone.
+"That woman asleep there walked along with me today; and she said I was
+to say that I had seed her, and she was a broken-hearted woman and cast
+off by her son, and then I came on home."
+
+A confused sob as from a man was heard within, upon which Eustacia
+gasped faintly, "That's Clym--I must go to him--yet dare I do it?
+No--come away!"
+
+When they had withdrawn from the neighbourhood of the shed she said
+huskily, "I am to blame for this. There is evil in store for me."
+
+"Was she not admitted to your house after all?" Wildeve inquired.
+
+"No, and that's where it all lies! Oh, what shall I do! I shall not
+intrude upon them--I shall go straight home. Damon, good-bye! I cannot
+speak to you any more now."
+
+They parted company; and when Eustacia had reached the next hill she
+looked back. A melancholy procession was wending its way by the light of
+the lantern from the hut towards Blooms-End. Wildeve was nowhere to be
+seen.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIVE -- THE DISCOVERY
+
+
+
+
+1--"Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery"
+
+
+One evening, about three weeks after the funeral of Mrs. Yeobright, when
+the silver face of the moon sent a bundle of beams directly upon the
+floor of Clym's house at Alderworth, a woman came forth from within. She
+reclined over the garden gate as if to refresh herself awhile. The pale
+lunar touches which make beauties of hags lent divinity to this face,
+already beautiful.
+
+She had not long been there when a man came up the road and with some
+hesitation said to her, "How is he tonight, ma'am, if you please?"
+
+"He is better, though still very unwell, Humphrey," replied Eustacia.
+
+"Is he light-headed, ma'am?"
+
+"No. He is quite sensible now."
+
+"Do he rave about his mother just the same, poor fellow?" continued
+Humphrey.
+
+"Just as much, though not quite so wildly," she said in a low voice.
+
+"It was very unfortunate, ma'am, that the boy Johnny should ever ha'
+told him his mother's dying words, about her being broken-hearted and
+cast off by her son. 'Twas enough to upset any man alive."
+
+Eustacia made no reply beyond that of a slight catch in her breath, as
+of one who fain would speak but could not; and Humphrey, declining her
+invitation to come in, went away.
+
+Eustacia turned, entered the house, and ascended to the front bedroom,
+where a shaded light was burning. In the bed lay Clym, pale, haggard,
+wide awake, tossing to one side and to the other, his eyes lit by a hot
+light, as if the fire in their pupils were burning up their substance.
+
+"Is it you, Eustacia?" he said as she sat down.
+
+"Yes, Clym. I have been down to the gate. The moon is shining
+beautifully, and there is not a leaf stirring."
+
+"Shining, is it? What's the moon to a man like me? Let it shine--let
+anything be, so that I never see another day!... Eustacia, I don't know
+where to look--my thoughts go through me like swords. O, if any man
+wants to make himself immortal by painting a picture of wretchedness,
+let him come here!"
+
+"Why do you say so?"
+
+"I cannot help feeling that I did my best to kill her."
+
+"No, Clym."
+
+"Yes, it was so; it is useless to excuse me! My conduct to her was too
+hideous--I made no advances; and she could not bring herself to forgive
+me. Now she is dead! If I had only shown myself willing to make it up
+with her sooner, and we had been friends, and then she had died, it
+wouldn't be so hard to bear. But I never went near her house, so
+she never came near mine, and didn't know how welcome she would have
+been--that's what troubles me. She did not know I was going to her house
+that very night, for she was too insensible to understand me. If she had
+only come to see me! I longed that she would. But it was not to be."
+
+There escaped from Eustacia one of those shivering sighs which used to
+shake her like a pestilent blast. She had not yet told.
+
+But Yeobright was too deeply absorbed in the ramblings incidental to
+his remorseful state to notice her. During his illness he had been
+continually talking thus. Despair had been added to his original grief
+by the unfortunate disclosure of the boy who had received the last
+words of Mrs. Yeobright--words too bitterly uttered in an hour of
+misapprehension. Then his distress had overwhelmed him, and he longed
+for death as a field labourer longs for the shade. It was the pitiful
+sight of a man standing in the very focus of sorrow. He continually
+bewailed his tardy journey to his mother's house, because it was an
+error which could never be rectified, and insisted that he must have
+been horribly perverted by some fiend not to have thought before that it
+was his duty to go to her, since she did not come to him. He would
+ask Eustacia to agree with him in his self-condemnation; and when she,
+seared inwardly by a secret she dared not tell, declared that she could
+not give an opinion, he would say, "That's because you didn't know my
+mother's nature. She was always ready to forgive if asked to do so;
+but I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that made
+her unyielding. Yet not unyielding--she was proud and reserved, no
+more.... Yes, I can understand why she held out against me so long. She
+was waiting for me. I dare say she said a hundred times in her sorrow,
+'What a return he makes for all the sacrifices I have made for him!' I
+never went to her! When I set out to visit her it was too late. To think
+of that is nearly intolerable!"
+
+Sometimes his condition had been one of utter remorse, unsoftened by a
+single tear of pure sorrow: and then he writhed as he lay, fevered
+far more by thought than by physical ills. "If I could only get one
+assurance that she did not die in a belief that I was resentful," he
+said one day when in this mood, "it would be better to think of than a
+hope of heaven. But that I cannot do."
+
+"You give yourself up too much to this wearying despair," said Eustacia.
+"Other men's mothers have died."
+
+"That doesn't make the loss of mine less. Yet it is less the loss than
+the circumstances of the loss. I sinned against her, and on that account
+there is no light for me."
+
+"She sinned against you, I think."
+
+"No, she did not. I committed the guilt; and may the whole burden be
+upon my head!"
+
+"I think you might consider twice before you say that," Eustacia
+replied. "Single men have, no doubt, a right to curse themselves as much
+as they please; but men with wives involve two in the doom they pray
+down."
+
+"I am in too sorry a state to understand what you are refining on," said
+the wretched man. "Day and night shout at me, 'You have helped to kill
+her.' But in loathing myself I may, I own, be unjust to you, my poor
+wife. Forgive me for it, Eustacia, for I scarcely know what I do."
+
+Eustacia was always anxious to avoid the sight of her husband in such
+a state as this, which had become as dreadful to her as the trial scene
+was to Judas Iscariot. It brought before her eyes the spectre of a
+worn-out woman knocking at a door which she would not open; and she
+shrank from contemplating it. Yet it was better for Yeobright himself
+when he spoke openly of his sharp regret, for in silence he endured
+infinitely more, and would sometimes remain so long in a tense, brooding
+mood, consuming himself by the gnawing of his thought, that it was
+imperatively necessary to make him talk aloud, that his grief might in
+some degree expend itself in the effort.
+
+Eustacia had not been long indoors after her look at the moonlight when
+a soft footstep came up to the house, and Thomasin was announced by the
+woman downstairs.
+
+"Ah, Thomasin! Thank you for coming tonight," said Clym when she entered
+the room. "Here am I, you see. Such a wretched spectacle am I, that I
+shrink from being seen by a single friend, and almost from you."
+
+"You must not shrink from me, dear Clym," said Thomasin earnestly, in
+that sweet voice of hers which came to a sufferer like fresh air into a
+Black Hole. "Nothing in you can ever shock me or drive me away. I have
+been here before, but you don't remember it."
+
+"Yes, I do; I am not delirious, Thomasin, nor have I been so at all.
+Don't you believe that if they say so. I am only in great misery at what
+I have done, and that, with the weakness, makes me seem mad. But it
+has not upset my reason. Do you think I should remember all about my
+mother's death if I were out of my mind? No such good luck. Two months
+and a half, Thomasin, the last of her life, did my poor mother live
+alone, distracted and mourning because of me; yet she was unvisited
+by me, though I was living only six miles off. Two months and a
+half--seventy-five days did the sun rise and set upon her in that
+deserted state which a dog didn't deserve! Poor people who had nothing
+in common with her would have cared for her, and visited her had they
+known her sickness and loneliness; but I, who should have been all to
+her, stayed away like a cur. If there is any justice in God let Him kill
+me now. He has nearly blinded me, but that is not enough. If He would
+only strike me with more pain I would believe in Him forever!"
+
+"Hush, hush! O, pray, Clym, don't, don't say it!" implored Thomasin,
+affrighted into sobs and tears; while Eustacia, at the other side of
+the room, though her pale face remained calm, writhed in her chair. Clym
+went on without heeding his cousin.
+
+"But I am not worth receiving further proof even of Heaven's
+reprobation. Do you think, Thomasin, that she knew me--that she did not
+die in that horrid mistaken notion about my not forgiving her, which I
+can't tell you how she acquired? If you could only assure me of that! Do
+you think so, Eustacia? Do speak to me."
+
+"I think I can assure you that she knew better at last," said Thomasin.
+The pallid Eustacia said nothing.
+
+"Why didn't she come to my house? I would have taken her in and showed
+her how I loved her in spite of all. But she never came; and I didn't go
+to her, and she died on the heath like an animal kicked out, nobody to
+help her till it was too late. If you could have seen her, Thomasin, as
+I saw her--a poor dying woman, lying in the dark upon the bare ground,
+moaning, nobody near, believing she was utterly deserted by all the
+world, it would have moved you to anguish, it would have moved a brute.
+And this poor woman my mother! No wonder she said to the child, 'You
+have seen a broken-hearted woman.' What a state she must have been
+brought to, to say that! and who can have done it but I? It is too
+dreadful to think of, and I wish I could be punished more heavily than I
+am. How long was I what they called out of my senses?"
+
+"A week, I think."
+
+"And then I became calm."
+
+"Yes, for four days."
+
+"And now I have left off being calm."
+
+"But try to be quiet--please do, and you will soon be strong. If you
+could remove that impression from your mind--"
+
+"Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "But I don't want to get strong. What's
+the use of my getting well? It would be better for me if I die, and it
+would certainly be better for Eustacia. Is Eustacia there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It would be better for you, Eustacia, if I were to die?"
+
+"Don't press such a question, dear Clym."
+
+"Well, it really is but a shadowy supposition; for unfortunately I am
+going to live. I feel myself getting better. Thomasin, how long are
+you going to stay at the inn, now that all this money has come to your
+husband?"
+
+"Another month or two, probably; until my illness is over. We cannot get
+off till then. I think it will be a month or more."
+
+"Yes, yes. Of course. Ah, Cousin Tamsie, you will get over your
+trouble--one little month will take you through it, and bring something
+to console you; but I shall never get over mine, and no consolation will
+come!"
+
+"Clym, you are unjust to yourself. Depend upon it, Aunt thought kindly
+of you. I know that, if she had lived, you would have been reconciled
+with her."
+
+"But she didn't come to see me, though I asked her, before I married, if
+she would come. Had she come, or had I gone there, she would never have
+died saying, 'I am a broken-hearted woman, cast off by my son.' My door
+has always been open to her--a welcome here has always awaited her. But
+that she never came to see."
+
+"You had better not talk any more now, Clym," said Eustacia faintly from
+the other part of the room, for the scene was growing intolerable to
+her.
+
+"Let me talk to you instead for the little time I shall be here,"
+Thomasin said soothingly. "Consider what a one-sided way you have of
+looking at the matter, Clym. When she said that to the little boy you
+had not found her and taken her into your arms; and it might have been
+uttered in a moment of bitterness. It was rather like Aunt to say things
+in haste. She sometimes used to speak so to me. Though she did not come
+I am convinced that she thought of coming to see you. Do you suppose
+a man's mother could live two or three months without one forgiving
+thought? She forgave me; and why should she not have forgiven you?"
+
+"You laboured to win her round; I did nothing. I, who was going to teach
+people the higher secrets of happiness, did not know how to keep out of
+that gross misery which the most untaught are wise enough to avoid."
+
+"How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?" said Eustacia.
+
+"Damon set me down at the end of the lane. He has driven into East Egdon
+on business, and he will come and pick me up by-and-by."
+
+Accordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels. Wildeve had come,
+and was waiting outside with his horse and gig.
+
+"Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes," said Thomasin.
+
+"I will run down myself," said Eustacia.
+
+She went down. Wildeve had alighted, and was standing before the horse's
+head when Eustacia opened the door. He did not turn for a moment,
+thinking the comer Thomasin. Then he looked, startled ever so little,
+and said one word: "Well?"
+
+"I have not yet told him," she replied in a whisper.
+
+"Then don't do so till he is well--it will be fatal. You are ill
+yourself."
+
+"I am wretched.... O Damon," she said, bursting into tears, "I--I can't
+tell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly bear this. I can tell nobody of
+my trouble--nobody knows of it but you."
+
+"Poor girl!" said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress, and at
+last led on so far as to take her hand. "It is hard, when you have done
+nothing to deserve it, that you should have got involved in such a web
+as this. You were not made for these sad scenes. I am to blame most. If
+I could only have saved you from it all!"
+
+"But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour
+after hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her
+death, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all,
+drives me into cold despair. I don't know what to do. Should I tell him
+or should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that. O, I want to
+tell him; and yet I am afraid. If he finds it out he must surely kill me,
+for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings now. 'Beware the
+fury of a patient man' sounds day by day in my ears as I watch him."
+
+"Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance. And when you tell,
+you must only tell part--for his own sake."
+
+"Which part should I keep back?"
+
+Wildeve paused. "That I was in the house at the time," he said in a low
+tone.
+
+"Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has been whispered. How much
+easier are hasty actions than speeches that will excuse them!"
+
+"If he were only to die--" Wildeve murmured.
+
+"Do not think of it! I would not buy hope of immunity by so cowardly
+a desire even if I hated him. Now I am going up to him again. Thomasin
+bade me tell you she would be down in a few minutes. Good-bye."
+
+She returned, and Thomasin soon appeared. When she was seated in the gig
+with her husband, and the horse was turning to go off, Wildeve lifted
+his eyes to the bedroom windows. Looking from one of them he could
+discern a pale, tragic face watching him drive away. It was Eustacia's.
+
+
+
+
+2--A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding
+
+
+Clym's grief became mitigated by wearing itself out. His strength
+returned, and a month after the visit of Thomasin he might have been
+seen walking about the garden. Endurance and despair, equanimity and
+gloom, the tints of health and the pallor of death, mingled weirdly
+in his face. He was now unnaturally silent upon all of the past that
+related to his mother; and though Eustacia knew that he was thinking
+of it none the less, she was only too glad to escape the topic ever to
+bring it up anew. When his mind had been weaker his heart had led him to
+speak out; but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he sank into
+taciturnity.
+
+One evening when he was thus standing in the garden, abstractedly
+spudding up a weed with his stick, a bony figure turned the corner of
+the house and came up to him.
+
+"Christian, isn't it?" said Clym. "I am glad you have found me out. I
+shall soon want you to go to Blooms-End and assist me in putting the
+house in order. I suppose it is all locked up as I left it?"
+
+"Yes, Mister Clym."
+
+"Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?"
+
+"Yes, without a drop o' rain, thank God. But I was coming to tell 'ee of
+something else which is quite different from what we have lately had in
+the family. I am sent by the rich gentleman at the Woman, that we used
+to call the landlord, to tell 'ee that Mrs. Wildeve is doing well of a
+girl, which was born punctually at one o'clock at noon, or a few minutes
+more or less; and 'tis said that expecting of this increase is what have
+kept 'em there since they came into their money."
+
+"And she is getting on well, you say?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Only Mr. Wildeve is twanky because 'tisn't a boy--that's what
+they say in the kitchen, but I was not supposed to notice that."
+
+"Christian, now listen to me."
+
+"Yes, sure, Mr. Yeobright."
+
+"Did you see my mother the day before she died?"
+
+"No, I did not."
+
+Yeobright's face expressed disappointment.
+
+"But I zeed her the morning of the same day she died."
+
+Clym's look lighted up. "That's nearer still to my meaning," he said.
+
+"Yes, I know 'twas the same day; for she said, 'I be going to see him,
+Christian; so I shall not want any vegetables brought in for dinner.'"
+
+"See whom?"
+
+"See you. She was going to your house, you understand."
+
+Yeobright regarded Christian with intense surprise. "Why did you never
+mention this?" he said. "Are you sure it was my house she was coming
+to?"
+
+"O yes. I didn't mention it because I've never zeed you lately. And as
+she didn't get there it was all nought, and nothing to tell."
+
+"And I have been wondering why she should have walked in the heath on
+that hot day! Well, did she say what she was coming for? It is a thing,
+Christian, I am very anxious to know."
+
+"Yes, Mister Clym. She didn't say it to me, though I think she did to
+one here and there."
+
+"Do you know one person to whom she spoke of it?"
+
+"There is one man, please, sir, but I hope you won't mention my name
+to him, as I have seen him in strange places, particular in dreams. One
+night last summer he glared at me like Famine and Sword, and it made
+me feel so low that I didn't comb out my few hairs for two days. He was
+standing, as it might be, Mister Yeobright, in the middle of the path to
+Mistover, and your mother came up, looking as pale--"
+
+"Yes, when was that?"
+
+"Last summer, in my dream."
+
+"Pooh! Who's the man?"
+
+"Diggory, the reddleman. He called upon her and sat with her the evening
+before she set out to see you. I hadn't gone home from work when he came
+up to the gate."
+
+"I must see Venn--I wish I had known it before," said Clym anxiously. "I
+wonder why he has not come to tell me?"
+
+"He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not be likely to know
+you wanted him."
+
+"Christian," said Clym, "you must go and find Venn. I am otherwise
+engaged, or I would go myself. Find him at once, and tell him I want to
+speak to him."
+
+"I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day," said Christian, looking
+dubiously round at the declining light; "but as to night-time, never is
+such a bad hand as I, Mister Yeobright."
+
+"Search the heath when you will, so that you bring him soon. Bring him
+tomorrow, if you can."
+
+Christian then departed. The morrow came, but no Venn. In the evening
+Christian arrived, looking very weary. He had been searching all day,
+and had heard nothing of the reddleman.
+
+"Inquire as much as you can tomorrow without neglecting your work," said
+Yeobright. "Don't come again till you have found him."
+
+The next day Yeobright set out for the old house at Blooms-End, which,
+with the garden, was now his own. His severe illness had hindered all
+preparations for his removal thither; but it had become necessary that
+he should go and overlook its contents, as administrator to his mother's
+little property; for which purpose he decided to pass the next night on
+the premises.
+
+He journeyed onward, not quickly or decisively, but in the slow walk
+of one who has been awakened from a stupefying sleep. It was early
+afternoon when he reached the valley. The expression of the place, the
+tone of the hour, were precisely those of many such occasions in days
+gone by; and these antecedent similarities fostered the illusion that
+she, who was there no longer, would come out to welcome him. The garden
+gate was locked and the shutters were closed, just as he himself had
+left them on the evening after the funeral. He unlocked the gate, and
+found that a spider had already constructed a large web, tying the door
+to the lintel, on the supposition that it was never to be opened again.
+When he had entered the house and flung back the shutters he set about
+his task of overhauling the cupboards and closets, burning papers, and
+considering how best to arrange the place for Eustacia's reception,
+until such time as he might be in a position to carry out his
+long-delayed scheme, should that time ever arrive.
+
+As he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined for the
+alterations which would have to be made in the time-honoured furnishing
+of his parents and grandparents, to suit Eustacia's modern ideas. The
+gaunt oak-cased clock, with the picture of the Ascension on the
+door panel and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes on the base; his
+grandmother's corner cupboard with the glass door, through which the
+spotted china was visible; the dumb-waiter; the wooden tea trays; the
+hanging fountain with the brass tap--whither would these venerable
+articles have to be banished?
+
+He noticed that the flowers in the window had died for want of water,
+and he placed them out upon the ledge, that they might be taken away.
+While thus engaged he heard footsteps on the gravel without, and
+somebody knocked at the door.
+
+Yeobright opened it, and Venn was standing before him.
+
+"Good morning," said the reddleman. "Is Mrs. Yeobright at home?"
+
+Yeobright looked upon the ground. "Then you have not seen Christian or
+any of the Egdon folks?" he said.
+
+"No. I have only just returned after a long stay away. I called here the
+day before I left."
+
+"And you have heard nothing?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"My mother is--dead."
+
+"Dead!" said Venn mechanically.
+
+"Her home now is where I shouldn't mind having mine."
+
+Venn regarded him, and then said, "If I didn't see your face I could
+never believe your words. Have you been ill?"
+
+"I had an illness."
+
+"Well, the change! When I parted from her a month ago everything seemed
+to say that she was going to begin a new life."
+
+"And what seemed came true."
+
+"You say right, no doubt. Trouble has taught you a deeper vein of talk
+than mine. All I meant was regarding her life here. She has died too
+soon."
+
+"Perhaps through my living too long. I have had a bitter experience on
+that score this last month, Diggory. But come in; I have been wanting to
+see you."
+
+He conducted the reddleman into the large room where the dancing had
+taken place the previous Christmas, and they sat down in the settle
+together. "There's the cold fireplace, you see," said Clym. "When that
+half-burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive! Little has
+been changed here yet. I can do nothing. My life creeps like a snail."
+
+"How came she to die?" said Venn.
+
+Yeobright gave him some particulars of her illness and death, and
+continued: "After this no kind of pain will ever seem more than an
+indisposition to me. I began saying that I wanted to ask you something,
+but I stray from subjects like a drunken man. I am anxious to know what
+my mother said to you when she last saw you. You talked with her a long
+time, I think?"
+
+"I talked with her more than half an hour."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"Yes. And it must have been on account of what we said that she was on
+the heath. Without question she was coming to see you."
+
+"But why should she come to see me if she felt so bitterly against me?
+There's the mystery."
+
+"Yet I know she quite forgave 'ee."
+
+"But, Diggory--would a woman, who had quite forgiven her son, say,
+when she felt herself ill on the way to his house, that she was
+broken-hearted because of his ill-usage? Never!"
+
+"What I know is that she didn't blame you at all. She blamed herself for
+what had happened, and only herself. I had it from her own lips."
+
+"You had it from her lips that I had NOT ill-treated her; and at the
+same time another had it from her lips that I HAD ill-treated her? My
+mother was no impulsive woman who changed her opinion every hour without
+reason. How can it be, Venn, that she should have told such different
+stories in close succession?"
+
+"I cannot say. It is certainly odd, when she had forgiven you, and had
+forgiven your wife, and was going to see ye on purpose to make friends."
+
+"If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this
+incomprehensible thing!... Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only
+allowed to hold conversation with the dead--just once, a bare minute,
+even through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison--what we
+might learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And
+this mystery--I should then be at the bottom of it at once. But the
+grave has forever shut her in; and how shall it be found out now?"
+
+No reply was returned by his companion, since none could be given; and
+when Venn left, a few minutes later, Clym had passed from the dullness
+of sorrow to the fluctuation of carking incertitude.
+
+He continued in the same state all the afternoon. A bed was made up for
+him in the same house by a neighbour, that he might not have to return
+again the next day; and when he retired to rest in the deserted place it
+was only to remain awake hour after hour thinking the same thoughts. How
+to discover a solution to this riddle of death seemed a query of more
+importance than highest problems of the living. There was housed in his
+memory a vivid picture of the face of a little boy as he entered the
+hovel where Clym's mother lay. The round eyes, eager gaze, the piping
+voice which enunciated the words, had operated like stilettos on his
+brain.
+
+A visit to the boy suggested itself as a means of gleaning new
+particulars; though it might be quite unproductive. To probe a child's
+mind after the lapse of six weeks, not for facts which the child had
+seen and understood, but to get at those which were in their nature
+beyond him, did not promise much; yet when every obvious channel is
+blocked we grope towards the small and obscure. There was nothing else
+left to do; after that he would allow the enigma to drop into the abyss
+of undiscoverable things.
+
+It was about daybreak when he had reached this decision, and he at once
+arose. He locked up the house and went out into the green patch which
+merged in heather further on. In front of the white garden-palings the
+path branched into three like a broad arrow. The road to the right
+led to the Quiet Woman and its neighbourhood; the middle track led to
+Mistover Knap; the left-hand track led over the hill to another part
+of Mistover, where the child lived. On inclining into the latter path
+Yeobright felt a creeping chilliness, familiar enough to most people,
+and probably caused by the unsunned morning air. In after days he
+thought of it as a thing of singular significance.
+
+When Yeobright reached the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, the mother of the
+boy he sought, he found that the inmates were not yet astir. But in
+upland hamlets the transition from a-bed to abroad is surprisingly swift
+and easy. There no dense partition of yawns and toilets divides humanity
+by night from humanity by day. Yeobright tapped at the upper windowsill,
+which he could reach with his walking stick; and in three or four
+minutes the woman came down.
+
+It was not till this moment that Clym recollected her to be the person
+who had behaved so barbarously to Eustacia. It partly explained the
+insuavity with which the woman greeted him. Moreover, the boy had been
+ailing again; and Susan now, as ever since the night when he had
+been pressed into Eustacia's service at the bonfire, attributed his
+indispositions to Eustacia's influence as a witch. It was one of those
+sentiments which lurk like moles underneath the visible surface of
+manners, and may have been kept alive by Eustacia's entreaty to the
+captain, at the time that he had intended to prosecute Susan for the
+pricking in church, to let the matter drop; which he accordingly had
+done.
+
+Yeobright overcame his repugnance, for Susan had at least borne his
+mother no ill-will. He asked kindly for the boy; but her manner did not
+improve.
+
+"I wish to see him," continued Yeobright, with some hesitation, "to ask
+him if he remembers anything more of his walk with my mother than what
+he has previously told."
+
+She regarded him in a peculiar and criticizing manner. To anybody but a
+half-blind man it would have said, "You want another of the knocks which
+have already laid you so low."
+
+She called the boy downstairs, asked Clym to sit down on a stool, and
+continued, "Now, Johnny, tell Mr. Yeobright anything you can call to
+mind."
+
+"You have not forgotten how you walked with the poor lady on that hot
+day?" said Clym.
+
+"No," said the boy.
+
+"And what she said to you?"
+
+The boy repeated the exact words he had used on entering the hut.
+Yeobright rested his elbow on the table and shaded his face with his
+hand; and the mother looked as if she wondered how a man could want more
+of what had stung him so deeply.
+
+"She was going to Alderworth when you first met her?"
+
+"No; she was coming away."
+
+"That can't be."
+
+"Yes; she walked along with me. I was coming away, too."
+
+"Then where did you first see her?"
+
+"At your house."
+
+"Attend, and speak the truth!" said Clym sternly.
+
+"Yes, sir; at your house was where I seed her first."
+
+Clym started up, and Susan smiled in an expectant way which did not
+embellish her face; it seemed to mean, "Something sinister is coming!"
+
+"What did she do at my house?"
+
+"She went and sat under the trees at the Devil's Bellows."
+
+"Good God! this is all news to me!"
+
+"You never told me this before?" said Susan.
+
+"No, Mother; because I didn't like to tell 'ee I had been so far. I was
+picking blackhearts, and went further than I meant."
+
+"What did she do then?" said Yeobright.
+
+"Looked at a man who came up and went into your house."
+
+"That was myself--a furze-cutter, with brambles in his hand."
+
+"No; 'twas not you. 'Twas a gentleman. You had gone in afore."
+
+"Who was he?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Now tell me what happened next."
+
+"The poor lady went and knocked at your door, and the lady with black
+hair looked out of the side window at her."
+
+The boy's mother turned to Clym and said, "This is something you didn't
+expect?"
+
+Yeobright took no more notice of her than if he had been of stone. "Go
+on, go on," he said hoarsely to the boy.
+
+"And when she saw the young lady look out of the window the old lady
+knocked again; and when nobody came she took up the furze-hook and
+looked at it, and put it down again, and then she looked at the
+faggot-bonds; and then she went away, and walked across to me, and
+blowed her breath very hard, like this. We walked on together, she and
+I, and I talked to her and she talked to me a bit, but not much, because
+she couldn't blow her breath."
+
+"O!" murmured Clym, in a low tone, and bowed his head. "Let's have
+more," he said.
+
+"She couldn't talk much, and she couldn't walk; and her face was, O so
+queer!"
+
+"How was her face?"
+
+"Like yours is now."
+
+The woman looked at Yeobright, and beheld him colourless, in a cold
+sweat. "Isn't there meaning in it?" she said stealthily. "What do you
+think of her now?"
+
+"Silence!" said Clym fiercely. And, turning to the boy, "And then you
+left her to die?"
+
+"No," said the woman, quickly and angrily. "He did not leave her to die!
+She sent him away. Whoever says he forsook her says what's not true."
+
+"Trouble no more about that," answered Clym, with a quivering mouth.
+"What he did is a trifle in comparison with what he saw. Door kept
+shut, did you say? Kept shut, she looking out of window? Good heart of
+God!--what does it mean?"
+
+The child shrank away from the gaze of his questioner.
+
+"He said so," answered the mother, "and Johnny's a God-fearing boy and
+tells no lies."
+
+"'Cast off by my son!' No, by my best life, dear mother, it is not so!
+But by your son's, your son's--May all murderesses get the torment they
+deserve!"
+
+With these words Yeobright went forth from the little dwelling. The
+pupils of his eyes, fixed steadfastly on blankness, were vaguely lit
+with an icy shine; his mouth had passed into the phase more or less
+imaginatively rendered in studies of Oedipus. The strangest deeds were
+possible to his mood. But they were not possible to his situation.
+Instead of there being before him the pale face of Eustacia, and a
+masculine shape unknown, there was only the imperturbable countenance
+of the heath, which, having defied the cataclysmal onsets of centuries,
+reduced to insignificance by its seamed and antique features the wildest
+turmoil of a single man.
+
+
+
+
+3--Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning
+
+
+A consciousness of a vast impassivity in all which lay around him took
+possession even of Yeobright in his wild walk towards Alderworth. He had
+once before felt in his own person this overpowering of the fervid by
+the inanimate; but then it had tended to enervate a passion far sweeter
+than that which at present pervaded him. It was once when he stood
+parting from Eustacia in the moist still levels beyond the hills.
+
+But dismissing all this he went onward home, and came to the front of
+his house. The blinds of Eustacia's bedroom were still closely drawn,
+for she was no early riser. All the life visible was in the shape of
+a solitary thrush cracking a small snail upon the door-stone for his
+breakfast, and his tapping seemed a loud noise in the general silence
+which prevailed; but on going to the door Clym found it unfastened, the
+young girl who attended upon Eustacia being astir in the back part of
+the premises. Yeobright entered and went straight to his wife's room.
+
+The noise of his arrival must have aroused her, for when he opened the
+door she was standing before the looking glass in her nightdress, the
+ends of her hair gathered into one hand, with which she was coiling the
+whole mass round her head, previous to beginning toilette operations.
+She was not a woman given to speaking first at a meeting, and she
+allowed Clym to walk across in silence, without turning her head.
+He came behind her, and she saw his face in the glass. It was ashy,
+haggard, and terrible. Instead of starting towards him in sorrowful
+surprise, as even Eustacia, undemonstrative wife as she was, would have
+done in days before she burdened herself with a secret, she remained
+motionless, looking at him in the glass. And while she looked the
+carmine flush with which warmth and sound sleep had suffused her cheeks
+and neck dissolved from view, and the deathlike pallor in his face
+flew across into hers. He was close enough to see this, and the sight
+instigated his tongue.
+
+"You know what is the matter," he said huskily. "I see it in your face."
+
+Her hand relinquished the rope of hair and dropped to her side, and the
+pile of tresses, no longer supported, fell from the crown of her head
+about her shoulders and over the white nightgown. She made no reply.
+
+"Speak to me," said Yeobright peremptorily.
+
+The blanching process did not cease in her, and her lips now became as
+white as her face. She turned to him and said, "Yes, Clym, I'll speak to
+you. Why do you return so early? Can I do anything for you?"
+
+"Yes, you can listen to me. It seems that my wife is not very well?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Your face, my dear; your face. Or perhaps it is the pale morning light
+which takes your colour away? Now I am going to reveal a secret to you.
+Ha-ha!"
+
+"O, that is ghastly!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Your laugh."
+
+"There's reason for ghastliness. Eustacia, you have held my happiness in
+the hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it down!"
+
+She started back from the dressing-table, retreated a few steps from
+him, and looked him in the face. "Ah! you think to frighten me," she
+said, with a slight laugh. "Is it worth while? I am undefended, and
+alone."
+
+"How extraordinary!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"As there is ample time I will tell you, though you know well enough.
+I mean that it is extraordinary that you should be alone in my absence.
+Tell me, now, where is he who was with you on the afternoon of the
+thirty-first of August? Under the bed? Up the chimney?"
+
+A shudder overcame her and shook the light fabric of her nightdress
+throughout. "I do not remember dates so exactly," she said. "I cannot
+recollect that anybody was with me besides yourself."
+
+"The day I mean," said Yeobright, his voice growing louder and harsher,
+"was the day you shut the door against my mother and killed her. O, it
+is too much--too bad!" He leant over the footpiece of the bedstead for
+a few moments, with his back towards her; then rising again--"Tell me,
+tell me! tell me--do you hear?" he cried, rushing up to her and seizing
+her by the loose folds of her sleeve.
+
+The superstratum of timidity which often overlies those who are daring
+and defiant at heart had been passed through, and the mettlesome
+substance of the woman was reached. The red blood inundated her face,
+previously so pale.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she said in a low voice, regarding him with
+a proud smile. "You will not alarm me by holding on so; but it would be
+a pity to tear my sleeve."
+
+Instead of letting go he drew her closer to him. "Tell me the
+particulars of--my mother's death," he said in a hard, panting whisper;
+"or--I'll--I'll--"
+
+"Clym," she answered slowly, "do you think you dare do anything to me
+that I dare not bear? But before you strike me listen. You will get
+nothing from me by a blow, even though it should kill me, as it probably
+will. But perhaps you do not wish me to speak--killing may be all you
+mean?"
+
+"Kill you! Do you expect it?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"No less degree of rage against me will match your previous grief for
+her."
+
+"Phew--I shall not kill you," he said contemptuously, as if under a
+sudden change of purpose. "I did think of it; but--I shall not. That
+would be making a martyr of you, and sending you to where she is; and
+I would keep you away from her till the universe come to an end, if I
+could."
+
+"I almost wish you would kill me," said she with gloomy bitterness.
+"It is with no strong desire, I assure you, that I play the part I have
+lately played on earth. You are no blessing, my husband."
+
+"You shut the door--you looked out of the window upon her--you had a
+man in the house with you--you sent her away to die. The inhumanity--the
+treachery--I will not touch you--stand away from me--and confess every
+word!"
+
+"Never! I'll hold my tongue like the very death that I don't mind
+meeting, even though I can clear myself of half you believe by speaking.
+Yes. I will! Who of any dignity would take the trouble to clear cobwebs
+from a wild man's mind after such language as this? No; let him go on,
+and think his narrow thoughts, and run his head into the mire. I have
+other cares."
+
+"'Tis too much--but I must spare you."
+
+"Poor charity."
+
+"By my wretched soul you sting me, Eustacia! I can keep it up, and hotly
+too. Now, then, madam, tell me his name!"
+
+"Never, I am resolved."
+
+"How often does he write to you? Where does he put his letters--when
+does he meet you? Ah, his letters! Do you tell me his name?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Then I'll find it myself." His eyes had fallen upon a small desk that
+stood near, on which she was accustomed to write her letters. He went to
+it. It was locked.
+
+"Unlock this!"
+
+"You have no right to say it. That's mine."
+
+Without another word he seized the desk and dashed it to the floor. The
+hinge burst open, and a number of letters tumbled out.
+
+"Stay!" said Eustacia, stepping before him with more excitement than she
+had hitherto shown.
+
+"Come, come! stand away! I must see them."
+
+She looked at the letters as they lay, checked her feeling and moved
+indifferently aside; when he gathered them up, and examined them.
+
+By no stretch of meaning could any but a harmless construction be placed
+upon a single one of the letters themselves. The solitary exception was
+an empty envelope directed to her, and the handwriting was Wildeve's.
+Yeobright held it up. Eustacia was doggedly silent.
+
+"Can you read, madam? Look at this envelope. Doubtless we shall find
+more soon, and what was inside them. I shall no doubt be gratified by
+learning in good time what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a
+certain trade my lady is."
+
+"Do you say it to me--do you?" she gasped.
+
+He searched further, but found nothing more. "What was in this letter?"
+he said.
+
+"Ask the writer. Am I your hound that you should talk to me in this
+way?"
+
+"Do you brave me? do you stand me out, mistress? Answer. Don't look at
+me with those eyes if you would bewitch me again! Sooner than that I
+die. You refuse to answer?"
+
+"I wouldn't tell you after this, if I were as innocent as the sweetest
+babe in heaven!"
+
+"Which you are not."
+
+"Certainly I am not absolutely," she replied. "I have not done what
+you suppose; but if to have done no harm at all is the only innocence
+recognized, I am beyond forgiveness. But I require no help from your
+conscience."
+
+"You can resist, and resist again! Instead of hating you I could, I
+think, mourn for and pity you, if you were contrite, and would confess
+all. Forgive you I never can. I don't speak of your lover--I will give
+you the benefit of the doubt in that matter, for it only affects me
+personally. But the other--had you half-killed me, had it been that you
+wilfully took the sight away from these feeble eyes of mine, I could
+have forgiven you. But THAT'S too much for nature!"
+
+"Say no more. I will do without your pity. But I would have saved you
+from uttering what you will regret."
+
+"I am going away now. I shall leave you."
+
+"You need not go, as I am going myself. You will keep just as far away
+from me by staying here."
+
+"Call her to mind--think of her--what goodness there was in her--it
+showed in every line of her face! Most women, even when but slightly
+annoyed, show a flicker of evil in some curl of the mouth or some corner
+of the cheek; but as for her, never in her angriest moments was there
+anything malicious in her look. She was angered quickly, but she forgave
+just as readily, and underneath her pride there was the meekness of a
+child. What came of it?--what cared you? You hated her just as she was
+learning to love you. O! couldn't you see what was best for you, but
+must bring a curse upon me, and agony and death upon her, by doing that
+cruel deed! What was the fellow's name who was keeping you company and
+causing you to add cruelty to her to your wrong to me? Was it Wildeve?
+Was it poor Thomasin's husband? Heaven, what wickedness! Lost your
+voice, have you? It is natural after detection of that most noble
+trick.... Eustacia, didn't any tender thought of your own mother lead you
+to think of being gentle to mine at such a time of weariness? Did not
+one grain of pity enter your heart as she turned away? Think what a vast
+opportunity was then lost of beginning a forgiving and honest course.
+Why did not you kick him out, and let her in, and say I'll be an honest
+wife and a noble woman from this hour? Had I told you to go and quench
+eternally our last flickering chance of happiness here you could have
+done no worse. Well, she's asleep now; and have you a hundred gallants,
+neither they nor you can insult her any more."
+
+"You exaggerate fearfully," she said in a faint, weary voice; "but I
+cannot enter into my defence--it is not worth doing. You are nothing to
+me in future, and the past side of the story may as well remain untold.
+I have lost all through you, but I have not complained. Your blunders
+and misfortunes may have been a sorrow to you, but they have been a
+wrong to me. All persons of refinement have been scared away from me
+since I sank into the mire of marriage. Is this your cherishing--to
+put me into a hut like this, and keep me like the wife of a hind? You
+deceived me--not by words, but by appearances, which are less seen
+through than words. But the place will serve as well as any other--as
+somewhere to pass from--into my grave." Her words were smothered in her
+throat, and her head drooped down.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that. Am I the cause of your sin?"
+(Eustacia made a trembling motion towards him.) "What, you can begin to
+shed tears and offer me your hand? Good God! can you? No, not I. I'll
+not commit the fault of taking that." (The hand she had offered dropped
+nervelessly, but the tears continued flowing.) "Well, yes, I'll take
+it, if only for the sake of my own foolish kisses that were wasted there
+before I knew what I cherished. How bewitched I was! How could there be
+any good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?"
+
+"O, O, O!" she cried, breaking down at last; and, shaking with sobs
+which choked her, she sank upon her knees. "O, will you have done! O,
+you are too relentless--there's a limit to the cruelty of savages! I
+have held out long--but you crush me down. I beg for mercy--I cannot
+bear this any longer--it is inhuman to go further with this! If I
+had--killed your--mother with my own hand--I should not deserve such
+a scourging to the bone as this. O, O! God have mercy upon a miserable
+woman!... You have beaten me in this game--I beg you to stay your hand in
+pity!... I confess that I--wilfully did not undo the door the first time
+she knocked--but--I should have unfastened it the second--if I had
+not thought you had gone to do it yourself. When I found you had not I
+opened it, but she was gone. That's the extent of my crime--towards HER.
+Best natures commit bad faults sometimes, don't they?--I think they do.
+Now I will leave you--for ever and ever!"
+
+"Tell all, and I WILL pity you. Was the man in the house with you
+Wildeve?"
+
+"I cannot tell," she said desperately through her sobbing. "Don't insist
+further--I cannot tell. I am going from this house. We cannot both stay
+here."
+
+"You need not go--I will go. You can stay here."
+
+"No, I will dress, and then I will go."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Where I came from, or ELSEWHERE."
+
+She hastily dressed herself, Yeobright moodily walking up and down the
+room the whole of the time. At last all her things were on. Her little
+hands quivered so violently as she held them to her chin to fasten her
+bonnet that she could not tie the strings, and after a few moments she
+relinquished the attempt. Seeing this he moved forward and said, "Let me
+tie them."
+
+She assented in silence, and lifted her chin. For once at least in her
+life she was totally oblivious of the charm of her attitude. But he
+was not, and he turned his eyes aside, that he might not be tempted to
+softness.
+
+The strings were tied; she turned from him. "Do you still prefer going
+away yourself to my leaving you?" he inquired again.
+
+"I do."
+
+"Very well--let it be. And when you will confess to the man I may pity
+you."
+
+She flung her shawl about her and went downstairs, leaving him standing
+in the room.
+
+
+Eustacia had not long been gone when there came a knock at the door of
+the bedroom; and Yeobright said, "Well?"
+
+It was the servant; and she replied, "Somebody from Mrs. Wildeve's
+have called to tell 'ee that the mis'ess and the baby are getting on
+wonderful well, and the baby's name is to be Eustacia Clementine." And
+the girl retired.
+
+"What a mockery!" said Clym. "This unhappy marriage of mine to be
+perpetuated in that child's name!"
+
+
+
+
+4--The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One
+
+
+Eustacia's journey was at first as vague in direction as that of
+thistledown on the wind. She did not know what to do. She wished it had
+been night instead of morning, that she might at least have borne her
+misery without the possibility of being seen. Tracing mile after mile
+along between the dying ferns and the wet white spiders' webs, she at
+length turned her steps towards her grandfather's house. She found the
+front door closed and locked. Mechanically she went round to the end
+where the stable was, and on looking in at the stable door she saw
+Charley standing within.
+
+"Captain Vye is not at home?" she said.
+
+"No, ma'am," said the lad in a flutter of feeling; "he's gone to
+Weatherbury, and won't be home till night. And the servant is gone home
+for a holiday. So the house is locked up."
+
+Eustacia's face was not visible to Charley as she stood at the doorway,
+her back being to the sky, and the stable but indifferently lighted; but
+the wildness of her manner arrested his attention. She turned and walked
+away across the enclosure to the gate, and was hidden by the bank.
+
+When she had disappeared Charley, with misgiving in his eyes, slowly
+came from the stable door, and going to another point in the bank he
+looked over. Eustacia was leaning against it on the outside, her face
+covered with her hands, and her head pressing the dewy heather which
+bearded the bank's outer side. She appeared to be utterly indifferent to
+the circumstance that her bonnet, hair, and garments were becoming
+wet and disarranged by the moisture of her cold, harsh pillow. Clearly
+something was wrong.
+
+Charley had always regarded Eustacia as Eustacia had regarded Clym
+when she first beheld him--as a romantic and sweet vision, scarcely
+incarnate. He had been so shut off from her by the dignity of her look
+and the pride of her speech, except at that one blissful interval when
+he was allowed to hold her hand, that he had hardly deemed her a woman,
+wingless and earthly, subject to household conditions and domestic jars.
+The inner details of her life he had only conjectured. She had been a
+lovely wonder, predestined to an orbit in which the whole of his own was
+but a point; and this sight of her leaning like a helpless, despairing
+creature against a wild wet bank filled him with an amazed horror. He
+could no longer remain where he was. Leaping over, he came up, touched
+her with his finger, and said tenderly, "You are poorly, ma'am. What can
+I do?"
+
+Eustacia started up, and said, "Ah, Charley--you have followed me. You
+did not think when I left home in the summer that I should come back
+like this!"
+
+"I did not, dear ma'am. Can I help you now?"
+
+"I am afraid not. I wish I could get into the house. I feel
+giddy--that's all."
+
+"Lean on my arm, ma'am, till we get to the porch, and I will try to open
+the door."
+
+He supported her to the porch, and there depositing her on a seat
+hastened to the back, climbed to a window by the help of a ladder, and
+descending inside opened the door. Next he assisted her into the room,
+where there was an old-fashioned horsehair settee as large as a donkey
+wagon. She lay down here, and Charley covered her with a cloak he found
+in the hall.
+
+"Shall I get you something to eat and drink?" he said.
+
+"If you please, Charley. But I suppose there is no fire?"
+
+"I can light it, ma'am."
+
+He vanished, and she heard a splitting of wood and a blowing of bellows;
+and presently he returned, saying, "I have lighted a fire in the
+kitchen, and now I'll light one here."
+
+He lit the fire, Eustacia dreamily observing him from her couch. When it
+was blazing up he said, "Shall I wheel you round in front of it, ma'am,
+as the morning is chilly?"
+
+"Yes, if you like."
+
+"Shall I go and bring the victuals now?"
+
+"Yes, do," she murmured languidly.
+
+When he had gone, and the dull sounds occasionally reached her ears of
+his movements in the kitchen, she forgot where she was, and had for a
+moment to consider by an effort what the sounds meant. After an interval
+which seemed short to her whose thoughts were elsewhere, he came in with
+a tray on which steamed tea and toast, though it was nearly lunch-time.
+
+"Place it on the table," she said. "I shall be ready soon."
+
+He did so, and retired to the door; when, however, he perceived that she
+did not move he came back a few steps.
+
+"Let me hold it to you, if you don't wish to get up," said Charley. He
+brought the tray to the front of the couch, where he knelt down, adding,
+"I will hold it for you."
+
+Eustacia sat up and poured out a cup of tea. "You are very kind to me,
+Charley," she murmured as she sipped.
+
+"Well, I ought to be," said he diffidently, taking great trouble not
+to rest his eyes upon her, though this was their only natural position,
+Eustacia being immediately before him. "You have been kind to me."
+
+"How have I?" said Eustacia.
+
+"You let me hold your hand when you were a maiden at home."
+
+"Ah, so I did. Why did I do that? My mind is lost--it had to do with the
+mumming, had it not?"
+
+"Yes, you wanted to go in my place."
+
+"I remember. I do indeed remember--too well!"
+
+She again became utterly downcast; and Charley, seeing that she was not
+going to eat or drink any more, took away the tray.
+
+Afterwards he occasionally came in to see if the fire was burning, to
+ask her if she wanted anything, to tell her that the wind had shifted
+from south to west, to ask her if she would like him to gather her some
+blackberries; to all which inquiries she replied in the negative or with
+indifference.
+
+She remained on the settee some time longer, when she aroused herself
+and went upstairs. The room in which she had formerly slept still
+remained much as she had left it, and the recollection that this forced
+upon her of her own greatly changed and infinitely worsened situation
+again set on her face the undetermined and formless misery which it
+had worn on her first arrival. She peeped into her grandfather's room,
+through which the fresh autumn air was blowing from the open window. Her
+eye was arrested by what was a familiar sight enough, though it broke
+upon her now with a new significance.
+
+It was a brace of pistols, hanging near the head of her grandfather's
+bed, which he always kept there loaded, as a precaution against possible
+burglars, the house being very lonely. Eustacia regarded them long, as
+if they were the page of a book in which she read a new and a strange
+matter. Quickly, like one afraid of herself, she returned downstairs and
+stood in deep thought.
+
+"If I could only do it!" she said. "It would be doing much good to
+myself and all connected with me, and no harm to a single one."
+
+The idea seemed to gather force within her, and she remained in a fixed
+attitude nearly ten minutes, when a certain finality was expressed in
+her gaze, and no longer the blankness of indecision.
+
+She turned and went up the second time--softly and stealthily now--and
+entered her grandfather's room, her eyes at once seeking the head of the
+bed. The pistols were gone.
+
+The instant quashing of her purpose by their absence affected her brain
+as a sudden vacuum affects the body--she nearly fainted. Who had
+done this? There was only one person on the premises besides herself.
+Eustacia involuntarily turned to the open window which overlooked the
+garden as far as the bank that bounded it. On the summit of the latter
+stood Charley, sufficiently elevated by its height to see into the room.
+His gaze was directed eagerly and solicitously upon her.
+
+She went downstairs to the door and beckoned to him.
+
+"You have taken them away?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Why did you do it?"
+
+"I saw you looking at them too long."
+
+"What has that to do with it?"
+
+"You have been heart-broken all the morning, as if you did not want to
+live."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And I could not bear to leave them in your way. There was meaning in
+your look at them."
+
+"Where are they now?"
+
+"Locked up."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the stable."
+
+"Give them to me."
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"You refuse?"
+
+"I do. I care too much for you to give 'em up."
+
+She turned aside, her face for the first time softening from the stony
+immobility of the earlier day, and the corners of her mouth resuming
+something of that delicacy of cut which was always lost in her moments
+of despair. At last she confronted him again.
+
+"Why should I not die if I wish?" she said tremulously. "I have made
+a bad bargain with life, and I am weary of it--weary. And now you have
+hindered my escape. O, why did you, Charley! What makes death painful
+except the thought of others' grief?--and that is absent in my case, for
+not a sigh would follow me!"
+
+"Ah, it is trouble that has done this! I wish in my very soul that he
+who brought it about might die and rot, even if 'tis transportation to
+say it!"
+
+"Charley, no more of that. What do you mean to do about this you have
+seen?"
+
+"Keep it close as night, if you promise not to think of it again."
+
+"You need not fear. The moment has passed. I promise." She then went
+away, entered the house, and lay down.
+
+Later in the afternoon her grandfather returned. He was about to
+question her categorically, but on looking at her he withheld his words.
+
+"Yes, it is too bad to talk of," she slowly returned in answer to his
+glance. "Can my old room be got ready for me tonight, Grandfather? I
+shall want to occupy it again."
+
+He did not ask what it all meant, or why she had left her husband, but
+ordered the room to be prepared.
+
+
+
+
+5--An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
+
+
+Charley's attentions to his former mistress were unbounded. The only
+solace to his own trouble lay in his attempts to relieve hers. Hour
+after hour he considered her wants; he thought of her presence there
+with a sort of gratitude, and, while uttering imprecations on the cause
+of her unhappiness, in some measure blessed the result. Perhaps she
+would always remain there, he thought, and then he would be as happy as
+he had been before. His dread was lest she should think fit to return to
+Alderworth, and in that dread his eyes, with all the inquisitiveness of
+affection, frequently sought her face when she was not observing him,
+as he would have watched the head of a stockdove to learn if it
+contemplated flight. Having once really succoured her, and possibly
+preserved her from the rashest of acts, he mentally assumed in addition
+a guardian's responsibility for her welfare.
+
+For this reason he busily endeavoured to provide her with pleasant
+distractions, bringing home curious objects which he found in the heath,
+such as white trumpet-shaped mosses, redheaded lichens, stone arrowheads
+used by the old tribes on Egdon, and faceted crystals from the hollows
+of flints. These he deposited on the premises in such positions that she
+should see them as if by accident.
+
+A week passed, Eustacia never going out of the house. Then she walked
+into the enclosed plot and looked through her grandfather's spyglass, as
+she had been in the habit of doing before her marriage. One day she
+saw, at a place where the highroad crossed the distant valley, a heavily
+laden wagon passing along. It was piled with household furniture. She
+looked again and again, and recognized it to be her own. In the evening
+her grandfather came indoors with a rumour that Yeobright had removed
+that day from Alderworth to the old house at Blooms-End.
+
+On another occasion when reconnoitring thus she beheld two female
+figures walking in the vale. The day was fine and clear; and the persons
+not being more than half a mile off she could see their every detail
+with the telescope. The woman walking in front carried a white bundle
+in her arms, from one end of which hung a long appendage of drapery; and
+when the walkers turned, so that the sun fell more directly upon them,
+Eustacia could see that the object was a baby. She called Charley, and
+asked him if he knew who they were, though she well guessed.
+
+"Mrs. Wildeve and the nurse-girl," said Charley.
+
+"The nurse is carrying the baby?" said Eustacia.
+
+"No, 'tis Mrs. Wildeve carrying that," he answered, "and the nurse walks
+behind carrying nothing."
+
+The lad was in good spirits that day, for the Fifth of November had
+again come round, and he was planning yet another scheme to divert her
+from her too absorbing thoughts. For two successive years his
+mistress had seemed to take pleasure in lighting a bonfire on the bank
+overlooking the valley; but this year she had apparently quite forgotten
+the day and the customary deed. He was careful not to remind her, and
+went on with his secret preparations for a cheerful surprise, the more
+zealously that he had been absent last time and unable to assist. At
+every vacant minute he hastened to gather furze-stumps, thorn-tree
+roots, and other solid materials from the adjacent slopes, hiding them
+from cursory view.
+
+The evening came, and Eustacia was still seemingly unconscious of the
+anniversary. She had gone indoors after her survey through the glass,
+and had not been visible since. As soon as it was quite dark Charley
+began to build the bonfire, choosing precisely that spot on the bank
+which Eustacia had chosen at previous times.
+
+When all the surrounding bonfires had burst into existence Charley
+kindled his, and arranged its fuel so that it should not require tending
+for some time. He then went back to the house, and lingered round the
+door and windows till she should by some means or other learn of his
+achievement and come out to witness it. But the shutters were closed,
+the door remained shut, and no heed whatever seemed to be taken of his
+performance. Not liking to call her he went back and replenished the
+fire, continuing to do this for more than half an hour. It was not till
+his stock of fuel had greatly diminished that he went to the back door
+and sent in to beg that Mrs. Yeobright would open the window-shutters
+and see the sight outside.
+
+Eustacia, who had been sitting listlessly in the parlour, started up
+at the intelligence and flung open the shutters. Facing her on the bank
+blazed the fire, which at once sent a ruddy glare into the room where
+she was, and overpowered the candles.
+
+"Well done, Charley!" said Captain Vye from the chimney-corner. "But I
+hope it is not my wood that he's burning.... Ah, it was this time last
+year that I met with that man Venn, bringing home Thomasin Yeobright--to
+be sure it was! Well, who would have thought that girl's troubles would
+have ended so well? What a snipe you were in that matter, Eustacia! Has
+your husband written to you yet?"
+
+"No," said Eustacia, looking vaguely through the window at the fire,
+which just then so much engaged her mind that she did not resent her
+grandfather's blunt opinion. She could see Charley's form on the bank,
+shovelling and stirring the fire; and there flashed upon her imagination
+some other form which that fire might call up.
+
+She left the room, put on her garden bonnet and cloak, and went out.
+Reaching the bank, she looked over with a wild curiosity and misgiving,
+when Charley said to her, with a pleased sense of himself, "I made it o'
+purpose for you, ma'am."
+
+"Thank you," she said hastily. "But I wish you to put it out now."
+
+"It will soon burn down," said Charley, rather disappointed. "Is it not
+a pity to knock it out?"
+
+"I don't know," she musingly answered.
+
+They stood in silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames,
+till Charley, perceiving that she did not want to talk to him, moved
+reluctantly away.
+
+Eustacia remained within the bank looking at the fire, intending to go
+indoors, yet lingering still. Had she not by her situation been inclined
+to hold in indifference all things honoured of the gods and of men she
+would probably have come away. But her state was so hopeless that she
+could play with it. To have lost is less disturbing than to wonder if we
+may possibly have won; and Eustacia could now, like other people at such
+a stage, take a standing-point outside herself, observe herself as a
+disinterested spectator, and think what a sport for Heaven this woman
+Eustacia was.
+
+While she stood she heard a sound. It was the splash of a stone in the
+pond.
+
+Had Eustacia received the stone full in the bosom her heart could not
+have given a more decided thump. She had thought of the possibility
+of such a signal in answer to that which had been unwittingly given by
+Charley; but she had not expected it yet. How prompt Wildeve was! Yet
+how could he think her capable of deliberately wishing to renew their
+assignations now? An impulse to leave the spot, a desire to stay,
+struggled within her; and the desire held its own. More than that it did
+not do, for she refrained even from ascending the bank and looking over.
+She remained motionless, not disturbing a muscle of her face or raising
+her eyes; for were she to turn up her face the fire on the bank would
+shine upon it, and Wildeve might be looking down.
+
+There was a second splash into the pond.
+
+Why did he stay so long without advancing and looking over? Curiosity
+had its way--she ascended one or two of the earth-steps in the bank and
+glanced out.
+
+Wildeve was before her. He had come forward after throwing the last
+pebble, and the fire now shone into each of their faces from the bank
+stretching breast-high between them.
+
+"I did not light it!" cried Eustacia quickly. "It was lit without my
+knowledge. Don't, don't come over to me!"
+
+"Why have you been living here all these days without telling me? You
+have left your home. I fear I am something to blame in this?"
+
+"I did not let in his mother; that's how it is!"
+
+"You do not deserve what you have got, Eustacia; you are in great
+misery; I see it in your eyes, your mouth, and all over you. My poor,
+poor girl!" He stepped over the bank. "You are beyond everything
+unhappy!"
+
+"No, no; not exactly--"
+
+"It has been pushed too far--it is killing you--I do think it!"
+
+Her usually quiet breathing had grown quicker with his words. "I--I--"
+she began, and then burst into quivering sobs, shaken to the very heart
+by the unexpected voice of pity--a sentiment whose existence in relation
+to herself she had almost forgotten.
+
+This outbreak of weeping took Eustacia herself so much by surprise that
+she could not leave off, and she turned aside from him in some shame,
+though turning hid nothing from him. She sobbed on desperately; then
+the outpour lessened, and she became quieter. Wildeve had resisted the
+impulse to clasp her, and stood without speaking.
+
+"Are you not ashamed of me, who used never to be a crying animal?" she
+asked in a weak whisper as she wiped her eyes. "Why didn't you go away?
+I wish you had not seen quite all that; it reveals too much by half."
+
+"You might have wished it, because it makes me as sad as you," he said
+with emotion and deference. "As for revealing--the word is impossible
+between us two."
+
+"I did not send for you--don't forget it, Damon; I am in pain, but I did
+not send for you! As a wife, at least, I've been straight."
+
+"Never mind--I came. O, Eustacia, forgive me for the harm I have done
+you in these two past years! I see more and more that I have been your
+ruin."
+
+"Not you. This place I live in."
+
+"Ah, your generosity may naturally make you say that. But I am the
+culprit. I should either have done more or nothing at all."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"I ought never to have hunted you out, or, having done it, I ought to
+have persisted in retaining you. But of course I have no right to talk
+of that now. I will only ask this--can I do anything for you? Is there
+anything on the face of the earth that a man can do to make you happier
+than you are at present? If there is, I will do it. You may command
+me, Eustacia, to the limit of my influence; and don't forget that I am
+richer now. Surely something can be done to save you from this! Such
+a rare plant in such a wild place it grieves me to see. Do you want
+anything bought? Do you want to go anywhere? Do you want to escape the
+place altogether? Only say it, and I'll do anything to put an end to
+those tears, which but for me would never have been at all."
+
+"We are each married to another person," she said faintly; "and
+assistance from you would have an evil sound--after--after--"
+
+"Well, there's no preventing slanderers from having their fill at any
+time; but you need not be afraid. Whatever I may feel I promise you on
+my word of honour never to speak to you about--or act upon--until you
+say I may. I know my duty to Thomasin quite as well as I know my duty to
+you as a woman unfairly treated. What shall I assist you in?"
+
+"In getting away from here."
+
+"Where do you wish to go to?"
+
+"I have a place in my mind. If you could help me as far as Budmouth I
+can do all the rest. Steamers sail from there across the Channel, and
+so I can get to Paris, where I want to be. Yes," she pleaded earnestly,
+"help me to get to Budmouth harbour without my grandfather's or my
+husband's knowledge, and I can do all the rest."
+
+"Will it be safe to leave you there alone?"
+
+"Yes, yes. I know Budmouth well."
+
+"Shall I go with you? I am rich now."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Say yes, sweet!"
+
+She was silent still.
+
+"Well, let me know when you wish to go. We shall be at our present
+house till December; after that we remove to Casterbridge. Command me in
+anything till that time."
+
+"I will think of this," she said hurriedly. "Whether I can honestly make
+use of you as a friend, or must close with you as a lover--that is what
+I must ask myself. If I wish to go and decide to accept your company I
+will signal to you some evening at eight o'clock punctually, and this
+will mean that you are to be ready with a horse and trap at twelve
+o'clock the same night to drive me to Budmouth harbour in time for the
+morning boat."
+
+"I will look out every night at eight, and no signal shall escape me."
+
+"Now please go away. If I decide on this escape I can only meet you
+once more unless--I cannot go without you. Go--I cannot bear it longer.
+Go--go!"
+
+Wildeve slowly went up the steps and descended into the darkness on the
+other side; and as he walked he glanced back, till the bank blotted out
+her form from his further view.
+
+
+
+
+6--Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter
+
+
+Yeobright was at this time at Blooms-End, hoping that Eustacia would
+return to him. The removal of furniture had been accomplished only that
+day, though Clym had lived in the old house for more than a week. He had
+spent the time in working about the premises, sweeping leaves from the
+garden paths, cutting dead stalks from the flower beds, and nailing
+up creepers which had been displaced by the autumn winds. He took no
+particular pleasure in these deeds, but they formed a screen between
+himself and despair. Moreover, it had become a religion with him to
+preserve in good condition all that had lapsed from his mother's hands
+to his own.
+
+During these operations he was constantly on the watch for Eustacia.
+That there should be no mistake about her knowing where to find him
+he had ordered a notice board to be affixed to the garden gate at
+Alderworth, signifying in white letters whither he had removed. When a
+leaf floated to the earth he turned his head, thinking it might be her
+foot-fall. A bird searching for worms in the mould of the flower-beds
+sounded like her hand on the latch of the gate; and at dusk, when soft,
+strange ventriloquisms came from holes in the ground, hollow stalks,
+curled dead leaves, and other crannies wherein breezes, worms, and
+insects can work their will, he fancied that they were Eustacia,
+standing without and breathing wishes of reconciliation.
+
+Up to this hour he had persevered in his resolve not to invite her back.
+At the same time the severity with which he had treated her lulled
+the sharpness of his regret for his mother, and awoke some of his old
+solicitude for his mother's supplanter. Harsh feelings produce harsh
+usage, and this by reaction quenches the sentiments that gave it birth.
+The more he reflected the more he softened. But to look upon his wife
+as innocence in distress was impossible, though he could ask himself
+whether he had given her quite time enough--if he had not come a little
+too suddenly upon her on that sombre morning.
+
+Now that the first flush of his anger had paled he was disinclined to
+ascribe to her more than an indiscreet friendship with Wildeve, for
+there had not appeared in her manner the signs of dishonour. And this
+once admitted, an absolutely dark interpretation of her act towards his
+mother was no longer forced upon him.
+
+On the evening of the fifth November his thoughts of Eustacia were
+intense. Echoes from those past times when they had exchanged tender
+words all the day long came like the diffused murmur of a seashore left
+miles behind. "Surely," he said, "she might have brought herself to
+communicate with me before now, and confess honestly what Wildeve was to
+her."
+
+Instead of remaining at home that night he determined to go and see
+Thomasin and her husband. If he found opportunity he would allude to the
+cause of the separation between Eustacia and himself, keeping silence,
+however, on the fact that there was a third person in his house when his
+mother was turned away. If it proved that Wildeve was innocently there
+he would doubtless openly mention it. If he were there with unjust
+intentions Wildeve, being a man of quick feeling, might possibly say
+something to reveal the extent to which Eustacia was compromised.
+
+But on reaching his cousin's house he found that only Thomasin was
+at home, Wildeve being at that time on his way towards the bonfire
+innocently lit by Charley at Mistover. Thomasin then, as always, was
+glad to see Clym, and took him to inspect the sleeping baby, carefully
+screening the candlelight from the infant's eyes with her hand.
+
+"Tamsin, have you heard that Eustacia is not with me now?" he said when
+they had sat down again.
+
+"No," said Thomasin, alarmed.
+
+"And not that I have left Alderworth?"
+
+"No. I never hear tidings from Alderworth unless you bring them. What is
+the matter?"
+
+Clym in a disturbed voice related to her his visit to Susan Nunsuch's
+boy, the revelation he had made, and what had resulted from his
+charging Eustacia with having wilfully and heartlessly done the deed. He
+suppressed all mention of Wildeve's presence with her.
+
+"All this, and I not knowing it!" murmured Thomasin in an awestruck
+tone, "Terrible! What could have made her--O, Eustacia! And when you
+found it out you went in hot haste to her? Were you too cruel?--or is
+she really so wicked as she seems?"
+
+"Can a man be too cruel to his mother's enemy?"
+
+"I can fancy so."
+
+"Very well, then--I'll admit that he can. But now what is to be done?"
+
+"Make it up again--if a quarrel so deadly can ever be made up. I almost
+wish you had not told me. But do try to be reconciled. There are ways,
+after all, if you both wish to."
+
+"I don't know that we do both wish to make it up," said Clym. "If she
+had wished it, would she not have sent to me by this time?"
+
+"You seem to wish to, and yet you have not sent to her."
+
+"True; but I have been tossed to and fro in doubt if I ought, after such
+strong provocation. To see me now, Thomasin, gives you no idea of what I
+have been; of what depths I have descended to in these few last days. O,
+it was a bitter shame to shut out my mother like that! Can I ever forget
+it, or even agree to see her again?"
+
+"She might not have known that anything serious would come of it, and
+perhaps she did not mean to keep Aunt out altogether."
+
+"She says herself that she did not. But the fact remains that keep her
+out she did."
+
+"Believe her sorry, and send for her."
+
+"How if she will not come?"
+
+"It will prove her guilty, by showing that it is her habit to nourish
+enmity. But I do not think that for a moment."
+
+"I will do this. I will wait for a day or two longer--not longer than
+two days certainly; and if she does not send to me in that time I will
+indeed send to her. I thought to have seen Wildeve here tonight. Is he
+from home?"
+
+Thomasin blushed a little. "No," she said. "He is merely gone out for a
+walk."
+
+"Why didn't he take you with him? The evening is fine. You want fresh
+air as well as he."
+
+"Oh, I don't care for going anywhere; besides, there is baby."
+
+"Yes, yes. Well, I have been thinking whether I should not consult your
+husband about this as well as you," said Clym steadily.
+
+"I fancy I would not," she quickly answered. "It can do no good."
+
+Her cousin looked her in the face. No doubt Thomasin was ignorant that
+her husband had any share in the events of that tragic afternoon; but
+her countenance seemed to signify that she concealed some suspicion or
+thought of the reputed tender relations between Wildeve and Eustacia in
+days gone by.
+
+Clym, however, could make nothing of it, and he rose to depart, more in
+doubt than when he came.
+
+"You will write to her in a day or two?" said the young woman earnestly.
+"I do so hope the wretched separation may come to an end."
+
+"I will," said Clym; "I don't rejoice in my present state at all."
+
+And he left her and climbed over the hill to Blooms-End. Before going to
+bed he sat down and wrote the following letter:--
+
+
+MY DEAR EUSTACIA,--I must obey my heart without consulting my reason too
+closely. Will you come back to me? Do so, and the past shall never be
+mentioned. I was too severe; but O, Eustacia, the provocation! You don't
+know, you never will know, what those words of anger cost me which
+you drew down upon yourself. All that an honest man can promise you I
+promise now, which is that from me you shall never suffer anything on
+this score again. After all the vows we have made, Eustacia, I think we
+had better pass the remainder of our lives in trying to keep them. Come
+to me, then, even if you reproach me. I have thought of your sufferings
+that morning on which I parted from you; I know they were genuine, and
+they are as much as you ought to bear. Our love must still continue.
+Such hearts as ours would never have been given us but to be concerned
+with each other. I could not ask you back at first, Eustacia, for I was
+unable to persuade myself that he who was with you was not there as a
+lover. But if you will come and explain distracting appearances I do
+not question that you can show your honesty to me. Why have you not
+come before? Do you think I will not listen to you? Surely not, when you
+remember the kisses and vows we exchanged under the summer moon. Return
+then, and you shall be warmly welcomed. I can no longer think of you
+to your prejudice--I am but too much absorbed in justifying you.--Your
+husband as ever,
+
+CLYM.
+
+
+"There," he said, as he laid it in his desk, "that's a good thing done.
+If she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to her."
+
+Meanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat sighing uneasily.
+Fidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to conceal all
+suspicion that Wildeve's interest in Eustacia had not ended with
+his marriage. But she knew nothing positive; and though Clym was her
+well-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still.
+
+When, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk to Mistover,
+Thomasin said, "Damon, where have you been? I was getting quite
+frightened, and thought you had fallen into the river. I dislike being
+in the house by myself."
+
+"Frightened?" he said, touching her cheek as if she were some domestic
+animal. "Why, I thought nothing could frighten you. It is that you are
+getting proud, I am sure, and don't like living here since we have risen
+above our business. Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting a new
+house; but I couldn't have set about it sooner, unless our ten thousand
+pounds had been a hundred thousand, when we could have afforded to
+despise caution."
+
+"No--I don't mind waiting--I would rather stay here twelve months longer
+than run any risk with baby. But I don't like your vanishing so in the
+evenings. There's something on your mind--I know there is, Damon. You go
+about so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it were somebody's gaol
+instead of a nice wild place to walk in."
+
+He looked towards her with pitying surprise. "What, do you like Egdon
+Heath?" he said.
+
+"I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face."
+
+"Pooh, my dear. You don't know what you like."
+
+"I am sure I do. There's only one thing unpleasant about Egdon."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"You never take me with you when you walk there. Why do you wander so
+much in it yourself if you so dislike it?"
+
+The inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting, and he sat
+down before replying. "I don't think you often see me there. Give an
+instance."
+
+"I will," she answered triumphantly. "When you went out this evening I
+thought that as baby was asleep I would see where you were going to so
+mysteriously without telling me. So I ran out and followed behind you.
+You stopped at the place where the road forks, looked round at the
+bonfires, and then said, 'Damn it, I'll go!' And you went quickly up the
+left-hand road. Then I stood and watched you."
+
+Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, "Well, what
+wonderful discovery did you make?"
+
+"There--now you are angry, and we won't talk of this any more." She went
+across to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his face.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, "that's how you always back out. We will go on
+with it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly want to
+know."
+
+"Don't be like that, Damon!" she murmured. "I didn't see anything. You
+vanished out of sight, and then I looked round at the bonfires and came
+in."
+
+"Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you
+trying to find out something bad about me?"
+
+"Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn't have
+done it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you."
+
+"What DO you mean?" he impatiently asked.
+
+"They say--they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and it
+puts into my mind what I have heard about--"
+
+Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. "Now," he said,
+flourishing his hand in the air, "just out with it, madam! I demand to
+know what remarks you have heard."
+
+"Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia--nothing more
+than that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be
+angry!"
+
+He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. "Well," he said,
+"there is nothing new in that, and of course I don't mean to be rough
+towards you, so you need not cry. Now, don't let us speak of the subject
+any more."
+
+And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason for not
+mentioning Clym's visit to her that evening, and his story.
+
+
+
+
+7--The Night of the Sixth of November
+
+
+Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that
+something should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event that
+could really change her position was the appearance of Clym. The glory
+which had encircled him as her lover was departed now; yet some good
+simple quality of his would occasionally return to her memory and stir a
+momentary throb of hope that he would again present himself before her.
+But calmly considered it was not likely that such a severance as now
+existed would ever close up--she would have to live on as a painful
+object, isolated, and out of place. She had used to think of the heath
+alone as an uncongenial spot to be in; she felt it now of the whole
+world.
+
+Towards evening on the sixth her determination to go away again revived.
+About four o'clock she packed up anew the few small articles she had
+brought in her flight from Alderworth, and also some belonging to her
+which had been left here; the whole formed a bundle not too large to be
+carried in her hand for a distance of a mile or two. The scene without
+grew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied downwards from the sky like
+vast hammocks slung across it, and with the increase of night a stormy
+wind arose; but as yet there was no rain.
+
+Eustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more to do, and she
+wandered to and fro on the hill, not far from the house she was soon
+to leave. In these desultory ramblings she passed the cottage of Susan
+Nunsuch, a little lower down than her grandfather's. The door was
+ajar, and a riband of bright firelight fell over the ground without. As
+Eustacia crossed the firebeams she appeared for an instant as distinct
+as a figure in a phantasmagoria--a creature of light surrounded by
+an area of darkness; the moment passed, and she was absorbed in night
+again.
+
+A woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and recognized
+her in that momentary irradiation. This was Susan herself, occupied
+in preparing a posset for her little boy, who, often ailing, was
+now seriously unwell. Susan dropped the spoon, shook her fist at the
+vanished figure, and then proceeded with her work in a musing, absent
+way.
+
+At eight o'clock, the hour at which Eustacia had promised to signal
+Wildeve if ever she signalled at all, she looked around the premises to
+learn if the coast was clear, went to the furze-rick, and pulled thence
+a long-stemmed bough of that fuel. This she carried to the corner of the
+bank, and, glancing behind to see if the shutters were all closed, she
+struck a light, and kindled the furze. When it was thoroughly ablaze
+Eustacia took it by the stem and waved it in the air above her head till
+it had burned itself out.
+
+She was gratified, if gratification were possible to such a mood, by
+seeing a similar light in the vicinity of Wildeve's residence a minute
+or two later. Having agreed to keep watch at this hour every night, in
+case she should require assistance, this promptness proved how strictly
+he had held to his word. Four hours after the present time, that is, at
+midnight, he was to be ready to drive her to Budmouth, as prearranged.
+
+Eustacia returned to the house. Supper having been got over she retired
+early, and sat in her bedroom waiting for the time to go by. The night
+being dark and threatening, Captain Vye had not strolled out to gossip
+in any cottage or to call at the inn, as was sometimes his custom on
+these long autumn nights; and he sat sipping grog alone downstairs.
+About ten o'clock there was a knock at the door. When the servant opened
+it the rays of the candle fell upon the form of Fairway.
+
+"I was a-forced to go to Lower Mistover tonight," he said, "and Mr.
+Yeobright asked me to leave this here on my way; but, faith, I put it in
+the lining of my hat, and thought no more about it till I got back and
+was hasping my gate before going to bed. So I have run back with it at
+once."
+
+He handed in a letter and went his way. The girl brought it to the
+captain, who found that it was directed to Eustacia. He turned it over
+and over, and fancied that the writing was her husband's, though he
+could not be sure. However, he decided to let her have it at once if
+possible, and took it upstairs for that purpose; but on reaching the
+door of her room and looking in at the keyhole he found there was no
+light within, the fact being that Eustacia, without undressing, had
+flung herself upon the bed, to rest and gather a little strength for her
+coming journey. Her grandfather concluded from what he saw that he ought
+not to disturb her; and descending again to the parlour he placed the
+letter on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning.
+
+At eleven o'clock he went to bed himself, smoked for some time in his
+bedroom, put out his light at half-past eleven, and then, as was his
+invariable custom, pulled up the blind before getting into bed, that he
+might see which way the wind blew on opening his eyes in the morning,
+his bedroom window commanding a view of the flagstaff and vane. Just as
+he had lain down he was surprised to observe the white pole of the staff
+flash into existence like a streak of phosphorus drawn downwards across
+the shade of night without. Only one explanation met this--a light had
+been suddenly thrown upon the pole from the direction of the house. As
+everybody had retired to rest the old man felt it necessary to get
+out of bed, open the window softly, and look to the right and left.
+Eustacia's bedroom was lighted up, and it was the shine from her window
+which had lighted the pole. Wondering what had aroused her, he remained
+undecided at the window, and was thinking of fetching the letter to slip
+it under her door, when he heard a slight brushing of garments on the
+partition dividing his room from the passage.
+
+The captain concluded that Eustacia, feeling wakeful, had gone for a
+book, and would have dismissed the matter as unimportant if he had not
+also heard her distinctly weeping as she passed.
+
+"She is thinking of that husband of hers," he said to himself. "Ah, the
+silly goose! she had no business to marry him. I wonder if that letter
+is really his?"
+
+He arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door, and said,
+"Eustacia!" There was no answer. "Eustacia!" he repeated louder, "there
+is a letter on the mantelpiece for you."
+
+But no response was made to this statement save an imaginary one from
+the wind, which seemed to gnaw at the corners of the house, and the
+stroke of a few drops of rain upon the windows.
+
+He went on to the landing, and stood waiting nearly five minutes. Still
+she did not return. He went back for a light, and prepared to follow
+her; but first he looked into her bedroom. There, on the outside of the
+quilt, was the impression of her form, showing that the bed had not
+been opened; and, what was more significant, she had not taken her
+candlestick downstairs. He was now thoroughly alarmed; and hastily
+putting on his clothes he descended to the front door, which he himself
+had bolted and locked. It was now unfastened. There was no longer
+any doubt that Eustacia had left the house at this midnight hour; and
+whither could she have gone? To follow her was almost impossible. Had
+the dwelling stood in an ordinary road, two persons setting out, one
+in each direction, might have made sure of overtaking her; but it was
+a hopeless task to seek for anybody on a heath in the dark, the
+practicable directions for flight across it from any point being as
+numerous as the meridians radiating from the pole. Perplexed what to do,
+he looked into the parlour, and was vexed to find that the letter still
+lay there untouched.
+
+
+At half-past eleven, finding that the house was silent, Eustacia had
+lighted her candle, put on some warm outer wrappings, taken her bag in
+her hand, and, extinguishing the light again, descended the staircase.
+When she got into the outer air she found that it had begun to rain, and
+as she stood pausing at the door it increased, threatening to come on
+heavily. But having committed herself to this line of action there was
+no retreating for bad weather. Even the receipt of Clym's letter would
+not have stopped her now. The gloom of the night was funereal; all
+nature seemed clothed in crape. The spiky points of the fir trees behind
+the house rose into the sky like the turrets and pinnacles of an abbey.
+Nothing below the horizon was visible save a light which was still
+burning in the cottage of Susan Nunsuch.
+
+Eustacia opened her umbrella and went out from the enclosure by the
+steps over the bank, after which she was beyond all danger of being
+perceived. Skirting the pool, she followed the path towards Rainbarrow,
+occasionally stumbling over twisted furze roots, tufts of rushes, or
+oozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at this season lay scattered about
+the heath like the rotten liver and lungs of some colossal animal.
+The moon and stars were closed up by cloud and rain to the degree
+of extinction. It was a night which led the traveller's thoughts
+instinctively to dwell on nocturnal scenes of disaster in the
+chronicles of the world, on all that is terrible and dark in history and
+legend--the last plague of Egypt, the destruction of Sennacherib's host,
+the agony in Gethsemane.
+
+Eustacia at length reached Rainbarrow, and stood still there to think.
+Never was harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind
+and the chaos of the world without. A sudden recollection had flashed
+on her this moment--she had not money enough for undertaking a long
+journey. Amid the fluctuating sentiments of the day her unpractical mind
+had not dwelt on the necessity of being well-provided, and now that she
+thoroughly realized the conditions she sighed bitterly and ceased to
+stand erect, gradually crouching down under the umbrella as if she were
+drawn into the Barrow by a hand from beneath. Could it be that she was
+to remain a captive still? Money--she had never felt its value before.
+Even to efface herself from the country means were required. To ask
+Wildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him to accompany her was
+impossible to a woman with a shadow of pride left in her; to fly as
+his mistress--and she knew that he loved her--was of the nature of
+humiliation.
+
+Anyone who had stood by now would have pitied her, not so much on
+account of her exposure to weather, and isolation from all of humanity
+except the mouldered remains inside the tumulus; but for that other form
+of misery which was denoted by the slightly rocking movement that her
+feelings imparted to her person. Extreme unhappiness weighed visibly
+upon her. Between the drippings of the rain from her umbrella to her
+mantle, from her mantle to the heather, from the heather to the earth,
+very similar sounds could be heard coming from her lips; and the
+tearfulness of the outer scene was repeated upon her face. The wings of
+her soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all about her; and
+even had she seen herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth,
+entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port, she would have
+been but little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant were other things.
+She uttered words aloud. When a woman in such a situation, neither old,
+deaf, crazed, nor whimsical, takes upon herself to sob and soliloquize
+aloud there is something grievous the matter.
+
+"Can I go, can I go?" she moaned. "He's not GREAT enough for me to give
+myself to--he does not suffice for my desire!... If he had been a Saul or
+a Bonaparte--ah! But to break my marriage vow for him--it is too poor a
+luxury!... And I have no money to go alone! And if I could, what comfort
+to me? I must drag on next year, as I have dragged on this year, and the
+year after that as before. How I have tried and tried to be a splendid
+woman, and how destiny has been against me!... I do not deserve my lot!"
+she cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. "O, the cruelty of putting me
+into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been
+injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how
+hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no
+harm to Heaven at all!"
+
+
+The distant light which Eustacia had cursorily observed in leaving
+the house came, as she had divined, from the cottage window of Susan
+Nunsuch. What Eustacia did not divine was the occupation of the woman
+within at that moment. Susan's sight of her passing figure earlier in
+the evening, not five minutes after the sick boy's exclamation, "Mother,
+I do feel so bad!" persuaded the matron that an evil influence was
+certainly exercised by Eustacia's propinquity.
+
+On this account Susan did not go to bed as soon as the evening's work
+was over, as she would have done at ordinary times. To counteract the
+malign spell which she imagined poor Eustacia to be working, the
+boy's mother busied herself with a ghastly invention of superstition,
+calculated to bring powerlessness, atrophy, and annihilation on any
+human being against whom it was directed. It was a practice well known
+on Egdon at that date, and one that is not quite extinct at the present
+day.
+
+She passed with her candle into an inner room, where, among other
+utensils, were two large brown pans, containing together perhaps a
+hundredweight of liquid honey, the produce of the bees during the
+foregoing summer. On a shelf over the pans was a smooth and solid yellow
+mass of a hemispherical form, consisting of beeswax from the same take
+of honey. Susan took down the lump, and cutting off several thin
+slices, heaped them in an iron ladle, with which she returned to the
+living-room, and placed the vessel in the hot ashes of the fireplace. As
+soon as the wax had softened to the plasticity of dough she kneaded the
+pieces together. And now her face became more intent. She began moulding
+the wax; and it was evident from her manner of manipulation that she was
+endeavouring to give it some preconceived form. The form was human.
+
+By warming and kneading, cutting and twisting, dismembering and
+re-joining the incipient image she had in about a quarter of an hour
+produced a shape which tolerably well resembled a woman, and was
+about six inches high. She laid it on the table to get cold and hard.
+Meanwhile she took the candle and went upstairs to where the little boy
+was lying.
+
+"Did you notice, my dear, what Mrs. Eustacia wore this afternoon besides
+the dark dress?"
+
+"A red ribbon round her neck."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"No--except sandal-shoes."
+
+"A red ribbon and sandal-shoes," she said to herself.
+
+Mrs. Nunsuch went and searched till she found a fragment of the
+narrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs and tied round the neck
+of the image. Then fetching ink and a quilt from the rickety bureau by
+the window, she blackened the feet of the image to the extent presumably
+covered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot marked cross-lines in
+the shape taken by the sandalstrings of those days. Finally she tied
+a bit of black thread round the upper part of the head, in faint
+resemblance to a snood worn for confining the hair.
+
+Susan held the object at arm's length and contemplated it with a
+satisfaction in which there was no smile. To anybody acquainted with
+the inhabitants of Egdon Heath the image would have suggested Eustacia
+Yeobright.
+
+From her workbasket in the window-seat the woman took a paper of pins,
+of the old long and yellow sort, whose heads were disposed to come off
+at their first usage. These she began to thrust into the image in all
+directions, with apparently excruciating energy. Probably as many as
+fifty were thus inserted, some into the head of the wax model, some into
+the shoulders, some into the trunk, some upwards through the soles of
+the feet, till the figure was completely permeated with pins.
+
+She turned to the fire. It had been of turf; and though the high heap
+of ashes which turf fires produce was somewhat dark and dead on the
+outside, upon raking it abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass
+showed a glow of red heat. She took a few pieces of fresh turf from the
+chimney-corner and built them together over the glow, upon which the
+fire brightened. Seizing with the tongs the image that she had made of
+Eustacia, she held it in the heat, and watched it as it began to waste
+slowly away. And while she stood thus engaged there came from between
+her lips a murmur of words.
+
+It was a strange jargon--the Lord's Prayer repeated backwards--the
+incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed assistance
+against an enemy. Susan uttered the lugubrious discourse three times
+slowly, and when it was completed the image had considerably diminished.
+As the wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from the spot,
+and curling its tongue round the figure ate still further into its
+substance. A pin occasionally dropped with the wax, and the embers
+heated it red as it lay.
+
+
+
+
+8--Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
+
+
+While the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing, and the fair woman
+herself was standing on Rainbarrow, her soul in an abyss of desolation
+seldom plumbed by one so young, Yeobright sat lonely at Blooms-End.
+He had fulfilled his word to Thomasin by sending off Fairway with the
+letter to his wife, and now waited with increased impatience for some
+sound or signal of her return. Were Eustacia still at Mistover the very
+least he expected was that she would send him back a reply tonight by
+the same hand; though, to leave all to her inclination, he had cautioned
+Fairway not to ask for an answer. If one were handed to him he was
+to bring it immediately; if not, he was to go straight home without
+troubling to come round to Blooms-End again that night.
+
+But secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope. Eustacia might possibly
+decline to use her pen--it was rather her way to work silently--and
+surprise him by appearing at his door. How fully her mind was made up to
+do otherwise he did not know.
+
+To Clym's regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening advanced.
+The wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house, and filliped
+the eavesdroppings like peas against the panes. He walked restlessly
+about the untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises in windows and
+doors by jamming splinters of wood into the casements and crevices,
+and pressing together the leadwork of the quarries where it had become
+loosened from the glass. It was one of those nights when cracks in the
+walls of old churches widen, when ancient stains on the ceilings of
+decayed manor houses are renewed and enlarged from the size of a man's
+hand to an area of many feet. The little gate in the palings before
+his dwelling continually opened and clicked together again, but when he
+looked out eagerly nobody was there; it was as if invisible shapes of
+the dead were passing in on their way to visit him.
+
+Between ten and eleven o'clock, finding that neither Fairway nor anybody
+else came to him, he retired to rest, and despite his anxieties soon
+fell asleep. His sleep, however, was not very sound, by reason of the
+expectancy he had given way to, and he was easily awakened by a knocking
+which began at the door about an hour after. Clym arose and looked out
+of the window. Rain was still falling heavily, the whole expanse of
+heath before him emitting a subdued hiss under the downpour. It was too
+dark to see anything at all.
+
+"Who's there?" he cried.
+
+Light footsteps shifted their position in the porch, and he could just
+distinguish in a plaintive female voice the words, "O Clym, come down
+and let me in!"
+
+He flushed hot with agitation. "Surely it is Eustacia!" he murmured. If
+so, she had indeed come to him unawares.
+
+He hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. On his flinging
+open the door the rays of the candle fell upon a woman closely wrapped
+up, who at once came forward.
+
+"Thomasin!" he exclaimed in an indescribable tone of disappointment. "It
+is Thomasin, and on such a night as this! O, where is Eustacia?"
+
+Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting.
+
+"Eustacia? I don't know, Clym; but I can think," she said with much
+perturbation. "Let me come in and rest--I will explain this. There is a
+great trouble brewing--my husband and Eustacia!"
+
+"What, what?"
+
+"I think my husband is going to leave me or do something dreadful--I
+don't know what--Clym, will you go and see? I have nobody to help me but
+you; Eustacia has not yet come home?"
+
+"No."
+
+She went on breathlessly: "Then they are going to run off together! He
+came indoors tonight about eight o'clock and said in an off-hand way,
+'Tamsie, I have just found that I must go a journey.' 'When?' I
+said. 'Tonight,' he said. 'Where?' I asked him. 'I cannot tell you at
+present,' he said; 'I shall be back again tomorrow.' He then went and
+busied himself in looking up his things, and took no notice of me at
+all. I expected to see him start, but he did not, and then it came to
+be ten o'clock, when he said, 'You had better go to bed.' I didn't know
+what to do, and I went to bed. I believe he thought I fell asleep, for
+half an hour after that he came up and unlocked the oak chest we keep
+money in when we have much in the house and took out a roll of something
+which I believe was banknotes, though I was not aware that he had 'em
+there. These he must have got from the bank when he went there the other
+day. What does he want banknotes for, if he is only going off for a day?
+When he had gone down I thought of Eustacia, and how he had met her the
+night before--I know he did meet her, Clym, for I followed him part of
+the way; but I did not like to tell you when you called, and so make you
+think ill of him, as I did not think it was so serious. Then I could not
+stay in bed; I got up and dressed myself, and when I heard him out in
+the stable I thought I would come and tell you. So I came downstairs
+without any noise and slipped out."
+
+"Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?"
+
+"No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade him not to go?
+He takes no notice of what I say, and puts me off with the story of his
+going on a journey, and will be home tomorrow, and all that; but I don't
+believe it. I think you could influence him."
+
+"I'll go," said Clym. "O, Eustacia!"
+
+Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time
+seated herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the
+kernel to the husks--dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough
+weather. Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to begin
+crying as she said, "I brought baby, for I was afraid what might happen
+to her. I suppose it will be her death, but I couldn't leave her with
+Rachel!"
+
+Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the
+embers, which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the
+bellows.
+
+"Dry yourself," he said. "I'll go and get some more wood."
+
+"No, no--don't stay for that. I'll make up the fire. Will you go at
+once--please will you?"
+
+Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. While he was gone
+another rapping came to the door. This time there was no delusion that
+it might be Eustacia's--the footsteps just preceding it had been heavy
+and slow. Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note in
+answer, descended again and opened the door.
+
+"Captain Vye?" he said to a dripping figure.
+
+"Is my granddaughter here?" said the captain.
+
+"No."
+
+"Then where is she?".
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But you ought to know--you are her husband."
+
+"Only in name apparently," said Clym with rising excitement. "I believe
+she means to elope tonight with Wildeve. I am just going to look to it."
+
+"Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago. Who's
+sitting there?"
+
+"My cousin Thomasin."
+
+The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. "I only hope it is no
+worse than an elopement," he said.
+
+"Worse? What's worse than the worst a wife can do?"
+
+"Well, I have been told a strange tale. Before starting in search of her
+I called up Charley, my stable lad. I missed my pistols the other day."
+
+"Pistols?"
+
+"He said at the time that he took them down to clean. He has now owned
+that he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at them; and
+she afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking her life,
+but bound him to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a thing
+again. I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado enough to use one
+of them; but it shows what has been lurking in her mind; and people who
+think of that sort of thing once think of it again."
+
+"Where are the pistols?"
+
+"Safely locked up. O no, she won't touch them again. But there are
+more ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole. What did you
+quarrel about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this? You must
+have treated her badly indeed. Well, I was always against the marriage,
+and I was right."
+
+"Are you going with me?" said Yeobright, paying no attention to the
+captain's latter remark. "If so I can tell you what we quarrelled about
+as we walk along."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To Wildeve's--that was her destination, depend upon it."
+
+Thomasin here broke in, still weeping: "He said he was only going on a
+sudden short journey; but if so why did he want so much money? O, Clym,
+what do you think will happen? I am afraid that you, my poor baby, will
+soon have no father left to you!"
+
+"I am off now," said Yeobright, stepping into the porch.
+
+"I would fain go with 'ee," said the old man doubtfully. "But I begin to
+be afraid that my legs will hardly carry me there such a night as this.
+I am not so young as I was. If they are interrupted in their flight
+she will be sure to come back to me, and I ought to be at the house to
+receive her. But be it as 'twill I can't walk to the Quiet Woman, and
+that's an end on't. I'll go straight home."
+
+"It will perhaps be best," said Clym. "Thomasin, dry yourself, and be as
+comfortable as you can."
+
+With this he closed the door upon her, and left the house in company
+with Captain Vye, who parted from him outside the gate, taking the
+middle path, which led to Mistover. Clym crossed by the right-hand track
+towards the inn.
+
+Thomasin, being left alone, took off some of her wet garments, carried
+the baby upstairs to Clym's bed, and then came down to the sitting-room
+again, where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire
+soon flared up the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort
+that was doubled by contrast with the drumming of the storm without,
+which snapped at the windowpanes and breathed into the chimney strange
+low utterances that seemed to be the prologue to some tragedy.
+
+But the least part of Thomasin was in the house, for her heart being at
+ease about the little girl upstairs she was mentally following Clym on
+his journey. Having indulged in this imaginary peregrination for
+some considerable interval, she became impressed with a sense of the
+intolerable slowness of time. But she sat on. The moment then came when
+she could scarcely sit longer, and it was like a satire on her patience
+to remember that Clym could hardly have reached the inn as yet. At last
+she went to the baby's bedside. The child was sleeping soundly; but her
+imagination of possibly disastrous events at her home, the predominance
+within her of the unseen over the seen, agitated her beyond endurance.
+She could not refrain from going down and opening the door. The rain
+still continued, the candlelight falling upon the nearest drops and
+making glistening darts of them as they descended across the throng of
+invisible ones behind. To plunge into that medium was to plunge into
+water slightly diluted with air. But the difficulty of returning to
+her house at this moment made her all the more desirous of doing
+so--anything was better than suspense. "I have come here well enough,"
+she said, "and why shouldn't I go back again? It is a mistake for me to
+be away."
+
+She hastily fetched the infant, wrapped it up, cloaked herself as
+before, and shoveling the ashes over the fire, to prevent accidents,
+went into the open air. Pausing first to put the door key in its
+old place behind the shutter, she resolutely turned her face to the
+confronting pile of firmamental darkness beyond the palings, and stepped
+into its midst. But Thomasin's imagination being so actively engaged
+elsewhere, the night and the weather had for her no terror beyond that
+of their actual discomfort and difficulty.
+
+She was soon ascending Blooms-End valley and traversing the undulations
+on the side of the hill. The noise of the wind over the heath was
+shrill, and as if it whistled for joy at finding a night so congenial as
+this. Sometimes the path led her to hollows between thickets of tall
+and dripping bracken, dead, though not yet prostrate, which enclosed her
+like a pool. When they were more than usually tall she lifted the baby
+to the top of her head, that it might be out of the reach of their
+drenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind was brisk and
+sustained, the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent, so
+that it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness of the point
+at which it left the bosoms of the clouds. Here self-defence was
+impossible, and individual drops stuck into her like the arrows into
+Saint Sebastian. She was enabled to avoid puddles by the nebulous
+paleness which signified their presence, though beside anything less
+dark than the heath they themselves would have appeared as blackness.
+
+Yet in spite of all this Thomasin was not sorry that she had started.
+To her there were not, as to Eustacia, demons in the air, and malice
+in every bush and bough. The drops which lashed her face were not
+scorpions, but prosy rain; Egdon in the mass was no monster whatever,
+but impersonal open ground. Her fears of the place were rational, her
+dislikes of its worst moods reasonable. At this time it was in her view
+a windy, wet place, in which a person might experience much discomfort,
+lose the path without care, and possibly catch cold.
+
+If the path is well known the difficulty at such times of keeping
+therein is not altogether great, from its familiar feel to the feet; but
+once lost it is irrecoverable. Owing to her baby, who somewhat impeded
+Thomasin's view forward and distracted her mind, she did at last lose
+the track. This mishap occurred when she was descending an open slope
+about two-thirds home. Instead of attempting, by wandering hither and
+thither, the hopeless task of finding such a mere thread, she went
+straight on, trusting for guidance to her general knowledge of the
+contours, which was scarcely surpassed by Clym's or by that of the
+heath-croppers themselves.
+
+At length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to discern through the
+rain a faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form
+of an open door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon
+aware of the nature of the door by its height above the ground.
+
+"Why, it is Diggory Venn's van, surely!" she said.
+
+A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn's
+chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at
+once that she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat. The question
+arose in her mind whether or not she should ask him to guide her into
+the path. In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would appeal
+to him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing before his eyes at
+this place and season. But when, in pursuance of this resolve, Thomasin
+reached the van and looked in she found it to be untenanted; though
+there was no doubt that it was the reddleman's. The fire was burning in
+the stove, the lantern hung from the nail. Round the doorway the floor
+was merely sprinkled with rain, and not saturated, which told her that
+the door had not long been opened.
+
+While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep
+advancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the
+well-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams
+falling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.
+
+"I thought you went down the slope," he said, without noticing her face.
+"How do you come back here again?"
+
+"Diggory?" said Thomasin faintly.
+
+"Who are you?" said Venn, still unperceiving. "And why were you crying
+so just now?"
+
+"O, Diggory! don't you know me?" said she. "But of course you don't,
+wrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been crying here, and
+I have not been here before."
+
+Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her
+form.
+
+"Mrs. Wildeve!" he exclaimed, starting. "What a time for us to meet!
+And the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such a
+night as this?"
+
+She could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he
+hopped into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.
+
+"What is it?" he continued when they stood within.
+
+"I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry to
+get home. Please show me as quickly as you can! It is so silly of me not
+to know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the path.
+Show me quickly, Diggory, please."
+
+"Yes, of course. I will go with 'ee. But you came to me before this,
+Mrs. Wildeve?"
+
+"I only came this minute."
+
+"That's strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago,
+with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a
+woman's clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up, for I
+don't sleep heavy, and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying from
+the same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and just as
+far as the light would reach I saw a woman; she turned her head when
+the light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill. I hung up the
+lantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and dog her a few
+steps, but I could see nothing of her any more. That was where I had
+been when you came up; and when I saw you I thought you were the same
+one."
+
+"Perhaps it was one of the heathfolk going home?"
+
+"No, it couldn't be. 'Tis too late. The noise of her gown over the he'th
+was of a whistling sort that nothing but silk will make."
+
+"It wasn't I, then. My dress is not silk, you see.... Are we anywhere in
+a line between Mistover and the inn?"
+
+"Well, yes; not far out."
+
+"Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!"
+
+She jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked the
+lantern and leaped down after her. "I'll take the baby, ma'am," he said.
+"You must be tired out by the weight."
+
+Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn's
+hands. "Don't squeeze her, Diggory," she said, "or hurt her little arm;
+and keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain may not
+drop in her face."
+
+"I will," said Venn earnestly. "As if I could hurt anything belonging to
+you!"
+
+"I only meant accidentally," said Thomasin.
+
+"The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet," said the reddleman
+when, in closing the door of his cart to padlock it, he noticed on the
+floor a ring of water drops where her cloak had hung from her.
+
+Thomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid the larger
+bushes, stopping occasionally and covering the lantern, while he looked
+over his shoulder to gain some idea of the position of Rainbarrow above
+them, which it was necessary to keep directly behind their backs to
+preserve a proper course.
+
+"You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?"
+
+"Quite sure. May I ask how old he is, ma'am?"
+
+"He!" said Thomasin reproachfully. "Anybody can see better than that in
+a moment. She is nearly two months old. How far is it now to the inn?"
+
+"A little over a quarter of a mile."
+
+"Will you walk a little faster?"
+
+"I was afraid you could not keep up."
+
+"I am very anxious to get there. Ah, there is a light from the window!"
+
+"'Tis not from the window. That's a gig-lamp, to the best of my belief."
+
+"O!" said Thomasin in despair. "I wish I had been there sooner--give me
+the baby, Diggory--you can go back now."
+
+"I must go all the way," said Venn. "There is a quag between us and
+that light, and you will walk into it up to your neck unless I take you
+round."
+
+"But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag in front of that."
+
+"No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards."
+
+"Never mind," said Thomasin hurriedly. "Go towards the light, and not
+towards the inn."
+
+"Yes," answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and, after a pause,
+"I wish you would tell me what this great trouble is. I think you have
+proved that I can be trusted."
+
+"There are some things that cannot be--cannot be told to--" And then her
+heart rose into her throat, and she could say no more.
+
+
+
+
+9--Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
+
+
+Having seen Eustacia's signal from the hill at eight o'clock, Wildeve
+immediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,
+accompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informing
+Thomasin that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient to
+rouse her suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the few
+articles he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest, whence
+he took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes, which had been advanced
+to him on the property he was so soon to have in possession, to defray
+expenses incidental to the removal.
+
+He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that the
+horse, gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive. Nearly
+half an hour was spent thus, and on returning to the house Wildeve had
+no thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He had told the stable
+lad not to stay up, leading the boy to understand that his departure
+would be at three or four in the morning; for this, though an
+exceptional hour, was less strange than midnight, the time actually
+agreed on, the packet from Budmouth sailing between one and two.
+
+At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. By no
+effort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he had
+experienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hoped
+there was that in his situation which money could cure. He had persuaded
+himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle wife by settling
+on her the half of his property, and with chivalrous devotion towards
+another and greater woman by sharing her fate, was possible. And though
+he meant to adhere to Eustacia's instructions to the letter, to deposit
+her where she wished and to leave her, should that be her will, the
+spell that she had cast over him intensified, and his heart was beating
+fast in the anticipated futility of such commands in the face of a
+mutual wish that they should throw in their lot together.
+
+He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures, maxims,
+and hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he again went softly to the
+stable, harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence, taking the horse
+by the head, he led him with the covered car out of the yard to a spot
+by the roadside some quarter of a mile below the inn.
+
+Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a high
+bank that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface of the road
+where lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones scudded and
+clicked together before the wind, which, leaving them in heaps, plunged
+into the heath and boomed across the bushes into darkness. Only one
+sound rose above this din of weather, and that was the roaring of a
+ten-hatch weir to the southward, from a river in the meads which formed
+the boundary of the heath in this direction.
+
+He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that the
+midnight hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen in
+his mind if Eustacia would venture down the hill in such weather; yet
+knowing her nature he felt that she might. "Poor thing! 'tis like her
+ill-luck," he murmured.
+
+At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his surprise
+it was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he had driven
+up the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted because of the
+enormous length of the route in proportion to that of the pedestrian's
+path down the open hillside, and the consequent increase of labour for
+the horse.
+
+At this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps being
+in a different direction the comer was not visible. The step paused,
+then came on again.
+
+"Eustacia?" said Wildeve.
+
+The person came forward, and the light fell upon the form of Clym,
+glistening with wet, whom Wildeve immediately recognized; but Wildeve,
+who stood behind the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.
+
+He stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could have
+anything to do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight of
+Yeobright at once banished Wildeve's sober feelings, who saw him again
+as the deadly rival from whom Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards.
+Hence Wildeve did not speak, in the hope that Clym would pass by without
+particular inquiry.
+
+While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audible
+above the storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable--it was the fall
+of a body into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently at a point
+near the weir.
+
+Both started. "Good God! can it be she?" said Clym.
+
+"Why should it be she?" said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that he
+had hitherto screened himself.
+
+"Ah!--that's you, you traitor, is it?" cried Yeobright. "Why should it
+be she? Because last week she would have put an end to her life if she
+had been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of the lamps and
+come with me."
+
+Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on; Wildeve did not
+wait to unfasten the other, but followed at once along the meadow track
+to the weir, a little in the rear of Clym.
+
+Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet in
+diameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raised
+and lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of the
+pool were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away the bank;
+but the force of the stream in winter was sometimes such as to undermine
+the retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole. Clym reached the
+hatches, the framework of which was shaken to its foundations by the
+velocity of the current. Nothing but the froth of the waves could be
+discerned in the pool below. He got upon the plank bridge over the race,
+and holding to the rail, that the wind might not blow him off, crossed
+to the other side of the river. There he leant over the wall and lowered
+the lamp, only to behold the vortex formed at the curl of the returning
+current.
+
+Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light from
+Yeobright's lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across the weir
+pool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of the currents
+from the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckered mirror a dark
+body was slowly borne by one of the backward currents.
+
+"O, my darling!" exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and, without
+showing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat, he
+leaped into the boiling caldron.
+
+Yeobright could now also discern the floating body, though but
+indistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve's plunge that there was life to
+be saved he was about to leap after. Bethinking himself of a wiser plan,
+he placed the lamp against a post to make it stand upright, and running
+round to the lower part of the pool, where there was no wall, he sprang
+in and boldly waded upwards towards the deeper portion. Here he was
+taken off his legs, and in swimming was carried round into the centre of
+the basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling.
+
+While these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin had
+been toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the direction
+of the light. They had not been near enough to the river to hear the
+plunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage lamp, and watched its
+motion into the mead. As soon as they reached the car and horse Venn
+guessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the
+course of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and came
+to the weir alone.
+
+The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the
+water, and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Being
+encumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
+
+"Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve," he said hastily. "Run home with
+her, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who may
+be living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir."
+
+Thomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car the
+horse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, as
+if conscious of misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was. She
+nearly fainted, and would have been unable to proceed another step but
+that the necessity of preserving the little girl from harm nerved her
+to an amazing self-control. In this agony of suspense she entered the
+house, put the baby in a place of safety, woke the lad and the female
+domestic, and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage.
+
+Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that the
+small upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. He found one of these
+lying upon the grass, and taking it under one arm, and with his lantern
+in his hand, entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym had done. As soon
+as he began to be in deep water he flung himself across the hatch; thus
+supported he was able to keep afloat as long as he chose, holding
+the lantern aloft with his disengaged hand. Propelled by his feet, he
+steered round and round the pool, ascending each time by one of the back
+streams and descending in the middle of the current.
+
+At first he could see nothing. Then amidst the glistening of the
+whirlpools and the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman's bonnet
+floating alone. His search was now under the left wall, when something
+came to the surface almost close beside him. It was not, as he had
+expected, a woman, but a man. The reddleman put the ring of the lantern
+between his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar, and, holding
+on to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out into the strongest
+race, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and himself were carried
+down the stream. As soon as Venn found his feet dragging over the
+pebbles of the shallower part below he secured his footing and waded
+towards the brink. There, where the water stood at about the height of
+his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag forth the man.
+This was a matter of great difficulty, and he found as the reason that
+the legs of the unfortunate stranger were tightly embraced by the arms
+of another man, who had hitherto been entirely beneath the surface.
+
+At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards him,
+and two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above. They ran
+to where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out the apparently drowned
+persons, separating them, and laying them out upon the grass. Venn
+turned the light upon their faces. The one who had been uppermost was
+Yeobright; he who had been completely submerged was Wildeve.
+
+"Now we must search the hole again," said Venn. "A woman is in there
+somewhere. Get a pole."
+
+One of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail. The
+reddleman and the two others then entered the water together from below
+as before, and with their united force probed the pool forwards to where
+it sloped down to its central depth. Venn was not mistaken in supposing
+that any person who had sunk for the last time would be washed down to
+this point, for when they had examined to about halfway across something
+impeded their thrust.
+
+"Pull it forward," said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole till it
+was close to their feet.
+
+Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wet
+drapery enclosing a woman's cold form, which was all that remained of
+the desperate Eustacia.
+
+When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief,
+bending over the two unconscious ones who already lay there. The horse
+and cart were brought to the nearest point in the road, and it was the
+work of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle. Venn
+led on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm, and the two men
+followed, till they reached the inn.
+
+The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastily
+dressed herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left to
+snore on in peace at the back of the house. The insensible forms of
+Eustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the carpet,
+with their feet to the fire, when such restorative processes as could
+be thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being in the meantime
+sent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a whiff of life in either
+of the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief had been thrust
+off awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle of hartshorn to Clym's
+nostrils, having tried it in vain upon the other two. He sighed.
+
+"Clym's alive!" she exclaimed.
+
+He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt to
+revive her husband by the same means; but Wildeve gave no sign. There
+was too much reason to think that he and Eustacia both were for ever
+beyond the reach of stimulating perfumes. Their exertions did not relax
+till the doctor arrived, when one by one, the senseless three were taken
+upstairs and put into warm beds.
+
+Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and went to
+the door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophe that
+had befallen the family in which he took so great an interest. Thomasin
+surely would be broken down by the sudden and overwhelming nature of
+this event. No firm and sensible Mrs. Yeobright lived now to support the
+gentle girl through the ordeal; and, whatever an unimpassioned spectator
+might think of her loss of such a husband as Wildeve, there could be no
+doubt that for the moment she was distracted and horrified by the blow.
+As for himself, not being privileged to go to her and comfort her, he
+saw no reason for waiting longer in a house where he remained only as a
+stranger.
+
+He returned across the heath to his van. The fire was not yet out, and
+everything remained as he had left it. Venn now bethought himself of
+his clothes, which were saturated with water to the weight of lead. He
+changed them, spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep. But
+it was more than he could do to rest here while excited by a vivid
+imagination of the turmoil they were in at the house he had quitted,
+and, blaming himself for coming away, he dressed in another suit,
+locked up the door, and again hastened across to the inn. Rain was still
+falling heavily when he entered the kitchen. A bright fire was shining
+from the hearth, and two women were bustling about, one of whom was Olly
+Dowden.
+
+"Well, how is it going on now?" said Venn in a whisper.
+
+"Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright and Mr. Wildeve are dead
+and cold. The doctor says they were quite gone before they were out of
+the water."
+
+"Ah! I thought as much when I hauled 'em up. And Mrs. Wildeve?"
+
+"She is as well as can be expected. The doctor had her put between
+blankets, for she was almost as wet as they that had been in the river,
+poor young thing. You don't seem very dry, reddleman."
+
+"Oh, 'tis not much. I have changed my things. This is only a little
+dampness I've got coming through the rain again."
+
+"Stand by the fire. Mis'ess says you be to have whatever you want, and
+she was sorry when she was told that you'd gone away."
+
+Venn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames in an absent
+mood. The steam came from his leggings and ascended the chimney with the
+smoke, while he thought of those who were upstairs. Two were corpses,
+one had barely escaped the jaws of death, another was sick and a widow.
+The last occasion on which he had lingered by that fireplace was when
+the raffle was in progress; when Wildeve was alive and well; Thomasin
+active and smiling in the next room; Yeobright and Eustacia just made
+husband and wife, and Mrs. Yeobright living at Blooms-End. It had seemed
+at that time that the then position of affairs was good for at least
+twenty years to come. Yet, of all the circle, he himself was the only
+one whose situation had not materially changed.
+
+While he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. It was the nurse,
+who brought in her hand a rolled mass of wet paper. The woman was so
+engrossed with her occupation that she hardly saw Venn. She took from a
+cupboard some pieces of twine, which she strained across the fireplace,
+tying the end of each piece to the firedog, previously pulled forward
+for the purpose, and, unrolling the wet papers, she began pinning them
+one by one to the strings in a manner of clothes on a line.
+
+"What be they?" said Venn.
+
+"Poor master's banknotes," she answered. "They were found in his pocket
+when they undressed him."
+
+"Then he was not coming back again for some time?" said Venn.
+
+"That we shall never know," said she.
+
+Venn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested him lay under
+this roof. As nobody in the house had any more sleep that night, except
+the two who slept for ever, there was no reason why he should not
+remain. So he retired into the niche of the fireplace where he had used
+to sit, and there he continued, watching the steam from the double row
+of banknotes as they waved backwards and forwards in the draught of the
+chimney till their flaccidity was changed to dry crispness throughout.
+Then the woman came and unpinned them, and, folding them together,
+carried the handful upstairs. Presently the doctor appeared from above
+with the look of a man who could do no more, and, pulling on his gloves,
+went out of the house, the trotting of his horse soon dying away upon
+the road.
+
+At four o'clock there was a gentle knock at the door. It was from
+Charley, who had been sent by Captain Vye to inquire if anything had
+been heard of Eustacia. The girl who admitted him looked in his face as
+if she did not know what answer to return, and showed him in to where
+Venn was seated, saying to the reddleman, "Will you tell him, please?"
+
+Venn told. Charley's only utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound. He
+stood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, "I shall see her
+once more?"
+
+"I dare say you may see her," said Diggory gravely. "But hadn't you
+better run and tell Captain Vye?"
+
+"Yes, yes. Only I do hope I shall see her just once again."
+
+"You shall," said a low voice behind; and starting round they beheld
+by the dim light, a thin, pallid, almost spectral form, wrapped in a
+blanket, and looking like Lazarus coming from the tomb.
+
+It was Yeobright. Neither Venn nor Charley spoke, and Clym continued,
+"You shall see her. There will be time enough to tell the captain when
+it gets daylight. You would like to see her too--would you not, Diggory?
+She looks very beautiful now."
+
+Venn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley he followed Clym
+to the foot of the staircase, where he took off his boots; Charley did
+the same. They followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, where there
+was a candle burning, which Yeobright took in his hand, and with it led
+the way into an adjoining room. Here he went to the bedside and folded
+back the sheet.
+
+They stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay there still
+in death, eclipsed all her living phases. Pallor did not include all
+the quality of her complexion, which seemed more than whiteness; it was
+almost light. The expression of her finely carved mouth was pleasant,
+as if a sense of dignity had just compelled her to leave off speaking.
+Eternal rigidity had seized upon it in a momentary transition between
+fervour and resignation. Her black hair was looser now than either of
+them had ever seen it before, and surrounded her brow like a forest. The
+stateliness of look which had been almost too marked for a dweller in a
+country domicile had at last found an artistically happy background.
+
+Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. "Now
+come here," he said.
+
+They went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed,
+lay another figure--Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face than
+in Eustacia's, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, and the
+least sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him now that he
+was born for a higher destiny than this. The only sign upon him of his
+recent struggle for life was in his fingertips, which were worn and
+sacrificed in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on the face of the
+weir-wall.
+
+Yeobright's manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllables
+since his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was only
+when they had left the room and stood upon the landing that the true
+state of his mind was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile,
+inclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay, "She is
+the second woman I have killed this year. I was a great cause of my
+mother's death, and I am the chief cause of hers."
+
+"How?" said Venn.
+
+"I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not invite her
+back till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drowned myself. It
+would have been a charity to the living had the river overwhelmed me and
+borne her up. But I cannot die. Those who ought to have lived lie dead;
+and here am I alive!"
+
+"But you can't charge yourself with crimes in that way," said Venn. "You
+may as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by the child,
+for without the parents the child would never have been begot."
+
+"Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don't know all the circumstances.
+If it had pleased God to put an end to me it would have been a good
+thing for all. But I am getting used to the horror of my existence. They
+say that a time comes when men laugh at misery through long acquaintance
+with it. Surely that time will soon come to me!"
+
+"Your aim has always been good," said Venn. "Why should you say such
+desperate things?"
+
+"No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my great regret
+is that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SIX -- AFTERCOURSES
+
+
+
+
+1--The Inevitable Movement Onward
+
+
+The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout
+Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known
+incidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and
+modified, till the original reality bore but a slight resemblance to the
+counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues. Yet, upon the whole,
+neither the man nor the woman lost dignity by sudden death. Misfortune
+had struck them gracefully, cutting off their erratic histories with a
+catastrophic dash, instead of, as with many, attenuating each life to an
+uninteresting meagreness, through long years of wrinkles, neglect, and
+decay.
+
+On those most nearly concerned the effect was somewhat different.
+Strangers who had heard of many such cases now merely heard of one more;
+but immediately where a blow falls no previous imaginings amount to
+appreciable preparation for it. The very suddenness of her bereavement
+dulled, to some extent, Thomasin's feelings; yet irrationally enough, a
+consciousness that the husband she had lost ought to have been a better
+man did not lessen her mourning at all. On the contrary, this fact
+seemed at first to set off the dead husband in his young wife's eyes,
+and to be the necessary cloud to the rainbow.
+
+But the horrors of the unknown had passed. Vague misgivings about her
+future as a deserted wife were at an end. The worst had once been matter
+of trembling conjecture; it was now matter of reason only, a limited
+badness. Her chief interest, the little Eustacia, still remained. There
+was humility in her grief, no defiance in her attitude; and when this is
+the case a shaken spirit is apt to be stilled.
+
+Could Thomasin's mournfulness now and Eustacia's serenity during life
+have been reduced to common measure, they would have touched the same
+mark nearly. But Thomasin's former brightness made shadow of that which
+in a sombre atmosphere was light itself.
+
+The spring came and calmed her; the summer came and soothed her; the
+autumn arrived, and she began to be comforted, for her little girl
+was strong and happy, growing in size and knowledge every day. Outward
+events flattered Thomasin not a little. Wildeve had died intestate, and
+she and the child were his only relatives. When administration had been
+granted, all the debts paid, and the residue of her husband's uncle's
+property had come into her hands, it was found that the sum waiting to
+be invested for her own and the child's benefit was little less than ten
+thousand pounds.
+
+Where should she live? The obvious place was Blooms-End. The old rooms,
+it is true, were not much higher than the between-decks of a frigate,
+necessitating a sinking in the floor under the new clock-case she
+brought from the inn, and the removal of the handsome brass knobs on its
+head, before there was height for it to stand; but, such as the rooms
+were, there were plenty of them, and the place was endeared to her by
+every early recollection. Clym very gladly admitted her as a tenant,
+confining his own existence to two rooms at the top of the back
+staircase, where he lived on quietly, shut off from Thomasin and the
+three servants she had thought fit to indulge in now that she was a
+mistress of money, going his own ways, and thinking his own thoughts.
+
+His sorrows had made some change in his outward appearance; and yet the
+alteration was chiefly within. It might have been said that he had a
+wrinkled mind. He had no enemies, and he could get nobody to reproach
+him, which was why he so bitterly reproached himself.
+
+He did sometimes think he had been ill-used by fortune, so far as to say
+that to be born is a palpable dilemma, and that instead of men aiming to
+advance in life with glory they should calculate how to retreat out
+of it without shame. But that he and his had been sarcastically and
+pitilessly handled in having such irons thrust into their souls he did
+not maintain long. It is usually so, except with the sternest of men.
+Human beings, in their generous endeavour to construct a hypothesis that
+shall not degrade a First Cause, have always hesitated to conceive a
+dominant power of lower moral quality than their own; and, even while
+they sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon, invent excuses for the
+oppression which prompts their tears.
+
+Thus, though words of solace were vainly uttered in his presence, he
+found relief in a direction of his own choosing when left to himself.
+For a man of his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a
+year which he had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all
+worldly needs. Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the
+proportion of spendings to takings.
+
+He frequently walked the heath alone, when the past seized upon him
+with its shadowy hand, and held him there to listen to its tale.
+His imagination would then people the spot with its ancient
+inhabitants--forgotten Celtic tribes trod their tracks about him, and he
+could almost live among them, look in their faces, and see them standing
+beside the barrows which swelled around, untouched and perfect as at the
+time of their erection. Those of the dyed barbarians who had chosen
+the cultivable tracts were, in comparison with those who had left their
+marks here, as writers on paper beside writers on parchment. Their
+records had perished long ago by the plough, while the works of these
+remained. Yet they all had lived and died unconscious of the different
+fates awaiting their relics. It reminded him that unforeseen factors
+operate in the evolution of immortality.
+
+Winter again came round, with its winds, frosts, tame robins, and
+sparkling starlight. The year previous Thomasin had hardly been
+conscious of the season's advance; this year she laid her heart open to
+external influences of every kind. The life of this sweet cousin, her
+baby, and her servants, came to Clym's senses only in the form of sounds
+through a wood partition as he sat over books of exceptionally large
+type; but his ear became at last so accustomed to these slight noises
+from the other part of the house that he almost could witness the
+scenes they signified. A faint beat of half-seconds conjured up Thomasin
+rocking the cradle, a wavering hum meant that she was singing the baby
+to sleep, a crunching of sand as between millstones raised the picture
+of Humphrey's, Fairway's, or Sam's heavy feet crossing the stone floor
+of the kitchen; a light boyish step, and a gay tune in a high key,
+betokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden break-off in the
+Grandfer's utterances implied the application to his lips of a mug of
+small beer, a bustling and slamming of doors meant starting to go to
+market; for Thomasin, in spite of her added scope of gentility, led a
+ludicrously narrow life, to the end that she might save every possible
+pound for her little daughter.
+
+One summer day Clym was in the garden, immediately outside the parlour
+window, which was as usual open. He was looking at the pot-flowers on
+the sill; they had been revived and restored by Thomasin to the state in
+which his mother had left them. He heard a slight scream from Thomasin,
+who was sitting inside the room.
+
+"O, how you frightened me!" she said to someone who had entered. "I
+thought you were the ghost of yourself."
+
+Clym was curious enough to advance a little further and look in at the
+window. To his astonishment there stood within the room Diggory Venn,
+no longer a reddleman, but exhibiting the strangely altered hues of
+an ordinary Christian countenance, white shirt-front, light flowered
+waistcoat, blue-spotted neckerchief, and bottle-green coat. Nothing in
+this appearance was at all singular but the fact of its great difference
+from what he had formerly been. Red, and all approach to red, was
+carefully excluded from every article of clothes upon him; for what is
+there that persons just out of harness dread so much as reminders of the
+trade which has enriched them?
+
+Yeobright went round to the door and entered.
+
+"I was so alarmed!" said Thomasin, smiling from one to the other. "I
+couldn't believe that he had got white of his own accord! It seemed
+supernatural."
+
+"I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas," said Venn. "It was a
+profitable trade, and I found that by that time I had made enough to
+take the dairy of fifty cows that my father had in his lifetime. I
+always thought of getting to that place again if I changed at all, and
+now I am there."
+
+"How did you manage to become white, Diggory?" Thomasin asked.
+
+"I turned so by degrees, ma'am."
+
+"You look much better than ever you did before."
+
+Venn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how inadvertently she had
+spoken to a man who might possibly have tender feelings for her still,
+blushed a little. Clym saw nothing of this, and added good-humouredly--
+
+"What shall we have to frighten Thomasin's baby with, now you have
+become a human being again?"
+
+"Sit down, Diggory," said Thomasin, "and stay to tea."
+
+Venn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen, when Thomasin said with
+pleasant pertness as she went on with some sewing, "Of course you must
+sit down here. And where does your fifty-cow dairy lie, Mr. Venn?"
+
+"At Stickleford--about two miles to the right of Alderworth, ma'am,
+where the meads begin. I have thought that if Mr. Yeobright would like
+to pay me a visit sometimes he shouldn't stay away for want of asking.
+I'll not bide to tea this afternoon, thank'ee, for I've got something on
+hand that must be settled. 'Tis Maypole-day tomorrow, and the Shadwater
+folk have clubbed with a few of your neighbours here to have a pole just
+outside your palings in the heath, as it is a nice green place." Venn
+waved his elbow towards the patch in front of the house. "I have been
+talking to Fairway about it," he continued, "and I said to him that
+before we put up the pole it would be as well to ask Mrs. Wildeve."
+
+"I can say nothing against it," she answered. "Our property does not
+reach an inch further than the white palings."
+
+"But you might not like to see a lot of folk going crazy round a stick,
+under your very nose?"
+
+"I shall have no objection at all."
+
+Venn soon after went away, and in the evening Yeobright strolled as far
+as Fairway's cottage. It was a lovely May sunset, and the birch trees
+which grew on this margin of the vast Egdon wilderness had put on their
+new leaves, delicate as butterflies' wings, and diaphanous as amber.
+Beside Fairway's dwelling was an open space recessed from the road, and
+here were now collected all the young people from within a radius of a
+couple of miles. The pole lay with one end supported on a trestle,
+and women were engaged in wreathing it from the top downwards with
+wild-flowers. The instincts of merry England lingered on here with
+exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has
+attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed,
+the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still--in these
+spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of
+Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way
+or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.
+
+Yeobright did not interrupt the preparations, and went home again. The
+next morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom window,
+there stood the Maypole in the middle of the green, its top cutting into
+the sky. It had sprung up in the night, or rather early morning, like
+Jack's bean-stalk. She opened the casement to get a better view of the
+garlands and posies that adorned it. The sweet perfume of the flowers
+had already spread into the surrounding air, which, being free from
+every taint, conducted to her lips a full measure of the fragrance
+received from the spire of blossom in its midst. At the top of the
+pole were crossed hoops decked with small flowers; beneath these came a
+milk-white zone of Maybloom; then a zone of bluebells, then of cowslips,
+then of lilacs, then of ragged-robins, daffodils, and so on, till the
+lowest stage was reached. Thomasin noticed all these, and was delighted
+that the May revel was to be so near.
+
+When afternoon came people began to gather on the green, and Yeobright
+was interested enough to look out upon them from the open window of
+his room. Soon after this Thomasin walked out from the door immediately
+below and turned her eyes up to her cousin's face. She was dressed
+more gaily than Yeobright had ever seen her dressed since the time of
+Wildeve's death, eighteen months before; since the day of her marriage
+even she had not exhibited herself to such advantage.
+
+"How pretty you look today, Thomasin!" he said. "Is it because of the
+Maypole?"
+
+"Not altogether." And then she blushed and dropped her eyes, which he
+did not specially observe, though her manner seemed to him to be rather
+peculiar, considering that she was only addressing himself. Could it be
+possible that she had put on her summer clothes to please him?
+
+He recalled her conduct towards him throughout the last few weeks, when
+they had often been working together in the garden, just as they had
+formerly done when they were boy and girl under his mother's eye. What
+if her interest in him were not so entirely that of a relative as it had
+formerly been? To Yeobright any possibility of this sort was a serious
+matter; and he almost felt troubled at the thought of it. Every pulse of
+loverlike feeling which had not been stilled during Eustacia's lifetime
+had gone into the grave with her. His passion for her had occurred too
+far on in his manhood to leave fuel enough on hand for another fire
+of that sort, as may happen with more boyish loves. Even supposing him
+capable of loving again, that love would be a plant of slow and laboured
+growth, and in the end only small and sickly, like an autumn-hatched
+bird.
+
+He was so distressed by this new complexity that when the enthusiastic
+brass band arrived and struck up, which it did about five o'clock, with
+apparently wind enough among its members to blow down his house, he
+withdrew from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden, through
+the gate in the hedge, and away out of sight. He could not bear to
+remain in the presence of enjoyment today, though he had tried hard.
+
+Nothing was seen of him for four hours. When he came back by the same
+path it was dusk, and the dews were coating every green thing. The
+boisterous music had ceased; but, entering the premises as he did from
+behind, he could not see if the May party had all gone till he had
+passed through Thomasin's division of the house to the front door.
+Thomasin was standing within the porch alone.
+
+She looked at him reproachfully. "You went away just when it began,
+Clym," she said.
+
+"Yes. I felt I could not join in. You went out with them, of course?"
+
+"No, I did not."
+
+"You appeared to be dressed on purpose."
+
+"Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there. One is
+there now."
+
+Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the
+paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy
+figure, sauntering idly up and down. "Who is it?" he said.
+
+"Mr. Venn," said Thomasin.
+
+"You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. He has been very
+kind to you first and last."
+
+"I will now," she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through the
+wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.
+
+"It is Mr. Venn, I think?" she inquired.
+
+Venn started as if he had not seen her--artful man that he was--and
+said, "Yes."
+
+"Will you come in?"
+
+"I am afraid that I--"
+
+"I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had the very best of the
+girls for your partners. Is it that you won't come in because you wish
+to stand here, and think over the past hours of enjoyment?"
+
+"Well, that's partly it," said Mr. Venn, with ostentatious sentiment.
+"But the main reason why I am biding here like this is that I want to
+wait till the moon rises."
+
+"To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?"
+
+"No. To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens."
+
+Thomasin was speechless with surprise. That a man who had to walk
+some four or five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason
+pointed to only one conclusion--the man must be amazingly interested in
+that glove's owner.
+
+"Were you dancing with her, Diggory?" she asked, in a voice which
+revealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her
+by this disclosure.
+
+"No," he sighed.
+
+"And you will not come in, then?"
+
+"Not tonight, thank you, ma'am."
+
+"Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person's glove, Mr.
+Venn?"
+
+"O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. The moon will rise
+in a few minutes."
+
+Thomasin went back to the porch. "Is he coming in?" said Clym, who had
+been waiting where she had left him.
+
+"He would rather not tonight," she said, and then passed by him into the
+house; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms.
+
+When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just
+listening by the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she
+went to the window, gently lifted the corner of the white curtain, and
+looked out. Venn was still there. She watched the growth of the faint
+radiance appearing in the sky by the eastern hill, till presently
+the edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley with light.
+Diggory's form was now distinct on the green; he was moving about in a
+bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the precious missing
+article, walking in zigzags right and left till he should have passed
+over every foot of the ground.
+
+"How very ridiculous!" Thomasin murmured to herself, in a tone which was
+intended to be satirical. "To think that a man should be so silly as to
+go mooning about like that for a girl's glove! A respectable dairyman,
+too, and a man of money as he is now. What a pity!"
+
+At last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood up and raised it to
+his lips. Then placing it in his breastpocket--the nearest receptacle to
+a man's heart permitted by modern raiment--he ascended the valley in a
+mathematically direct line towards his distant home in the meadows.
+
+
+
+2--Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road
+
+
+Clym saw little of Thomasin for several days after this; and when they
+met she was more silent than usual. At length he asked her what she was
+thinking of so intently.
+
+"I am thoroughly perplexed," she said candidly. "I cannot for my life
+think who it is that Diggory Venn is so much in love with. None of the
+girls at the Maypole were good enough for him, and yet she must have
+been there."
+
+Clym tried to imagine Venn's choice for a moment; but ceasing to be
+interested in the question he went on again with his gardening.
+
+No clearing up of the mystery was granted her for some time. But one
+afternoon Thomasin was upstairs getting ready for a walk, when she had
+occasion to come to the landing and call "Rachel." Rachel was a girl
+about thirteen, who carried the baby out for airings; and she came
+upstairs at the call.
+
+"Have you seen one of my last new gloves about the house, Rachel?"
+inquired Thomasin. "It is the fellow to this one."
+
+Rachel did not reply.
+
+"Why don't you answer?" said her mistress.
+
+"I think it is lost, ma'am."
+
+"Lost? Who lost it? I have never worn them but once."
+
+Rachel appeared as one dreadfully troubled, and at last began to cry.
+"Please, ma'am, on the day of the Maypole I had none to wear, and I seed
+yours on the table, and I thought I would borrow 'em. I did not mean to
+hurt 'em at all, but one of them got lost. Somebody gave me some money
+to buy another pair for you, but I have not been able to go anywhere to
+get 'em."
+
+"Who's somebody?"
+
+"Mr. Venn."
+
+"Did he know it was my glove?"
+
+"Yes. I told him."
+
+Thomasin was so surprised by the explanation that she quite forgot
+to lecture the girl, who glided silently away. Thomasin did not move
+further than to turn her eyes upon the grass-plat where the Maypole had
+stood. She remained thinking, then said to herself that she would not go
+out that afternoon, but would work hard at the baby's unfinished lovely
+plaid frock, cut on the cross in the newest fashion. How she managed to
+work hard, and yet do no more than she had done at the end of two hours,
+would have been a mystery to anyone not aware that the recent incident
+was of a kind likely to divert her industry from a manual to a mental
+channel.
+
+Next day she went her ways as usual, and continued her custom of walking
+in the heath with no other companion than little Eustacia, now of the
+age when it is a matter of doubt with such characters whether they are
+intended to walk through the world on their hands or on their feet; so
+that they get into painful complications by trying both. It was very
+pleasant to Thomasin, when she had carried the child to some lonely
+place, to give her a little private practice on the green turf and
+shepherd's-thyme, which formed a soft mat to fall headlong upon them
+when equilibrium was lost.
+
+Once, when engaged in this system of training, and stooping to remove
+bits of stick, fern-stalks, and other such fragments from the child's
+path, that the journey might not be brought to an untimely end by
+some insuperable barrier a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by
+discovering that a man on horseback was almost close beside her, the
+soft natural carpet having muffled the horse's tread. The rider, who was
+Venn, waved his hat in the air and bowed gallantly.
+
+"Diggory, give me my glove," said Thomasin, whose manner it was under
+any circumstances to plunge into the midst of a subject which engrossed
+her.
+
+Venn immediately dismounted, put his hand in his breastpocket, and
+handed the glove.
+
+"Thank you. It was very good of you to take care of it."
+
+"It is very good of you to say so."
+
+"O no. I was quite glad to find you had it. Everybody gets so
+indifferent that I was surprised to know you thought of me."
+
+"If you had remembered what I was once you wouldn't have been
+surprised."
+
+"Ah, no," she said quickly. "But men of your character are mostly so
+independent."
+
+"What is my character?" he asked.
+
+"I don't exactly know," said Thomasin simply, "except it is to cover up
+your feelings under a practical manner, and only to show them when you
+are alone."
+
+"Ah, how do you know that?" said Venn strategically.
+
+"Because," said she, stopping to put the little girl, who had managed to
+get herself upside down, right end up again, "because I do."
+
+"You mustn't judge by folks in general," said Venn. "Still I don't know
+much what feelings are nowadays. I have got so mixed up with business
+of one sort and t'other that my soft sentiments are gone off in vapour
+like. Yes, I am given up body and soul to the making of money. Money is
+all my dream."
+
+"O Diggory, how wicked!" said Thomasin reproachfully, and looking at him
+in exact balance between taking his words seriously and judging them as
+said to tease her.
+
+"Yes, 'tis rather a rum course," said Venn, in the bland tone of one
+comfortably resigned to sins he could no longer overcome.
+
+"You, who used to be so nice!"
+
+"Well, that's an argument I rather like, because what a man has once
+been he may be again." Thomasin blushed. "Except that it is rather
+harder now," Venn continued.
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+"Because you be richer than you were at that time."
+
+"O no--not much. I have made it nearly all over to the baby, as it was
+my duty to do, except just enough to live on."
+
+"I am rather glad of that," said Venn softly, and regarding her from the
+corner of his eye, "for it makes it easier for us to be friendly."
+
+Thomasin blushed again, and, when a few more words had been said of a
+not unpleasing kind, Venn mounted his horse and rode on.
+
+This conversation had passed in a hollow of the heath near the old
+Roman road, a place much frequented by Thomasin. And it might have been
+observed that she did not in future walk that way less often from having
+met Venn there now. Whether or not Venn abstained from riding thither
+because he had met Thomasin in the same place might easily have been
+guessed from her proceedings about two months later in the same year.
+
+
+
+
+3--The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin
+
+
+Throughout this period Yeobright had more or less pondered on his duty
+to his cousin Thomasin. He could not help feeling that it would be a
+pitiful waste of sweet material if the tender-natured thing should be
+doomed from this early stage of her life onwards to dribble away her
+winsome qualities on lonely gorse and fern. But he felt this as an
+economist merely, and not as a lover. His passion for Eustacia had been
+a sort of conserve of his whole life, and he had nothing more of that
+supreme quality left to bestow. So far the obvious thing was not to
+entertain any idea of marriage with Thomasin, even to oblige her.
+
+But this was not all. Years ago there had been in his mother's mind a
+great fancy about Thomasin and himself. It had not positively amounted
+to a desire, but it had always been a favourite dream. That they
+should be man and wife in good time, if the happiness of neither were
+endangered thereby, was the fancy in question. So that what course save
+one was there now left for any son who reverenced his mother's memory
+as Yeobright did? It is an unfortunate fact that any particular whim of
+parents, which might have been dispersed by half an hour's conversation
+during their lives, becomes sublimated by their deaths into a fiat the
+most absolute, with such results to conscientious children as those
+parents, had they lived, would have been the first to decry.
+
+Had only Yeobright's own future been involved he would have proposed to
+Thomasin with a ready heart. He had nothing to lose by carrying out a
+dead mother's hope. But he dreaded to contemplate Thomasin wedded to the
+mere corpse of a lover that he now felt himself to be. He had but three
+activities alive in him. One was his almost daily walk to the little
+graveyard wherein his mother lay; another, his just as frequent visits
+by night to the more distant enclosure which numbered his Eustacia among
+its dead; the third was self-preparation for a vocation which alone
+seemed likely to satisfy his cravings--that of an itinerant preacher
+of the eleventh commandment. It was difficult to believe that Thomasin
+would be cheered by a husband with such tendencies as these.
+
+Yet he resolved to ask her, and let her decide for herself. It was even
+with a pleasant sense of doing his duty that he went downstairs to her
+one evening for this purpose, when the sun was printing on the valley
+the same long shadow of the housetop that he had seen lying there times
+out of number while his mother lived.
+
+Thomasin was not in her room, and he found her in the front garden. "I
+have long been wanting, Thomasin," he began, "to say something about a
+matter that concerns both our futures."
+
+"And you are going to say it now?" she remarked quickly, colouring as
+she met his gaze. "Do stop a minute, Clym, and let me speak first, for
+oddly enough, I have been wanting to say something to you."
+
+"By all means say on, Tamsie."
+
+"I suppose nobody can overhear us?" she went on, casting her eyes around
+and lowering her voice. "Well, first you will promise me this--that you
+won't be angry and call me anything harsh if you disagree with what I
+propose?"
+
+Yeobright promised, and she continued: "What I want is your advice,
+for you are my relation--I mean, a sort of guardian to me--aren't you,
+Clym?"
+
+"Well, yes, I suppose I am; a sort of guardian. In fact, I am, of
+course," he said, altogether perplexed as to her drift.
+
+"I am thinking of marrying," she then observed blandly. "But I shall not
+marry unless you assure me that you approve of such a step. Why don't
+you speak?"
+
+"I was taken rather by surprise. But, nevertheless, I am very glad to
+hear such news. I shall approve, of course, dear Tamsie. Who can it be?
+I am quite at a loss to guess. No I am not--'tis the old doctor!--not
+that I mean to call him old, for he is not very old after all. Ah--I
+noticed when he attended you last time!"
+
+"No, no," she said hastily. "'Tis Mr. Venn."
+
+Clym's face suddenly became grave.
+
+"There, now, you don't like him, and I wish I hadn't mentioned him!" she
+exclaimed almost petulantly. "And I shouldn't have done it, either, only
+he keeps on bothering me so till I don't know what to do!"
+
+Clym looked at the heath. "I like Venn well enough," he answered at
+last. "He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is clever
+too, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But really,
+Thomasin, he is not quite--"
+
+"Gentleman enough for me? That is just what I feel. I am sorry now that
+I asked you, and I won't think any more of him. At the same time I must
+marry him if I marry anybody--that I WILL say!"
+
+"I don't see that," said Clym, carefully concealing every clue to his
+own interrupted intention, which she plainly had not guessed. "You might
+marry a professional man, or somebody of that sort, by going into the
+town to live and forming acquaintances there."
+
+"I am not fit for town life--so very rural and silly as I always have
+been. Do not you yourself notice my countrified ways?"
+
+"Well, when I came home from Paris I did, a little; but I don't now."
+
+"That's because you have got countrified too. O, I couldn't live in a
+street for the world! Egdon is a ridiculous old place; but I have got
+used to it, and I couldn't be happy anywhere else at all."
+
+"Neither could I," said Clym.
+
+"Then how could you say that I should marry some town man? I am sure,
+say what you will, that I must marry Diggory, if I marry at all. He has
+been kinder to me than anybody else, and has helped me in many ways that
+I don't know of!" Thomasin almost pouted now.
+
+"Yes, he has," said Clym in a neutral tone. "Well, I wish with all my
+heart that I could say, marry him. But I cannot forget what my mother
+thought on that matter, and it goes rather against me not to respect her
+opinion. There is too much reason why we should do the little we can to
+respect it now."
+
+"Very well, then," sighed Thomasin. "I will say no more."
+
+"But you are not bound to obey my wishes. I merely say what I think."
+
+"O no--I don't want to be rebellious in that way," she said sadly. "I
+had no business to think of him--I ought to have thought of my family.
+What dreadfully bad impulses there are in me!" Her lips trembled, and
+she turned away to hide a tear.
+
+Clym, though vexed at what seemed her unaccountable taste, was in a
+measure relieved to find that at any rate the marriage question in
+relation to himself was shelved. Through several succeeding days he saw
+her at different times from the window of his room moping disconsolately
+about the garden. He was half angry with her for choosing Venn; then he
+was grieved at having put himself in the way of Venn's happiness, who
+was, after all, as honest and persevering a young fellow as any on
+Egdon, since he had turned over a new leaf. In short, Clym did not know
+what to do.
+
+When next they met she said abruptly, "He is much more respectable now
+than he was then!"
+
+"Who? O yes--Diggory Venn."
+
+"Aunt only objected because he was a reddleman."
+
+"Well, Thomasin, perhaps I don't know all the particulars of my mother's
+wish. So you had better use your own discretion."
+
+"You will always feel that I slighted your mother's memory."
+
+"No, I will not. I shall think you are convinced that, had she seen
+Diggory in his present position, she would have considered him a fitting
+husband for you. Now, that's my real feeling. Don't consult me any more,
+but do as you like, Thomasin. I shall be content."
+
+It is to be supposed that Thomasin was convinced; for a few days after
+this, when Clym strayed into a part of the heath that he had not lately
+visited, Humphrey, who was at work there, said to him, "I am glad to see
+that Mrs. Wildeve and Venn have made it up again, seemingly."
+
+"Have they?" said Clym abstractedly.
+
+"Yes; and he do contrive to stumble upon her whenever she walks out on
+fine days with the chiel. But, Mr. Yeobright, I can't help feeling
+that your cousin ought to have married you. 'Tis a pity to make two
+chimleycorners where there need be only one. You could get her away from
+him now, 'tis my belief, if you were only to set about it."
+
+"How can I have the conscience to marry after having driven two women to
+their deaths? Don't think such a thing, Humphrey. After my experience
+I should consider it too much of a burlesque to go to church and take a
+wife. In the words of Job, 'I have made a covenant with mine eyes; when
+then should I think upon a maid?'"
+
+"No, Mr. Clym, don't fancy that about driving two women to their deaths.
+You shouldn't say it."
+
+"Well, we'll leave that out," said Yeobright. "But anyhow God has set a
+mark upon me which wouldn't look well in a love-making scene. I have two
+ideas in my head, and no others. I am going to keep a night-school;
+and I am going to turn preacher. What have you got to say to that,
+Humphrey?"
+
+"I'll come and hear 'ee with all my heart."
+
+"Thanks. 'Tis all I wish."
+
+As Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came down by the other path,
+and met him at the gate. "What do you think I have to tell you, Clym?"
+she said, looking archly over her shoulder at him.
+
+"I can guess," he replied.
+
+She scrutinized his face. "Yes, you guess right. It is going to be after
+all. He thinks I may as well make up my mind, and I have got to think
+so too. It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you don't
+object."
+
+"Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you see your way
+clear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the treatment
+you received in days gone by."*
+
+     * The writer may state here that the original conception of
+     the story did not design a marriage between Thomasin and
+     Venn. He was to have retained his isolated and weird
+     character to the last, and to have disappeared mysteriously
+     from the heath, nobody knowing whither--Thomasin remaining a
+     widow. But certain circumstances of serial publication led
+     to a change of intent.
+
+     Readers can therefore choose between the endings, and those with an
+     austere artistic code can assume the more consistent conclusion to be
+     the true one.
+
+
+
+
+4--Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His
+Vocation
+
+
+Anybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven o'clock on the
+morning fixed for the wedding would have found that, while Yeobright's
+house was comparatively quiet, sounds denoting great activity came from
+the dwelling of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway. It was chiefly
+a noise of feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over the sanded
+floor within. One man only was visible outside, and he seemed to be
+later at an appointment than he had intended to be, for he hastened up
+to the door, lifted the latch, and walked in without ceremony.
+
+The scene within was not quite the customary one. Standing about the
+room was the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the Egdon
+coterie, there being present Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle, Humphrey,
+Christian, and one or two turf-cutters. It was a warm day, and the men
+were as a matter of course in their shirtsleeves, except Christian, who
+had always a nervous fear of parting with a scrap of his clothing when
+in anybody's house but his own. Across the stout oak table in the middle
+of the room was thrown a mass of striped linen, which Grandfer Cantle
+held down on one side, and Humphrey on the other, while Fairway rubbed
+its surface with a yellow lump, his face being damp and creased with the
+effort of the labour.
+
+"Waxing a bed-tick, souls?" said the newcomer.
+
+"Yes, Sam," said Grandfer Cantle, as a man too busy to waste words.
+"Shall I stretch this corner a shade tighter, Timothy?"
+
+Fairway replied, and the waxing went on with unabated vigour. "'Tis
+going to be a good bed, by the look o't," continued Sam, after an
+interval of silence. "Who may it be for?"
+
+"'Tis a present for the new folks that's going to set up housekeeping,"
+said Christian, who stood helpless and overcome by the majesty of the
+proceedings.
+
+"Ah, to be sure; and a valuable one, 'a b'lieve."
+
+"Beds be dear to fokes that don't keep geese, bain't they, Mister
+Fairway?" said Christian, as to an omniscient being.
+
+"Yes," said the furze-dealer, standing up, giving his forehead a
+thorough mopping, and handing the beeswax to Humphrey, who succeeded
+at the rubbing forthwith. "Not that this couple be in want of one, but
+'twas well to show 'em a bit of friendliness at this great racketing
+vagary of their lives. I set up both my own daughters in one when they
+was married, and there have been feathers enough for another in the
+house the last twelve months. Now then, neighbours, I think we have
+laid on enough wax. Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right way
+outwards, and then I'll begin to shake in the feathers."
+
+When the bed was in proper trim Fairway and Christian brought forward
+vast paper bags, stuffed to the full, but light as balloons, and began
+to turn the contents of each into the receptacle just prepared. As bag
+after bag was emptied, airy tufts of down and feathers floated about the
+room in increasing quantity till, through a mishap of Christian's, who
+shook the contents of one bag outside the tick, the atmosphere of the
+room became dense with gigantic flakes, which descended upon the workers
+like a windless snowstorm.
+
+"I never saw such a clumsy chap as you, Christian," said Grandfer
+Cantle severely. "You might have been the son of a man that's never been
+outside Blooms-End in his life for all the wit you have. Really all the
+soldiering and smartness in the world in the father seems to count for
+nothing in forming the nater of the son. As far as that chief Christian
+is concerned I might as well have stayed at home and seed nothing,
+like all the rest of ye here. Though, as far as myself is concerned, a
+dashing spirit has counted for sommat, to be sure!"
+
+"Don't ye let me down so, Father; I feel no bigger than a ninepin after
+it. I've made but a bruckle hit, I'm afeard."
+
+"Come, come. Never pitch yerself in such a low key as that, Christian;
+you should try more," said Fairway.
+
+"Yes, you should try more," echoed the Grandfer with insistence, as
+if he had been the first to make the suggestion. "In common conscience
+every man ought either to marry or go for a soldier. 'Tis a scandal to
+the nation to do neither one nor t'other. I did both, thank God! Neither
+to raise men nor to lay 'em low--that shows a poor do-nothing spirit
+indeed."
+
+"I never had the nerve to stand fire," faltered Christian. "But as to
+marrying, I own I've asked here and there, though without much fruit
+from it. Yes, there's some house or other that might have had a man for
+a master--such as he is--that's now ruled by a woman alone. Still it
+might have been awkward if I had found her; for, d'ye see, neighbours,
+there'd have been nobody left at home to keep down Father's spirits to
+the decent pitch that becomes a old man."
+
+"And you've your work cut out to do that, my son," said Grandfer Cantle
+smartly. "I wish that the dread of infirmities was not so strong in
+me!--I'd start the very first thing tomorrow to see the world over
+again! But seventy-one, though nothing at home, is a high figure for a
+rover.... Ay, seventy-one, last Candlemasday. Gad, I'd sooner have it in
+guineas than in years!" And the old man sighed.
+
+"Don't you be mournful, Grandfer," said Fairway. "Empt some more
+feathers into the bed-tick, and keep up yer heart. Though rather lean in
+the stalks you be a green-leaved old man still. There's time enough left
+to ye yet to fill whole chronicles."
+
+"Begad, I'll go to 'em, Timothy--to the married pair!" said Granfer
+Cantle in an encouraged voice, and starting round briskly. "I'll go to
+'em tonight and sing a wedding song, hey? 'Tis like me to do so, you
+know; and they'd see it as such. My 'Down in Cupid's Gardens' was well
+liked in four; still, I've got others as good, and even better. What do
+you say to my
+
+     She cal'-led to' her love'
+     From the lat'-tice a-bove,
+     'O come in' from the fog-gy fog'-gy dew'.'
+
+'Twould please 'em well at such a time! Really, now I come to think of
+it, I haven't turned my tongue in my head to the shape of a real good
+song since Old Midsummer night, when we had the 'Barley Mow' at the
+Woman; and 'tis a pity to neglect your strong point where there's few
+that have the compass for such things!"
+
+"So 'tis, so 'tis," said Fairway. "Now gie the bed a shake down. We've
+put in seventy pounds of best feathers, and I think that's as many as
+the tick will fairly hold. A bit and a drap wouldn't be amiss now, I
+reckon. Christian, maul down the victuals from corner-cupboard if canst
+reach, man, and I'll draw a drap o' sommat to wet it with."
+
+They sat down to a lunch in the midst of their work, feathers around,
+above, and below them; the original owners of which occasionally came
+to the open door and cackled begrudgingly at sight of such a quantity of
+their old clothes.
+
+"Upon my soul I shall be chokt," said Fairway when, having extracted a
+feather from his mouth, he found several others floating on the mug as
+it was handed round.
+
+"I've swallered several; and one had a tolerable quill," said Sam
+placidly from the corner.
+
+"Hullo--what's that--wheels I hear coming?" Grandfer Cantle exclaimed,
+jumping up and hastening to the door. "Why, 'tis they back again--I
+didn't expect 'em yet this half-hour. To be sure, how quick marrying can
+be done when you are in the mind for't!"
+
+"O yes, it can soon be DONE," said Fairway, as if something should be
+added to make the statement complete.
+
+He arose and followed the Grandfer, and the rest also went to the door.
+In a moment an open fly was driven past, in which sat Venn and Mrs.
+Venn, Yeobright, and a grand relative of Venn's who had come from
+Budmouth for the occasion. The fly had been hired at the nearest town,
+regardless of distance and cost, there being nothing on Egdon Heath, in
+Venn's opinion, dignified enough for such an event when such a woman
+as Thomasin was the bride; and the church was too remote for a walking
+bridal-party.
+
+As the fly passed the group which had run out from the homestead they
+shouted "Hurrah!" and waved their hands; feathers and down floating
+from their hair, their sleeves, and the folds of their garments at every
+motion, and Grandfer Cantle's seals dancing merrily in the sunlight as
+he twirled himself about. The driver of the fly turned a supercilious
+gaze upon them; he even treated the wedded pair themselves with
+something like condescension; for in what other state than heathen could
+people, rich or poor, exist who were doomed to abide in such a world's
+end as Egdon? Thomasin showed no such superiority to the group at the
+door, fluttering her hand as quickly as a bird's wing towards them, and
+asking Diggory, with tears in her eyes, if they ought not to alight and
+speak to these kind neighbours. Venn, however, suggested that, as they
+were all coming to the house in the evening, this was hardly necessary.
+
+After this excitement the saluting party returned to their occupation,
+and the stuffing and sewing were soon afterwards finished, when Fairway
+harnessed a horse, wrapped up the cumbrous present, and drove off with
+it in the cart to Venn's house at Stickleford.
+
+
+Yeobright, having filled the office at the wedding service which
+naturally fell to his hands, and afterwards returned to the house with
+the husband and wife, was indisposed to take part in the feasting and
+dancing that wound up the evening. Thomasin was disappointed.
+
+"I wish I could be there without dashing your spirits," he said. "But I
+might be too much like the skull at the banquet."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"Well, dear, apart from that, if you would excuse me, I should be glad.
+I know it seems unkind; but, dear Thomasin, I fear I should not be happy
+in the company--there, that's the truth of it. I shall always be coming
+to see you at your new home, you know, so that my absence now will not
+matter."
+
+"Then I give in. Do whatever will be most comfortable to yourself."
+
+Clym retired to his lodging at the housetop much relieved, and occupied
+himself during the afternoon in noting down the heads of a sermon, with
+which he intended to initiate all that really seemed practicable of the
+scheme that had originally brought him hither, and that he had so long
+kept in view under various modifications, and through evil and good
+report. He had tested and weighed his convictions again and again, and
+saw no reason to alter them, though he had considerably lessened his
+plan. His eyesight, by long humouring in his native air, had grown
+stronger, but not sufficiently strong to warrant his attempting his
+extensive educational project. Yet he did not repine--there was still
+more than enough of an unambitious sort to tax all his energies and
+occupy all his hours.
+
+Evening drew on, and sounds of life and movement in the lower part of
+the domicile became more pronounced, the gate in the palings clicking
+incessantly. The party was to be an early one, and all the guests
+were assembled long before it was dark. Yeobright went down the back
+staircase and into the heath by another path than that in front,
+intending to walk in the open air till the party was over, when he would
+return to wish Thomasin and her husband good-bye as they departed. His
+steps were insensibly bent towards Mistover by the path that he had
+followed on that terrible morning when he learnt the strange news from
+Susan's boy.
+
+He did not turn aside to the cottage, but pushed on to an eminence,
+whence he could see over the whole quarter that had once been Eustacia's
+home. While he stood observing the darkening scene somebody came up.
+Clym, seeing him but dimly, would have let him pass silently, had not
+the pedestrian, who was Charley, recognized the young man and spoken to
+him.
+
+"Charley, I have not seen you for a length of time," said Yeobright. "Do
+you often walk this way?"
+
+"No," the lad replied. "I don't often come outside the bank."
+
+"You were not at the Maypole."
+
+"No," said Charley, in the same listless tone. "I don't care for that
+sort of thing now."
+
+"You rather liked Miss Eustacia, didn't you?" Yeobright gently asked.
+Eustacia had frequently told him of Charley's romantic attachment.
+
+"Yes, very much. Ah, I wish--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I wish, Mr. Yeobright, you could give me something to keep that once
+belonged to her--if you don't mind."
+
+"I shall be very happy to. It will give me very great pleasure, Charley.
+Let me think what I have of hers that you would like. But come with me
+to the house, and I'll see."
+
+They walked towards Blooms-End together. When they reached the front it
+was dark, and the shutters were closed, so that nothing of the interior
+could be seen.
+
+"Come round this way," said Clym. "My entrance is at the back for the
+present."
+
+The two went round and ascended the crooked stair in darkness till
+Clym's sitting-room on the upper floor was reached, where he lit a
+candle, Charley entering gently behind. Yeobright searched his desk,
+and taking out a sheet of tissue-paper unfolded from it two or three
+undulating locks of raven hair, which fell over the paper like black
+streams. From these he selected one, wrapped it up, and gave it to the
+lad, whose eyes had filled with tears. He kissed the packet, put it in
+his pocket, and said in a voice of emotion, "O, Mr. Clym, how good you
+are to me!"
+
+"I will go a little way with you," said Clym. And amid the noise of
+merriment from below they descended. Their path to the front led them
+close to a little side window, whence the rays of candles streamed
+across the shrubs. The window, being screened from general observation
+by the bushes, had been left unblinded, so that a person in this private
+nook could see all that was going on within the room which contained
+the wedding guests, except in so far as vision was hindered by the green
+antiquity of the panes.
+
+"Charley, what are they doing?" said Clym. "My sight is weaker again
+tonight, and the glass of this window is not good."
+
+Charley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred with moisture, and
+stepped closer to the casement. "Mr. Venn is asking Christian Cantle to
+sing," he replied, "and Christian is moving about in his chair as if
+he were much frightened at the question, and his father has struck up a
+stave instead of him."
+
+"Yes, I can hear the old man's voice," said Clym. "So there's to be no
+dancing, I suppose. And is Thomasin in the room? I see something moving
+in front of the candles that resembles her shape, I think."
+
+"Yes. She do seem happy. She is red in the face, and laughing at
+something Fairway has said to her. O my!"
+
+"What noise was that?" said Clym.
+
+"Mr. Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against the beam in gieing
+a skip as he passed under. Mrs. Venn has run up quite frightened and now
+she's put her hand to his head to feel if there's a lump. And now they
+be all laughing again as if nothing had happened."
+
+"Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?" Clym asked.
+
+"No, not a bit in the world. Now they are all holding up their glasses
+and drinking somebody's health."
+
+"I wonder if it is mine?"
+
+"No, 'tis Mr. and Mrs. Venn's, because he is making a hearty sort of
+speech. There--now Mrs. Venn has got up, and is going away to put on her
+things, I think."
+
+"Well, they haven't concerned themselves about me, and it is quite right
+they should not. It is all as it should be, and Thomasin at least is
+happy. We will not stay any longer now, as they will soon be coming out
+to go home."
+
+He accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home, and, returning
+alone to the house a quarter of an hour later, found Venn and Thomasin
+ready to start, all the guests having departed in his absence. The
+wedded pair took their seats in the four-wheeled dogcart which Venn's
+head milker and handy man had driven from Stickleford to fetch them in;
+little Eustacia and the nurse were packed securely upon the open flap
+behind; and the milker, on an ancient overstepping pony, whose shoes
+clashed like cymbals at every tread, rode in the rear, in the manner of
+a body-servant of the last century.
+
+"Now we leave you in absolute possession of your own house again," said
+Thomasin as she bent down to wish her cousin good night. "It will be
+rather lonely for you, Clym, after the hubbub we have been making."
+
+"O, that's no inconvenience," said Clym, smiling rather sadly. And then
+the party drove off and vanished in the night shades, and Yeobright
+entered the house. The ticking of the clock was the only sound that
+greeted him, for not a soul remained; Christian, who acted as cook,
+valet, and gardener to Clym, sleeping at his father's house. Yeobright
+sat down in one of the vacant chairs, and remained in thought a long
+time. His mother's old chair was opposite; it had been sat in that
+evening by those who had scarcely remembered that it ever was hers. But
+to Clym she was almost a presence there, now as always. Whatever she
+was in other people's memories, in his she was the sublime saint whose
+radiance even his tenderness for Eustacia could not obscure. But his
+heart was heavy, that Mother had NOT crowned him in the day of his
+espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart. And events had
+borne out the accuracy of her judgment, and proved the devotedness of
+her care. He should have heeded her for Eustacia's sake even more than
+for his own. "It was all my fault," he whispered. "O, my mother, my
+mother! would to God that I could live my life again, and endure for you
+what you endured for me!"
+
+
+On the Sunday after this wedding an unusual sight was to be seen on
+Rainbarrow. From a distance there simply appeared to be a motionless
+figure standing on the top of the tumulus, just as Eustacia had stood on
+that lonely summit some two years and a half before. But now it was fine
+warm weather, with only a summer breeze blowing, and early afternoon
+instead of dull twilight. Those who ascended to the immediate
+neighbourhood of the Barrow perceived that the erect form in the centre,
+piercing the sky, was not really alone. Round him upon the slopes of the
+Barrow a number of heathmen and women were reclining or sitting at their
+ease. They listened to the words of the man in their midst, who was
+preaching, while they abstractedly pulled heather, stripped ferns, or
+tossed pebbles down the slope. This was the first of a series of moral
+lectures or Sermons on the Mount, which were to be delivered from the
+same place every Sunday afternoon as long as the fine weather lasted.
+
+The commanding elevation of Rainbarrow had been chosen for two reasons:
+first, that it occupied a central position among the remote cottages
+around; secondly, that the preacher thereon could be seen from all
+adjacent points as soon as he arrived at his post, the view of him being
+thus a convenient signal to those stragglers who wished to draw near.
+The speaker was bareheaded, and the breeze at each waft gently lifted
+and lowered his hair, somewhat too thin for a man of his years, these
+still numbering less than thirty-three. He wore a shade over his eyes,
+and his face was pensive and lined; but, though these bodily features
+were marked with decay there was no defect in the tones of his voice,
+which were rich, musical, and stirring. He stated that his discourses to
+people were to be sometimes secular, and sometimes religious, but never
+dogmatic; and that his texts would be taken from all kinds of books.
+This afternoon the words were as follows:--
+
+"'And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat
+down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king's mother;
+and she sat on his right hand. Then she said, I desire one small
+petition of thee; I pray thee say me not nay. And the king said unto
+her, Ask, on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay.'"
+
+
+Yeobright had, in fact, found his vocation in the career of an itinerant
+open-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable subjects; and
+from this day he laboured incessantly in that office, speaking not only
+in simple language on Rainbarrow and in the hamlets round, but in a more
+cultivated strain elsewhere--from the steps and porticoes of town halls,
+from market-crosses, from conduits, on esplanades and on wharves, from
+the parapets of bridges, in barns and outhouses, and all other such
+places in the neighbouring Wessex towns and villages. He left alone
+creeds and systems of philosophy, finding enough and more than enough
+to occupy his tongue in the opinions and actions common to all good men.
+Some believed him, and some believed not; some said that his words were
+commonplace, others complained of his want of theological doctrine;
+while others again remarked that it was well enough for a man to take to
+preaching who could not see to do anything else. But everywhere he was
+kindly received, for the story of his life had become generally known.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RETURN OF THE NATIVE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 122.txt or 122.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/122/
+
+Produced by John Hamm and David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/old/nativ10.txt b/old/old/nativ10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7dea333
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/nativ10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,19173 @@
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy
+
+April, 1994  [Etext #122]
+
+
+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy**
+*********This file should be named nativ10.txt or nativ10.zip**********
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, nativ11.txt.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, nativ10a.txt.
+
+
+     Prepared by John Hamm <John_Hamm@MindLink.bc.ca>
+
+     Scanned with OmniPage Professional OCR software
+               donated by Caere Corporation.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, for time for better editing.  We
+have this as a goal to accomplish by the end of the year but we
+cannot guarantee to stay that far ahead every month after that.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $4
+million dollars per hour this year as we release some eight text
+files per month:  thus upping our productivity from $2 million.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end
+of the year 2001.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois
+Benedictine College).  (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go
+to IBC, too)
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive
+Director:
+hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (internet)   hart@uiucvmd   (bitnet)
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email
+(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
+
+******
+If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
+FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
+[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
+
+ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
+login:  anonymous
+password:  your@login
+cd etext/etext91
+or cd etext92
+or cd etext93 [for new books]  [now also in cd etext/etext93]
+or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET 0INDEX.GUT
+for a list of books
+and
+GET NEW GUT for general information
+and
+MGET GUT* for newsletters.
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois
+     Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Illinois Benedictine College".
+
+This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney
+Internet (72600.2026@compuserve.com); TEL: (212-254-5093)
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+The Return of the Native
+by Thomas Hardy
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The date at which the following events are assumed to
+have occurred may be set down as between 1840 and 1850,
+when the old watering place herein called "Budmouth" still
+retained sufficient afterglow from its Georgian gaiety
+and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to
+the romantic and imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland.
+
+Under the general name of "Egdon Heath," which has been
+given to the sombre scene of the story, are united
+or typified heaths of various real names, to the number
+of at least a dozen; these being virtually one in character
+and aspect, though their original unity, or partial unity,
+is now somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and slices
+brought under the plough with varying degrees of success,
+or planted to woodland.
+
+It is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive
+tract whose southwestern quarter is here described,
+may be the heath of that traditionary King of Wessex--Lear.
+
+
+July, 1895.
+
+
+
+
+
+         "To sorrow
+          I bade good morrow,
+And thought to leave her far away behind;
+          But cheerly, cheerly,
+          She loves me dearly;
+She is so constant to me, and so kind.
+          I would deceive her,
+          And so leave her,
+But ah! she is so constant and so kind."
+
+
+
+book one
+
+THE THREE WOMEN
+
+
+
+1 - A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression
+
+
+A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time
+of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known
+as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment.
+Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting
+out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath
+for its floor.
+
+The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the
+earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line
+at the horizon was clearly marked.  In such contrast
+the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night
+which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour
+was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon,
+while day stood distinct in the sky.  Looking upwards,
+a furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work;
+looking down, he would have decided to finish his
+faggot and go home.  The distant rims of the world
+and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time no
+less than a division in matter.  The face of the heath
+by its mere complexion added half an hour to evening;
+it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon,
+anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated,
+and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause
+of shaking and dread.
+
+In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its
+nightly roll into darkness the great and particular glory
+of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be said to
+understand the heath who had not been there at such a time.
+It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen,
+its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the
+succeeding hours before the next dawn; then, and only then,
+did it tell its true tale.  The spot was, indeed, a near
+relation of night, and when night showed itself an apparent
+tendency to gravitate together could be perceived in its
+shades and the scene.  The sombre stretch of rounds
+and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom
+in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly
+as the heavens precipitated it.  And so the obscurity
+in the air and the obscurity in the land closed together
+in a black fraternization towards which each advanced halfway.
+
+The place became full of a watchful intentness now;
+for when other things sank blooding to sleep the heath
+appeared slowly to awake and listen.  Every night
+its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it
+had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries,
+through the crises of so many things, that it could only
+be imagined to await one last crisis--the final overthrow.
+
+It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who
+loved it with an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity.
+Smiling champaigns of flowers and fruit hardly do this,
+for they are permanently harmonious only with an existence
+of better reputation as to its issues than the present. 
+Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath
+to evolve a thing majestic without severity, impressive
+without showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand in
+its simplicity.  The qualifications which frequently
+invest the facade of a prison with far more dignity
+than is found in the facade of a palace double its size
+lent to this heath a sublimity in which spots renowned
+for beauty of the accepted kind are utterly wanting. 
+Fair prospects wed happily with fair times; but alas,
+if times be not fair! Men have oftener suffered from,
+the mockery of a place too smiling for their reason than
+from the oppression of surroundings oversadly tinged. 
+Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler and scarcer instinct,
+to a more recently learnt emotion, than that which responds
+to the sort of beauty called charming and fair.
+
+Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this
+orthodox beauty is not approaching its last quarter.
+The new Vale of Tempe may be a gaunt waste in Thule;
+human souls may find themselves in closer and closer harmony
+with external things wearing a sombreness distasteful
+to our race when it was young.  The time seems near,
+if it has not actually arrived, when the chastened
+sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a mountain will be all
+of nature that is absolutely in keeping with the moods
+of the more thinking among mankind.  And ultimately,
+to the commonest tourist, spots like Iceland may become
+what the vineyards and myrtle gardens of South Europe
+are to him now; and Heidelberg and Baden be passed
+unheeded as he hastens from the Alps to the sand dunes
+of Scheveningen. 
+
+The most thoroughgoing ascetic could feel that he had
+a natural right to wander on Egdon--he was keeping within
+the line of legitimate indulgence when he laid himself
+open to influences such as these.  Colours and beauties
+so far subdued were, at least, the birthright of all. 
+Only in summer days of highest feather did its mood
+touch the level of gaiety.  Intensity was more usually
+reached by way of the solemn than by way of the brilliant,
+and such a sort of intensity was often arrived at during
+winter darkness, tempests, and mists.  Then Egdon was aroused
+to reciprocity; for the storm was its lover, and the wind
+its friend.  Then it became the home of strange phantoms;
+and it was found to be the hitherto unrecognized original
+of those wild regions of obscurity which are vaguely felt
+to be compassing us about in midnight dreams of flight
+and disaster, and are never thought of after the dream
+till revived by scenes like this.
+
+It was at present a place perfectly accordant with
+man's nature--neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly;
+neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man,
+slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal
+and mysterious in its swarthy monotony.  As with some
+persons who have long lived apart, solitude seemed
+to look out of its countenance.  It had a lonely face,
+suggesting tragical possibilities. 
+
+This obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in Domesday.
+Its condition is recorded therein as that of heathy, furzy,
+briary wilderness--"Bruaria."  Then follows the length
+and breadth in leagues; and, though some uncertainty exists
+as to the exact extent of this ancient lineal measure,
+it appears from the figures that the area of Egdon
+down to the present day has but little diminished. 
+"Turbaria Bruaria"--the right of cutting heath-turf--occurs
+in charters relating to the district.  "Overgrown with
+heth and mosse," says Leland of the same dark sweep of country. 
+
+Here at least were intelligible facts regarding
+landscape--far-reaching proofs productive of genuine
+satisfaction.  The untameable, Ishmaelitish thing that Egdon
+now was it always had been.  Civilization was its enemy;
+and ever since the beginning of vegetation its soil
+had worn the same antique brown dress, the natural
+and invariable garment of the particular formation. 
+In its venerable one coat lay a certain vein of satire
+on human vanity in clothes.  A person on a heath in
+raiment of modern cut and colours has more or less an
+anomalous look.  We seem to want the oldest and simplest
+human clothing where the clothing of the earth is so primitive.
+
+To recline on a stump of thorn in the central valley
+of Egdon, between afternoon and night, as now, where the
+eye could reach nothing of the world outside the summits
+and shoulders of heathland which filled the whole
+circumference of its glance, and to know that everything
+around and underneath had been from prehistoric times as
+unaltered as the stars overhead, gave ballast to the mind
+adrift on change, and harassed by the irrepressible New. 
+The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence which
+the sea cannot claim.  Who can say of a particular sea
+that it is old?  Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon,
+it is renewed in a year, in a day, or in an hour. 
+The sea changed, the fields changed, the rivers,
+the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained. 
+Those surfaces were neither so steep as to be destructible
+by weather, nor so flat as to be the victims of floods
+and deposits.  With the exception of an aged highway,
+and a still more aged barrow presently to be referred
+to--themselves almost crystallized to natural products
+by long continuance--even the trifling irregularities
+were not caused by pickaxe, plough, or spade, but remained
+as the very finger-touches of the last geological change. 
+
+The above-mentioned highway traversed the lower levels
+of the heath, from one horizon to another.  In many
+portions of its course it overlaid an old vicinal way,
+which branched from the great Western road of the Romans,
+the Via Iceniana, or Ikenild Street, hard by. 
+On the evening under consideration it would have been
+noticed that, though the gloom had increased sufficiently
+to confuse the minor features of the heath, the white
+surface of the road remained almost as clear as ever. 
+
+
+
+2 - Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble
+
+
+Along the road walked an old man.  He was white-headed
+as a mountain, bowed in the shoulders, and faded
+in general aspect.  He wore a glazed hat, an ancient
+boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons bearing an
+anchor upon their face.  In his hand was a silver-headed
+walking stick, which he used as a veritable third leg,
+perseveringly dotting the ground with its point at every
+few inches' interval.  One would have said that he had been,
+in his day, a naval officer of some sort or other. 
+
+Before him stretched the long, laborious road, dry, empty,
+and white.  It was quite open to the heath on each side,
+and bisected that vast dark surface like the parting-line
+on a head of black hair, diminishing and bending away
+on the furthest horizon. 
+
+The old man frequently stretched his eyes ahead to gaze
+over the tract that he had yet to traverse.  At length
+he discerned, a long distance in front of him, a moving spot,
+which appeared to be a vehicle, and it proved to be going
+the same way as that in which he himself was journeying. 
+It was the single atom of life that the scene contained,
+and it only served to render the general loneliness
+more evident.  Its rate of advance was slow, and the old
+man gained upon it sensibly. 
+
+When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van,
+ordinary in shape, but singular in colour, this being a
+lurid red.  The driver walked beside it; and, like his van,
+he was completely red.  One dye of that tincture covered
+his clothes, the cap upon his head, his boots, his face,
+and his hands.  He was not temporarily overlaid with
+the colour; it permeated him. 
+
+The old man knew the meaning of this.  The traveller
+with the cart was a reddleman--a person whose vocation
+it was to supply farmers with redding for their sheep. 
+He was one of a class rapidly becoming extinct in Wessex,
+filling at present in the rural world the place which,
+during the last century, the dodo occupied in the world
+of animals.  He is a curious, interesting, and nearly
+perished link between obsolete forms of life and those which
+generally prevail. 
+
+The decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his
+fellow-wayfarer, and wished him good evening.  The reddleman
+turned his head, and replied in sad and occupied tones. 
+He was young, and his face, if not exactly handsome,
+approached so near to handsome that nobody would have
+contradicted an assertion that it really was so in its
+natural colour.  His eye, which glared so strangely
+through his stain, was in itself attractive--keen
+as that of a bird of prey, and blue as autumn mist. 
+He had neither whisker nor moustache, which allowed the soft
+curves of the lower part of his face to be apparent. 
+His lips were thin, and though, as it seemed, compressed
+by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at their corners
+now and then.  He was clothed throughout in a tight-fitting
+suit of corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn,
+and well-chosen for its purpose, but deprived of its
+original colour by his trade.  It showed to advantage the
+good shape of his figure.  A certain well-to-do air about
+the man suggested that he was not poor for his degree. 
+The natural query of an observer would have been,
+Why should such a promising being as this have hidden
+his prepossessing exterior by adopting that singular occupation?
+
+After replying to the old man's greeting he showed no
+inclination to continue in talk, although they still
+walked side by side, for the elder traveller seemed
+to desire company.  There were no sounds but that of the
+booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around them,
+the crackling wheels, the tread of the men, and the
+footsteps of the two shaggy ponies which drew the van. 
+They were small, hardy animals, of a breed between Galloway
+and Exmoor, and were known as "heath-croppers" here. 
+
+Now, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman occasionally
+left his companion's side, and, stepping behind the van,
+looked into its interior through a small window.  The look
+was always anxious.  He would then return to the old man,
+who made another remark about the state of the country
+and so on, to which the reddleman again abstractedly
+replied, and then again they would lapse into silence. 
+The silence conveyed to neither any sense of awkwardness;
+in these lonely places wayfarers, after a first greeting,
+frequently plod on for miles without speech; contiguity amounts
+to a tacit conversation where, otherwise than in cities,
+such contiguity can be put an end to on the merest inclination,
+and where not to put an end to it is intercourse in itself. 
+
+Possibly these two might not have spoken again till their parting,
+had it not been for the reddleman's visits to his van. 
+When he returned from his fifth time of looking in the old
+man said, "You have something inside there besides your load?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Somebody who wants looking after?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Not long after this a faint cry sounded from the interior. 
+The reddleman hastened to the back, looked in, and came
+away again. 
+
+"You have a child there, my man?"
+
+"No, sir, I have a woman."
+
+"The deuce you have! Why did she cry out?"
+
+"Oh, she has fallen asleep, and not being used to traveling,
+she's uneasy, and keeps dreaming."
+
+"A young woman?"
+
+"Yes, a young woman."
+
+"That would have interested me forty years ago. 
+Perhaps she's your wife?"
+
+"My wife!" said the other bitterly.  "She's above mating
+with such as I. But there's no reason why I should tell
+you about that."
+
+"That's true.  And there's no reason why you should not. 
+What harm can I do to you or to her?"
+
+The reddleman looked in the old man's face.  "Well, sir,"
+he said at last, "I knew her before today, though perhaps
+it would have been better if I had not.  But she's
+nothing to me, and I am nothing to her; and she wouldn't
+have been in my van if any better carriage had been there
+to take her."
+
+"Where, may I ask?"
+
+"At Anglebury."
+
+"I know the town well.  What was she doing there?"
+
+"Oh, not much--to gossip about.  However, she's tired to death now,
+and not at all well, and that's what makes her so restless. 
+She dropped off into a nap about an hour ago, and 'twill do her good."
+
+"A nice-looking girl, no doubt?"
+
+"You would say so."
+
+The other traveller turned his eyes with interest
+towards the van window, and, without withdrawing them,
+said, "I presume I might look in upon her?"
+
+"No," said the reddleman abruptly.  "It is getting too
+dark for you to see much of her; and, more than that,
+I have no right to allow you.  Thank God she sleeps so well,
+I hope she won't wake till she's home."
+
+"Who is she?  One of the neighbourhood?"
+
+"'Tis no matter who, excuse me."
+
+"It is not that girl of Blooms-End, who has been talked
+about more or less lately?  If so, I know her; and I can
+guess what has happened."
+
+"'Tis no matter....Now, sir, I am sorry to say that we
+shall soon have to part company.  My ponies are tired,
+and I have further to go, and I am going to rest them
+under this bank for an hour."
+
+The elder traveller nodded his head indifferently,
+and the reddleman turned his horses and van in upon
+the turf, saying, "Good night."  The old man replied,
+and proceeded on his way as before. 
+
+The reddleman watched his form as it diminished to a
+speck on the road and became absorbed in the thickening
+films of night.  He then took some hay from a truss
+which was slung up under the van, and, throwing a portion
+of it in front of the horses, made a pad of the rest,
+which he laid on the ground beside his vehicle. 
+Upon this he sat down, leaning his back against the wheel. 
+From the interior a low soft breathing came to his ear. 
+It appeared to satisfy him, and he musingly surveyed
+the scene, as if considering the next step that he
+should take.
+
+To do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed,
+to be a duty in the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour,
+for there was that in the condition of the heath itself
+which resembled protracted and halting dubiousness. 
+It was the quality of the repose appertaining to the scene. 
+This was not the repose of actual stagnation, but the
+apparent repose of incredible slowness.  A condition
+of healthy life so nearly resembling the torpor of death
+is a noticeable thing of its sort; to exhibit the inertness
+of the desert, and at the same time to be exercising powers
+akin to those of the meadow, and even of the forest,
+awakened in those who thought of it the attentiveness
+usually engendered by understatement and reserve. 
+
+The scene before the reddleman's eyes was a gradual series
+of ascents from the level of the road backward into the
+heart of the heath.  It embraced hillocks, pits, ridges,
+acclivities, one behind the other, till all was finished
+by a high hill cutting against the still light sky. 
+The traveller's eye hovered about these things for a time,
+and finally settled upon one noteworthy object up there. 
+It was a barrow.  This bossy projection of earth above
+its natural level occupied the loftiest ground of the
+loneliest height that the heath contained.  Although from
+the vale it appeared but as a wart on an Atlantean brow,
+its actual bulk was great.  It formed the pole and axis
+of this heathery world. 
+
+As the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware
+that its summit, hitherto the highest object in the whole
+prospect round, was surmounted by something higher.  It rose
+from the semiglobular mound like a spike from a helmet. 
+The first instinct of an imaginative stranger might have
+been to suppose it the person of one of the Celts who
+built the barrow, so far had all of modern date withdrawn
+from the scene.  It seemed a sort of last man among them,
+musing for a moment before dropping into eternal night
+with the rest of his race. 
+
+There the form stood, motionless as the hill beneath. 
+Above the plain rose the hill, above the hill rose
+the barrow, and above the barrow rose the figure. 
+Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped elsewhere
+than on a celestial globe.
+
+Such a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did
+the figure give to the dark pile of hills that it seemed
+to be the only obvious justification of their outline. 
+Without it, there was the dome without the lantern; with it
+the architectural demands of the mass were satisfied. 
+The scene was strangely homogeneous, in that the vale,
+the upland, the barrow, and the figure above it amounted
+only to unity.  Looking at this or that member of the group
+was not observing a complete thing, but a fraction of
+a thing. 
+
+The form was so much like an organic part of the
+entire motionless structure that to see it move would
+have impressed the mind as a strange phenomenon. 
+Immobility being the chief characteristic of that whole
+which the person formed portion of, the discontinuance
+of immobility in any quarter suggested confusion.
+
+Yet that is what happened.  The figure perceptibly gave
+up its fixity, shifted a step or two, and turned round.
+As if alarmed, it descended on the right side of the barrow,
+with the glide of a water-drop down a bud, and then vanished. 
+The movement had been sufficient to show more clearly
+the characteristics of the figure, and that it was a
+woman's.
+
+The reason of her sudden displacement now appeared. 
+With her dropping out of sight on the right side, a newcomer,
+bearing a burden, protruded into the sky on the left side,
+ascended the tumulus, and deposited the burden on the top. 
+A second followed, then a third, a fourth, a fifth,
+and ultimately the whole barrow was peopled with
+burdened figures. 
+
+The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime
+of silhouettes was that the woman had no relation to the forms
+who had taken her place, was sedulously avoiding these,
+and had come thither for another object than theirs.
+The imagination of the observer clung by preference
+to that vanished, solitary figure, as to something
+more interesting, more important, more likely to have a
+history worth knowing than these newcomers, and unconsciously
+regarded them as intruders.  But they remained,
+and established themselves; and the lonely person who hitherto
+had been queen of the solitude did not at present seem likely
+to return.
+
+
+
+3 - The Custom of the Country
+
+
+Had a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity
+of the barrow, he would have learned that these persons
+were boys and men of the neighbouring hamlets. 
+Each, as he ascended the barrow, had been heavily laden
+with furze faggots, carried upon the shoulder by means
+of a long stake sharpened at each end for impaling them
+easily--two in front and two behind.  They came from
+a part of the heath a quarter of a mile to the rear,
+where furze almost exclusively prevailed as a product. 
+
+Every individual was so involved in furze by his method
+of carrying the faggots that he appeared like a bush on
+legs till he had thrown them down.  The party had marched
+in trail, like a travelling flock of sheep; that is to say,
+the strongest first, the weak and young behind.
+
+The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze
+thirty feet in circumference now occupied the crown
+of the tumulus, which was known as Rainbarrow for many
+miles round.  Some made themselves busy with matches,
+and in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in
+loosening the bramble bonds which held the faggots together. 
+Others, again, while this was in progress, lifted their
+eyes and swept the vast expanse of country commanded
+by their position, now lying nearly obliterated by shade. 
+In the valleys of the heath nothing save its own wild
+face was visible at any time of day; but this spot
+commanded a horizon enclosing a tract of far extent,
+and in many cases lying beyond the heath country. 
+None of its features could be seen now, but the whole
+made itself felt as a vague stretch of remoteness. 
+
+While the men and lads were building the pile,
+a change took place in the mass of shade which denoted
+the distant landscape.  Red suns and tufts of fire one
+by one began to arise, flecking the whole country round.
+They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets
+that were engaged in the same sort of commemoration. 
+Some were distant, and stood in a dense atmosphere,
+so that bundles of pale straw-like beams radiated around
+them in the shape of a fan.  Some were large and near,
+glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. 
+Some were Maenades, with winy faces and blown hair. 
+These tinctured the silent bosom of the clouds above
+them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which seemed
+thenceforth to become scalding caldrons.  Perhaps as many
+as thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole
+bounds of the district; and as the hour may be told on
+a clock-face when the figures themselves are invisible,
+so did the men recognize the locality of each fire by its
+angle and direction, though nothing of the scenery could
+be viewed. 
+
+The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky,
+attracting all eyes that had been fixed on the distant
+conflagrations back to their own attempt in the same kind. 
+The cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface of the human
+circle--now increased by other stragglers, male and female--with
+its own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark turf
+around with a lively luminousness, which softened off into
+obscurity where the barrow rounded downwards out of sight. 
+It showed the barrow to be the segment of a globe,
+as perfect as on the day when it was thrown up, even the
+little ditch remaining from which the earth was dug. 
+Not a plough had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn soil. 
+In the heath's barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility
+to the historian.  There had been no obliteration,
+because there had been no tending. 
+
+It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some
+radiant upper story of the world, detached from and
+independent of the dark stretches below.  The heath down
+there was now a vast abyss, and no longer a continuation
+of what they stood on; for their eyes, adapted to the blaze,
+could see nothing of the deeps beyond its influence.
+Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than usual
+from their faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp
+down the inclines to some distant bush, pool, or patch
+of white sand, kindling these to replies of the same colour,
+till all was lost in darkness again.  Then the whole black
+phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the brink
+by the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered
+articulations of the wind in the hollows were as complaints
+and petitions from the "souls of mighty worth" suspended therein. 
+
+It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into
+past ages, and fetched therefrom an hour and deed which had
+before been familiar with this spot.  The ashes of the
+original British pyre which blazed from that summit lay
+fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their tread. 
+The flames from funeral piles long ago kindled there had
+shone down upon the lowlands as these were shining now. 
+Festival fires to Thor and Woden had followed on the same
+ground and duly had their day.  Indeed, it is pretty
+well known that such blazes as this the heathmen were now
+enjoying are rather the lineal descendants from jumbled
+Druidical rites and Saxon ceremonies than the invention
+of popular feeling about Gunpowder Plot. 
+
+Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant
+act of man when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is
+sounded throughout Nature.  It indicates a spontaneous,
+Promethean rebelliousness against that fiat that this
+recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness,
+misery and death.  Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods
+of the earth say, Let there be light. 
+
+The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled
+upon the skin and clothes of the persons standing round
+caused their lineaments and general contours to be drawn
+with Dureresque vigour and dash.  Yet the permanent moral
+expression of each face it was impossible to discover,
+for as the nimble flames towered, nodded, and swooped
+through the surrounding air, the blots of shade and flakes
+of light upon the countenances of the group changed shape
+and position endlessly.  All was unstable; quivering as leaves,
+evanescent as lightning.  Shadowy eye-sockets, deep
+as those of a death's head, suddenly turned into pits of
+lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining;
+wrinkles were emphasized to ravines, or obliterated
+entirely by a changed ray.  Nostrils were dark wells;
+sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings; things with no
+particular polish on them were glazed; bright objects,
+such as the tip of a furze-hook one of the men carried,
+were as glass; eyeballs glowed like little lanterns. 
+Those whom Nature had depicted as merely quaint
+became grotesque, the grotesque became preternatural;
+for all was in extremity. 
+
+Hence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like
+others been called to the heights by the rising flames,
+was not really the mere nose and chin that it appeared
+to be, but an appreciable quantity of human countenance.
+He stood complacently sunning himself in the heat. 
+With a speaker, or stake, he tossed the outlying scraps of fuel
+into the conflagration, looking at the midst of the pile,
+occasionally lifting his eyes to measure the height
+of the flame, or to follow the great sparks which rose
+with it and sailed away into darkness.  The beaming sight,
+and the penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a
+cumulative cheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight.
+With his stick in his hand he began to jig a private minuet,
+a bunch of copper seals shining and swinging like a
+pendulum from under his waistcoat: he also began to sing,
+in the voice of a bee up a flue--
+
+
+  "The king' call'd down' his no-bles all',
+     By one', by two', by three';
+  Earl Mar'-shal, I'll' go shrive'-the queen',
+     And thou' shalt wend' with me'.
+
+  "A boon', a boon', quoth Earl' Mar-shal',
+     And fell' on his bend'-ded knee',
+  That what'-so-e'er' the queen' shall say',
+     No harm' there-of' may be'."
+
+
+Want of breath prevented a continuance of the song;
+and the breakdown attracted the attention of a firm-
+standing man of middle age, who kept each corner of his
+crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back into his cheek,
+as if to do away with any suspicion of mirthfulness
+which might erroneously have attached to him.
+
+"A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard 'tis too
+much for the mouldy weasand of such a old man as you,"
+he said to the wrinkled reveller.  "Dostn't wish th'
+wast three sixes again, Grandfer, as you was when you first
+learnt to sing it?"
+
+"Hey?" said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his dance. 
+
+"Dostn't wish wast young again, I say?  There's a hole
+in thy poor bellows nowadays seemingly."
+
+"But there's good art in me?  If I couldn't make
+a little wind go a long ways I should seem no younger
+than the most aged man, should I, Timothy?"
+
+"And how about the new-married folks down there at the
+Quiet Woman Inn?" the other inquired, pointing towards
+a dim light in the direction of the distant highway,
+but considerably apart from where the reddleman was at
+that moment resting.  "What's the rights of the matter
+about 'em?  You ought to know, being an understanding man."
+
+"But a little rakish, hey?  I own to it.  Master Cantle
+is that, or he's nothing.  Yet 'tis a gay fault,
+neigbbour Fairway, that age will cure."
+
+"I heard that they were coming home tonight.  By this
+time they must have come.  What besides?"
+
+"The next thing is for us to go and wish 'em joy,
+I suppose?"
+
+"Well, no."
+
+"No?  Now, I thought we must.  I must, or 'twould be
+very unlike me--the first in every spree that's going!
+
+
+  "Do thou' put on' a fri'-ar's coat',
+     And I'll' put on' a-no'-ther,
+  And we' will to' Queen Ele'anor go',
+     Like Fri'ar and' his bro'ther.
+
+
+I met Mis'ess Yeobright, the young bride's aunt,
+last night, and she told me that her son Clym was coming
+home a' Christmas.  Wonderful clever, 'a believe--ah, I
+should like to have all that's under that young man's hair. 
+Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry way,
+and she said, 'O that what's shaped so venerable should
+talk like a fool!'--that's what she said to me.  I don't
+care for her, be jowned if I do, and so I told her.
+'Be jowned if I care for 'ee,' I said.  I had her there--hey?"
+
+"I rather think she had you," said Fairway. 
+
+"No," said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly flagging. 
+"'Tisn't so bad as that with me?"
+
+"Seemingly 'tis, however, is it because of the wedding
+that Clym is coming home a' Christmas--to make a new
+arrangement because his mother is now left in the house alone?"
+
+"Yes, yes--that's it.  But, Timothy, hearken to me,"
+said the Grandfer earnestly.  "Though known as such a joker,
+I be an understanding man if you catch me serious, and I am
+serious now.  I can tell 'ee lots about the married couple. 
+Yes, this morning at six o'clock they went up the country
+to do the job, and neither vell nor mark have been seen
+of 'em since, though I reckon that this afternoon has
+brought 'em home again man and woman--wife, that is. 
+Isn't it spoke like a man, Timothy, and wasn't Mis'ess
+Yeobright wrong about me?"
+
+"Yes, it will do.  I didn't know the two had walked
+together since last fall, when her aunt forbad the banns. 
+How long has this new set-to been in mangling then?  Do
+you know, Humphrey?"
+
+"Yes, how long?" said Grandfer Cantle smartly,
+likewise turning to Humphrey.  "I ask that question."
+
+"Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might have
+the man after all," replied Humphrey, without removing his
+eyes from the fire.  He was a somewhat solemn young fellow,
+and carried the hook and leather gloves of a furze-cutter,
+his legs, by reason of that occupation, being sheathed
+in bulging leggings as stiff as the Philistine's greaves
+of brass.  "That's why they went away to be married,
+I count.  You see, after kicking up such a nunny-watch
+and forbidding the banns 'twould have made Mis'ess
+Yeobright seem foolish-like to have a banging wedding
+in the same parish all as if she'd never gainsaid it."
+
+"Exactly--seem foolish-like; and that's very bad for the
+poor things that be so, though I only guess as much,
+to be sure," said Grandfer Cantle, still strenuously
+preserving a sensible bearing and mien. 
+
+"Ah, well, I was at church that day," said Fairway,
+"which was a very curious thing to happen."
+
+"If 'twasn't my name's Simple," said the
+Grandfer emphatically.  "I ha'n't been there to-year;
+and now the winter is a-coming on I won't say I shall."
+
+"I ha'n't been these three years," said Humphrey;
+"for I'm so dead sleepy of a Sunday; and 'tis so terrible
+far to get there; and when you do get there 'tis such
+a mortal poor chance that you'll be chose for up above,
+when so many bain't, that I bide at home and don't go
+at all."
+
+"I not only happened to be there," said Fairway,
+with a fresh collection of emphasis, "but I was sitting
+in the same pew as Mis'ess Yeobright.  And though you
+may not see it as such, it fairly made my blood run
+cold to hear her.  Yes, it is a curious thing; but it
+made my blood run cold, for I was close at her elbow."
+The speaker looked round upon the bystanders, now drawing
+closer to hear him, with his lips gathered tighter than
+ever in the rigorousness of his descriptive moderation.
+
+"'Tis a serious job to have things happen to 'ee there,"
+said a woman behind. 
+
+"'Ye are to declare it,' was the parson's words,"
+Fairway continued.  "And then up stood a woman at my
+side--a-touching of me.  'Well, be damned if there isn't Mis'ess
+Yeobright a-standing up,' I said to myself.  Yes, neighbours,
+though I was in the temple of prayer that's what I said. 
+'Tis against my conscience to curse and swear in company,
+and I hope any woman here will overlook it.  Still what
+I did say I did say, and 'twould be a lie if I didn't own it."
+
+"So 'twould, neighbour Fairway."
+
+"'Be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,'
+I said," the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word
+with the same passionless severity of face as before,
+which proved how entirely necessity and not gusto had to
+do with the iteration.  "And the next thing I heard was,
+'I forbid the banns,' from her.  'I'll speak to you
+after the service,' said the parson, in quite a homely
+way--yes, turning all at once into a common man no holier
+than you or I. Ah, her face was pale! Maybe you can
+call to mind that monument in Weatherbury church--the
+cross-legged soldier that have had his arm knocked away
+by the schoolchildren?  Well, he would about have matched
+that woman's face, when she said, 'I forbid the banns.'"
+
+The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks
+into the fire, not because these deeds were urgent,
+but to give themselves time to weigh the moral of the story. 
+
+"I'm sure when I heard they'd been forbid I felt as glad
+as if anybody had gied me sixpence," said an earnest
+voice--that of Olly Dowden, a woman who lived by making
+heath brooms, or besoms.  Her nature was to be civil
+to enemies as well as to friends, and grateful to all
+the world for letting her remain alive. 
+
+"And now the maid have married him just the same,"
+said Humphrey.
+
+"After that Mis'ess Yeobright came round and was
+quite agreeable," Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air,
+to show that his words were no appendage to Humphrey's,
+but the result of independent reflection. 
+
+"Supposing they were ashamed, I don't see why they shouldn't
+have done it here-right," said a wide-spread woman whose
+stays creaked like shoes whenever she stooped or turned. 
+"'Tis well to call the neighbours together and to hae
+a good racket once now and then; and it may as well be
+when there's a wedding as at tide-times. I don't care
+for close ways."
+
+"Ah, now, you'd hardly believe it, but I don't care
+for gay weddings," said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again
+travelling round.  "I hardly blame Thomasin Yeobright and
+neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet, if I must own it. 
+A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by the hour;
+and they do a man's legs no good when he's over forty."
+
+"True. Once at the woman's house you can hardly say nay
+to being one in a jig, knowing all the time that you
+be expected to make yourself worth your victuals."
+
+"You be bound to dance at Christmas because 'tis the time o'
+year; you must dance at weddings because 'tis the time o' life.
+At christenings folk will even smuggle in a reel or two,
+if 'tis no further on than the first or second chiel.
+And this is not naming the songs you've got to sing....For
+my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as anything.
+You've as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties,
+and even better.  And it don't wear your legs to stumps
+in talking over a poor fellow's ways as it do to stand up
+in hornpipes."
+
+"Nine folks out of ten would own 'twas going too far
+to dance then, I suppose?" suggested Grandfer Cantle. 
+
+"'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe
+at after the mug have been round a few times."
+
+"Well, I can't understand a quiet ladylike little body like
+Tamsin Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way,"
+said Susan Nunsuch, the wide woman, who preferred the
+original subject.  "'Tis worse than the poorest do. 
+And I shouldn't have cared about the man, though some
+may say he's good-looking."
+
+"To give him his due he's a clever, learned fellow in his
+way--a'most as clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. 
+He was brought up to better things than keeping the
+Quiet Woman.  An engineer--that's what the man was,
+as we know; but he threw away his chance, and so 'a took
+a public house to live.  His learning was no use to him
+at all."
+
+"Very often the case," said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet
+how people do strive after it and get it! The class of folk
+that couldn't use to make a round O to save their bones from
+the pit can write their names now without a sputter of the pen,
+oftentimes without a single blot--what do I say?--why,
+almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and elbows upon."
+
+"True--'tis amazing what a polish the world have been
+brought to," said Humphrey. 
+
+"Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as
+we was called), in the year four," chimed in Grandfer
+Cantle brightly, "I didn't know no more what the world
+was like than the commonest man among ye.  And now,
+jown it all, I won't say what I bain't fit for, hey?"
+
+"Couldst sign the book, no doubt," said Fairway, "if wast
+young enough to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve
+and Mis'ess Tamsin, which is more than Humph there could do,
+for he follows his father in learning.  Ah, Humph, well I
+can mind when I was married how I zid thy father's mark
+staring me in the face as I went to put down my name. 
+He and your mother were the couple married just afore we
+were and there stood they father's cross with arms stretched
+out like a great banging scarecrow.  What a terrible
+black cross that was--thy father's very likeness in en!
+To save my soul I couldn't help laughing when I zid en,
+though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with
+the marrying, and what with the woman a-hanging to me,
+and what with Jack Changley and a lot more chaps grinning
+at me through church window.  But the next moment a
+strawmote would have knocked me down, for I called to mind
+that if thy father and mother had had high words once,
+they'd been at it twenty times since they'd been man
+and wife, and I zid myself as the next poor stunpoll
+to get into the same mess....Ah--well, what a day 'twas!"
+
+"Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few summers.
+A pretty maid too she is.  A young woman with a home
+must be a fool to tear her smock for a man like that."
+
+The speaker, a peat- or turf-cutter, who had newly
+joined the group, carried across his shoulder
+the singular heart-shaped spade of large dimensions
+used in that species of labour, and its well-whetted
+edge gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire. 
+
+"A hundred maidens would have had him if he'd asked 'em,"
+said the wide woman.
+
+"Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all
+would marry?" inquired Humphrey. 
+
+"I never did," said the turf-cutter.
+
+"Nor I," said another. 
+
+"Nor I," said Grandfer Cantle. 
+
+"Well, now, I did once," said Timothy Fairway, adding more
+firmness to one of his legs.  "I did know of such a man. 
+But only once, mind."  He gave his throat a thorough rake round,
+as if it were the duty of every person not to be mistaken
+through thickness of voice.  "Yes, I knew of such a man,"
+he said. 
+
+"And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have
+been like, Master Fairway?" asked the turf-cutter.
+
+"Well, 'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man,
+nor a blind man.  What 'a was I don't say."
+
+"Is he known in these parts?" said Olly Dowden. 
+
+"Hardly," said Timothy; "but I name no name....Come,
+keep the fire up there, youngsters."
+
+"Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?"
+said a boy from amid the smoke and shades on the other side
+of the blaze.  "Be ye a-cold, Christian?"
+
+A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, "No, not at all."
+
+"Come forward, Christian, and show yourself.  I didn't
+know you were here," said Fairway, with a humane look
+across towards that quarter. 
+
+Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair,
+no shoulders, and a great quantity of wrist and ankle
+beyond his clothes, advanced a step or two by his own will,
+and was pushed by the will of others half a dozen steps more.
+He was Grandfer Cantle's youngest son.
+
+"What be ye quaking for, Christian?" said the turf-
+cutter kindly. 
+
+"I'm the man."
+
+"What man?"
+
+"The man no woman will marry."
+
+"The deuce you be!" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his
+gaze to cover Christian's whole surface and a great
+deal more, Grandfer Cantle meanwhile staring as a hen
+stares at the duck she has hatched. 
+
+"Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard," said Christian. 
+"D'ye think 'twill hurt me?  I shall always say I don't care,
+and swear to it, though I do care all the while."
+
+"Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever
+I know'd," said Mr. Fairway.  "I didn't mean you at all.
+There's another in the country, then! Why did ye reveal
+yer misfortune, Christian?"
+
+"'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose.  I can't help it,
+can I?" He turned upon them his painfully circular eyes,
+surrounded by concentric lines like targets. 
+
+"No, that's true.  But 'tis a melancholy thing,
+and my blood ran cold when you spoke, for I felt there
+were two poor fellows where I had thought only one. 
+'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian.  How'st know the women
+won't hae thee?"
+
+"I've asked 'em."
+
+"Sure I should never have thought you had the face. 
+Well, and what did the last one say to ye?  Nothing
+that can't be got over, perhaps, after all?"
+
+"'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking
+maphrotight fool,' was the woman's words to me."
+
+"Not encouraging, I own," said Fairway.  "'Get out of
+my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,'
+is rather a hard way of saying No. But even that might
+be overcome by time and patience, so as to let a few
+grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head. 
+How old be you, Christian?"
+
+"Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway."
+
+"Not a boy--not a boy.  Still there's hope yet."
+
+"That's my age by baptism, because that's put down in the
+great book of the Judgment that they keep in church vestry;
+but Mother told me I was born some time afore I was christened."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"But she couldn't tell when, to save her life,
+except that there was no moon."
+
+"No moon--that's bad.  Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!"
+
+"Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head. 
+
+"Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another
+woman that had an almanac, as she did whenever a boy
+was born to her, because of the saying, 'No moon,
+no man,' which made her afeard every man-child she had. 
+Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there
+was no moon?"
+
+"Yes. 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings
+ever spit out.  The boy never comes to anything that's
+born at new moon.  A bad job for thee, Christian, that you
+should have showed your nose then of all days in the month."
+
+"I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?"
+said Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration
+at Fairway.
+
+"Well, 'a was not new," Mr. Fairway replied, with a
+disinterested gaze. 
+
+"I'd sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be
+a man of no moon," continued Christian, in the same
+shattered recitative.  "'Tis said I be only the rames
+of a man, and no good for my race at all; and I suppose
+that's the cause o't."
+
+"Ay," said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit;
+"and yet his mother cried for scores of hours when 'a
+was a boy, for fear he should outgrow hisself and go for
+a soldier."
+
+"Well, there's many just as bad as he."  said Fairway. 
+
+"Wethers must live their time as well as other sheep,
+poor soul."
+
+"So perhaps I shall rub on?  Ought I to be afeared o'
+nights, Master Fairway?"
+
+"You'll have to lie alone all your life; and 'tis not to
+married couples but to single sleepers that a ghost shows
+himself when 'a do come.  One has been seen lately, too. 
+A very strange one."
+
+"No--don't talk about it if 'tis agreeable of ye not to!
+'Twill make my skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. 
+But you will--ah, you will, I know, Timothy; and I shall
+dream all night o't! A very strange one?  What sort of
+a spirit did ye mean when ye said, a very strange one,
+Timothy?--no, no--don't tell me."
+
+"I don't half believe in spirits myself.  But I think
+it ghostly enough--what I was told.  'Twas a little boy
+that zid it."
+
+"What was it like?--no, don't--"
+
+"A red one.  Yes, most ghosts be white; but this
+is as if it had been dipped in blood."
+
+Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand
+his body, and Humphrey said, "Where has it been seen?"
+
+"Not exactly here; but in this same heth.  But 'tisn't
+a thing to talk about.  What do ye say," continued Fairway
+in brisker tones, and turning upon them as if the idea
+had not been Grandfer Cantle's--"what do you say to giving
+the new man and wife a bit of a song tonight afore we
+go to bed--being their wedding-day?  When folks are just
+married 'tis as well to look glad o't, since looking
+sorry won't unjoin 'em. I am no drinker, as we know,
+but when the womenfolk and youngsters have gone home we
+can drop down across to the Quiet Woman, and strike up
+a ballet in front of the married folks' door.  'Twill please
+the young wife, and that's what I should like to do,
+for many's the skinful I've had at her hands when she
+lived with her aunt at Blooms-End."
+
+"Hey?  And so we will!" said Grandfer Cantle, turning so
+briskly that his copper seals swung extravagantly.
+"I'm as dry as a kex with biding up here in the wind,
+and I haven't seen the colour of drink since nammet-
+time today.  'Tis said that the last brew at the Woman
+is very pretty drinking.  And, neighbours, if we should be
+a little late in the finishing, why, tomorrow's Sunday,
+and we can sleep it off?"
+
+"Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless
+for an old man," said the wide woman.
+
+"I take things careless; I do--too careless to please the
+women! Klk! I'll sing the 'Jovial Crew,' or any other song,
+when a weak old man would cry his eyes out.  Jown it;
+I am up for anything.
+
+
+  "The king' look'd o'-ver his left' shoul-der',
+    And a grim' look look'-ed hee',
+  Earl Mar'-shal, he said', but for' my oath'
+    Or hang'-ed thou' shouldst bee'."
+
+
+"Well, that's what we'll do," said Fairway.  "We'll give
+'em a song, an' it please the Lord.  What's the good of
+Thomasin's cousin Clym a-coming home after the deed's done?
+He should have come afore, if so be he wanted to stop it,
+and marry her himself."
+
+"Perhaps he's coming to bide with his mother a little time,
+as she must feel lonely now the maid's gone."
+
+"Now, 'tis very odd, but I never feel lonely--no, not at all,"
+said Grandfer Cantle.  "I am as brave in the nighttime
+as a' admiral!"
+
+The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low,
+for the fuel had not been of that substantial sort which can
+support a blaze long.  Most of the other fires within the wide
+horizon were also dwindling weak.  Attentive observation
+of their brightness, colour, and length of existence
+would have revealed the quality of the material burnt,
+and through that, to some extent the natural produce
+of the district in which each bonfire was situate.
+The clear, kingly effulgence that had characterized the
+majority expressed a heath and furze country like their own,
+which in one direction extended an unlimited number of miles;
+the rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the
+compass showed the lightest of fuel--straw, beanstalks,
+and the usual waste from arable land.  The most enduring
+of all--steady unaltering eyes like Planets--signified wood,
+such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots, and stout billets. 
+Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare, and though
+comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient blazes,
+now began to get the best of them by mere long continuance. 
+The great ones had perished, but these remained. 
+They occupied the remotest visible positions--sky-backed
+summits rising out of rich coppice and plantation districts
+to the north, where the soil was different, and heath
+foreign and strange. 
+
+Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the
+whole shining throng.  It lay in a direction precisely
+opposite to that of the little window in the vale below.
+Its nearness was such that, notwithstanding its
+actual smallness, its glow infinitely transcended theirs.
+
+This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time;
+and when their own fire had become sunken and dim it
+attracted more; some even of the wood fires more recently
+lighted had reached their decline, but no change was
+perceptible here. 
+
+"To be sure, how near that fire is!" said Fairway. 
+"Seemingly. I can see a fellow of some sort walking round it.
+Little and good must be said of that fire, surely."
+
+"I can throw a stone there," said the boy.
+
+"And so can I!" said Grandfer Cantle. 
+
+"No, no, you can't, my sonnies.  That fire is not much
+less than a mile off, for all that 'a seems so near."
+
+"'Tis in the heath, but no furze," said the turf-cutter.
+
+"'Tis cleft-wood, that's what 'tis," said Timothy Fairway.
+"Nothing would burn like that except clean timber.  And 'tis
+on the knap afore the old captain's house at Mistover.
+Such a queer mortal as that man is! To have a little
+fire inside your own bank and ditch, that nobody else
+may enjoy it or come anigh it! And what a zany an old chap
+must be, to light a bonfire when there's no youngsters
+to please."
+
+"Cap'n Vye has been for a long walk today, and is quite
+tired out," said Grandfer Cantle, "so 'tisn't likely
+to be he."
+
+"And he would hardly afford good fuel like that,"
+said the wide woman. 
+
+"Then it must be his granddaughter," said Fairway. 
+"Not that a body of her age can want a fire much."
+
+"She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself,
+and such things please her," said Susan.
+
+"She's a well-favoured maid enough," said Humphrey the
+furze-cutter, "especially when she's got one of her dandy gowns on."
+
+"That's true," said Fairway.  "Well, let her bonfire burn
+an't will.  Ours is well-nigh out by the look o't."
+
+"How dark 'tis now the fire's gone down!" said Christian Cantle,
+looking behind him with his hare eyes.  "Don't ye think we'd
+better get home-along, neighbours?  The heth isn't haunted,
+I know; but we'd better get home....Ah, what was that?"
+
+"Only the wind," said the turf-cutter.
+
+"I don't think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up
+by night except in towns.  It should be by day in outstep,
+ill-accounted places like this!"
+
+"Nonsense, Christian.  Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy,
+dear, you and I will have a jig--hey, my honey?--before
+'tis quite too dark to see how well-favoured you be still,
+though so many summers have passed since your husband,
+a son of a witch, snapped you up from me."
+
+This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next
+circumstance of which the beholders were conscious
+was a vision of the matron's broad form whisking off
+towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled. 
+She was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway's arm, which had
+been flung round her waist before she had become aware
+of his intention.  The site of the fire was now merely
+a circle of ashes flecked with red embers and sparks,
+the furze having burnt completely away.  Once within
+the circle he whirled her round and round in a dance.
+She was a woman noisily constructed; in addition to her
+enclosing framework of whalebone and lath, she wore
+pattens summer and winter, in wet weather and in dry,
+to preserve her boots from wear; and when Fairway began
+to jump about with her, the clicking of the pattens,
+the creaking of the stays, and her screams of surprise,
+formed a very audible concert.
+
+"I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!"
+said Mrs. Nunsuch, as she helplessly danced round with him,
+her feet playing like drumsticks among the sparks.
+"My ankles were all in a fever before, from walking
+through that prickly furze, and now you must make 'em
+worse with these vlankers!"
+
+The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious.  The turf-cutter
+seized old Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently,
+poussetted with her likewise.  The young men were not slow
+to imitate the example of their elders, and seized the maids;
+Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in the form of a
+three-legged object among the rest; and in half a minute
+all that could be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling
+of dark shapes amid a boiling confusion of sparks,
+which leapt around the dancers as high as their waists. 
+The chief noises were women's shrill cries, men's laughter,
+Susan's stays and pattens, Olly Dowden's "heu-heu-heu!"
+and the strumming of the wind upon the furze-bushes, which
+formed a kind of tune to the demoniac measure they trod.
+Christian alone stood aloof, uneasily rocking himself
+as he murmured, "They ought not to do it--how the vlankers
+do fly! 'tis tempting the Wicked one, 'tis."
+
+"What was that?" said one of the lads, stopping. 
+
+"Ah--where?" said Christian, hastily closing up to the rest. 
+
+The dancers all lessened their speed. 
+
+"'Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it--down here."
+
+"Yes--'tis behind me!" Christian said.  "Matthew, Mark,
+Luke, and John, bless the bed that I lie on; four angels guard--"
+
+"Hold your tongue.  What is it?" said Fairway. 
+
+"Hoi-i-i-i!" cried a voice from the darkness. 
+
+"Halloo-o-o-o!" said Fairway. 
+
+"Is there any cart track up across here to Mis'ess
+Yeobright's, of Blooms-End?" came to them in the same voice,
+as a long, slim indistinct figure approached the barrow. 
+
+"Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours,
+as 'tis getting late?" said Christian.  "Not run away
+from one another, you know; run close together, I mean."
+"Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze,
+so that we can see who the man is," said Fairway. 
+
+When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight
+raiment, and red from top to toe.  "Is there a track
+across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's house?" he repeated. 
+
+"Ay--keep along the path down there."
+
+"I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?"
+
+"Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. 
+The track is rough, but if you've got a light your horses
+may pick along wi' care.  Have ye brought your cart far up,
+neighbour reddleman?"
+
+"I've left it in the bottom, about half a mile back,
+I stepped on in front to make sure of the way, as 'tis
+night-time, and I han't been here for so long."
+
+"Oh, well you can get up," said Fairway.  "What a turn it
+did give me when I saw him!" he added to the whole group,
+the reddleman included.  "Lord's sake, I thought,
+whatever fiery mommet is this come to trouble us?  No
+slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain't bad-looking
+in the groundwork, though the finish is queer.  My meaning
+is just to say how curious I felt.  I half thought it
+'twas the devil or the red ghost the boy told of."
+
+"It gied me a turn likewise," said Susan Nunsuch, "for I
+had a dream last night of a death's head."
+
+"Don't ye talk o't no more," said Christian.  "If he had
+a handkerchief over his head he'd look for all the world
+like the Devil in the picture of the Temptation."
+
+"Well, thank you for telling me," said the young reddleman,
+smiling faintly.  "And good night t'ye all."
+
+He withdrew from their sight down the barrow. 
+
+"I fancy I've seen that young man's face before,"
+said Humphrey.  "But where, or how, or what his name is,
+I don't know."
+
+The reddleman had not been gone more than a few
+minutes when another person approached the partially
+revived bonfire.  It proved to be a well-known and
+respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing which
+can only be expressed by the word genteel.  Her face,
+encompassed by the blackness of the receding heath,
+showed whitely, and with-out half-lights, like a cameo. 
+
+She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features
+of the type usually found where perspicacity is the chief
+quality enthroned within.  At moments she seemed to be
+regarding issues from a Nebo denied to others around.
+She had something of an estranged mien; the solitude
+exhaled from the heath was concentrated in this face that
+had risen from it.  The air with which she looked at the
+heathmen betokened a certain unconcern at their presence,
+or at what might be their opinions of her for walking in
+that lonely spot at such an hour, thus indirectly implying
+that in some respect or other they were not up to her level. 
+The explanation lay in the fact that though her husband
+had been a small farmer she herself was a curate's daughter,
+who had once dreamt of doing better things. 
+
+Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets,
+their atmospheres along with them in their orbits;
+and the matron who entered now upon the scene could,
+and usually did, bring her own tone into a company. 
+Her normal manner among the heathfolk had that reticence
+which results from the consciousness of superior
+communicative power.  But the effect of coming into
+society and light after lonely wandering in darkness
+is a sociability in the comer above its usual pitch,
+expressed in the features even more than in words.
+
+"Why, 'tis Mis'ess Yeobright," said Fairway.  "Mis'ess Yeobright,
+not ten minutes ago a man was here asking for you--a reddleman."
+
+"What did he want?" said she. 
+
+"He didn't tell us."
+
+"Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am
+at a loss to understand."
+
+"I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home
+at Christmas, ma'am," said Sam, the turf-cutter. "What
+a dog he used to be for bonfires!"
+
+"Yes. I believe he is coming," she said. 
+
+"He must be a fine fellow by this time," said Fairway. 
+
+"He is a man now," she replied quietly.
+
+"'Tis very lonesome for 'ee in the heth tonight,
+mis'ess," said Christian, coming from the seclusion he
+had hitherto maintained.  "Mind you don't get lost.
+Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in, and the winds
+do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard 'em afore. 
+Them that know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times."
+
+"Is that you, Christian?" said Mrs. Yeobright. 
+"What made you hide away from me?"
+
+"'Twas that I didn't know you in this light, mis'ess;
+and being a man of the mournfullest make, I was scared
+a little, that's all.  Oftentimes if you could see
+how terrible down I get in my mind, 'twould make
+'ee quite nervous for fear I should die by my hand."
+
+"You don't take after your father," said Mrs. Yeobright,
+looking towards the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some
+want of originality, was dancing by himself among the sparks,
+as the others had done before.
+
+"Now, Grandfer," said Timothy Fairway, "we are ashamed
+of ye.  A reverent old patriarch man as you be--seventy
+if a day--to go hornpiping like that by yourself!"
+
+"A harrowing old man, Mis'ess Yeobright,"
+said Christian despondingly.  "I wouldn't
+live with him a week, so playward as he is, if I could get away."
+
+"'Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome
+Mis'ess Yeobright, and you the venerablest here,
+Grandfer Cantle," said the besom-woman.
+
+"Faith, and so it would," said the reveller checking
+himself repentantly.  "I've such a bad memory,
+Mis'ess Yeobright, that I forget how I'm looked up to
+by the rest of 'em. My spirits must be wonderful good,
+you'll say?  But not always.  'Tis a weight upon a man
+to be looked up to as commander, and I often feel it."
+
+"I am sorry to stop the talk," said Mrs. Yeobright.  "But I must
+be leaving you now.  I was passing down the Anglebury Road,
+towards my niece's new home, who is returning tonight with
+her husband; and seeing the bonfire and hearing Olly's voice
+among the rest I came up here to learn what was going on.
+I should like her to walk with me, as her way is mine."
+
+"Ay, sure, ma'am, I'm just thinking of moving," said Olly. 
+
+"Why, you'll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of,"
+said Fairway.  "He's only gone back to get his van.
+We heard that your niece and her husband were coming
+straight home as soon as they were married, and we are
+going down there shortly, to give 'em a song o' welcome."
+
+"Thank you indeed," said Mrs. Yeobright. 
+
+"But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you
+can go with long clothes; so we won't trouble you to wait."
+
+"Very well--are you ready, Olly?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. And there's a light shining from your
+niece's window, see.  It will help to keep us in the path."
+
+She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley
+which Fairway had pointed out; and the two women descended
+the tumulus. 
+
+
+
+4 - The Halt on the Turnpike Road
+
+
+Down, downward they went, and yet further down--their
+descent at each step seeming to outmeasure their advance.
+Their skirts were scratched noisily by the furze,
+their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which, though dead
+and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winter
+weather having as yet arrived to beat them down. 
+Their Tartarean situation might by some have been called
+an imprudent one for two unattended women.  But these
+shaggy recesses were at all seasons a familiar surrounding
+to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the addition of darkness
+lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.
+
+"And so Tamsin has married him at last," said Olly,
+when the incline had become so much less steep that their
+foot-steps no longer required undivided attention. 
+
+Mrs. Yeobright answered slowly, "Yes; at last."
+
+"How you will miss her--living with 'ee as a daughter,
+as she always have."
+
+"I do miss her."
+
+Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks
+were untimely, was saved by her very simplicity from
+rendering them offensive.  Questions that would have
+been resented in others she could ask with impunity. 
+This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright's acquiescence in the
+revival of an evidently sore subject. 
+
+"I was quite strook to hear you'd agreed to it,
+ma'am, that I was," continued the besom-maker.
+
+"You were not more struck by it than I should have been
+last year this time, Olly.  There are a good many sides
+to that wedding.  I could not tell you all of them,
+even if I tried."
+
+"I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough
+to mate with your family.  Keeping an inn--what is it?
+But 'a's clever, that's true, and they say he was an
+engineering gentleman once, but has come down by being
+too outwardly given."
+
+"I saw that, upon the whole, it would be better she
+should marry where she wished."
+
+"Poor little thing, her feelings got the better of her,
+no doubt.  'Tis nature.  Well, they may call him what they
+will--he've several acres of heth-ground broke up here,
+besides the public house, and the heth-croppers, and his
+manners be quite like a gentleman's. And what's done cannot
+be undone."
+
+"It cannot," said Mrs. Yeobright.  "See, here's
+the wagon-track at last.  Now we shall get along better."
+
+The wedding subject was no further dwelt upon;
+and soon a faint diverging path was reached, where they
+parted company, Olly first begging her companion to remind
+Mr. Wildeve that he had not sent her sick husband the
+bottle of wine promised on the occasion of his marriage. 
+The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house,
+behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright followed
+the straight track, which further on joined the highway by
+the Quiet Woman Inn, whither she supposed her niece to have
+returned with Wildeve from their wedding at Anglebury that day. 
+
+She first reached Wildeve's Patch, as it was called,
+a plot of land redeemed from the heath, and after long
+and laborious years brought into cultivation.  The man who
+had discovered that it could be tilled died of the labour;
+the man who succeeded him in possession ruined himself
+in fertilizing it.  Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci,
+and received the honours due to those who had gone before. 
+
+When Mrs. Yeobright had drawn near to the inn,
+and was about to enter, she saw a horse and vehicle
+some two hundred yards beyond it, coming towards her,
+a man walking alongside with a lantern in his hand. 
+It was soon evident that this was the reddleman who had
+inquired for her.  Instead of entering the inn at once,
+she walked by it and towards the van. 
+
+The conveyance came close, and the man was about to pass
+her with little notice, when she turned to him and said,
+"I think you have been inquiring for me?  I am Mrs. Yeobright
+of Blooms-End."
+
+The reddleman started, and held up his finger. 
+He stopped the horses, and beckoned to her to withdraw
+with him a few yards aside, which she did, wondering. 
+
+"You don't know me, ma'am, I suppose?" he said.
+
+"I do not," said she.  "Why, yes, I do! You are young
+Venn--your father was a dairyman somewhere here?"
+
+"Yes; and I knew your niece, Miss Tamsin, a little. 
+I have something bad to tell you."
+
+"About her--no! She has just come home, I believe,
+with her husband.  They arranged to return this
+afternoon--to the inn beyond here."
+
+"She's not there."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Because she's here.  She's in my van," he added slowly. 
+
+"What new trouble has come?" murmured Mrs. Yeobright,
+putting her hand over her eyes. 
+
+"I can't explain much, ma'am. All I know is that, as I
+was going along the road this morning, about a mile out
+of Anglebury, I heard something trotting after me like a doe,
+and looking round there she was, white as death itself.
+'Oh, Diggory Venn!' she said, 'I thought 'twas you--will
+you help me?  I am in trouble.'"
+
+"How did she know your Christian name?" said Mrs. Yeobright
+doubtingly.
+
+"I had met her as a lad before I went away in this trade. 
+She asked then if she might ride, and then down she fell
+in a faint.  I picked her up and put her in, and there
+she has been ever since.  She has cried a good deal,
+but she has hardly spoke; all she has told me being
+that she was to have been married this morning. 
+I tried to get her to eat something, but she couldn't;
+and at last she fell asleep."
+
+"Let me see her at once," said Mrs. Yeobright,
+hastening towards the van. 
+
+The reddleman followed with the lantern, and, stepping
+up first, assisted Mrs. Yeobright to mount beside him.
+On the door being opened she perceived at the end
+of the van an extemporized couch, around which was hung
+apparently all the drapery that the reddleman possessed,
+to keep the occupant of the little couch from contact
+with the red materials of his trade.  A young girl
+lay thereon, covered with a cloak.  She was asleep,
+and the light of the lantern fell upon her features. 
+
+A fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed,
+reposing in a nest of wavy chestnut hair.  It was between
+pretty and beautiful.  Though her eyes were closed,
+one could easily imagine the light necessarily shining in them
+as the culmination of the luminous workmanship around. 
+The groundwork of the face was hopefulness; but over it
+now I ay like a foreign substance a film of anxiety
+and grief.  The grief had been there so shortly as to
+have abstracted nothing of the bloom, and had as yet but
+given a dignity to what it might eventually undermine. 
+The scarlet of her lips had not had time to abate,
+and just now it appeared still more intense by the absence
+of the neighbouring and more transient colour of her cheek.
+The lips frequently parted, with a murmur of words.
+She seemed to belong rightly to a madrigal--to require
+viewing through rhyme and harmony. 
+
+One thing at least was obvious: she was not made to be
+looked at thus.  The reddleman had appeared conscious
+of as much, and, while Mrs. Yeobright looked in upon her,
+he cast his eyes aside with a delicacy which well became him. 
+The sleeper apparently thought so too, for the next moment
+she opened her own. 
+
+The lips then parted with something of anticipation,
+something more of doubt; and her several thoughts and fractions
+of thoughts, as signalled by the changes on her face,
+were exhibited by the light to the utmost nicety. 
+An ingenuous, transparent life was disclosed, as if the
+flow of her existence could be seen passing within her. 
+She understood the scene in a moment. 
+
+"O yes, it is I, Aunt," she cried.  "I know how frightened
+you are, and how you cannot believe it; but all the same,
+it is I who have come home like this!"
+
+"Tamsin, Tamsin!" said Mrs. Yeobright, stooping over
+the young woman and kissing her.  "O my dear girl!"
+
+Thomasin was now on the verge of a sob, but by an unexpected
+self-command she uttered no sound.  With a gentle panting
+breath she sat upright. 
+
+"I did not expect to see you in this state, any more
+than you me," she went on quickly.  "Where am I, Aunt?"
+
+"Nearly home, my dear.  In Egdon Bottom.  What dreadful
+thing is it?"
+
+"I'll tell you in a moment.  So near, are we?  Then I
+will get out and walk.  I want to go home by the path."
+
+"But this kind man who has done so much will, I am sure,
+take you right on to my house?" said the aunt, turning to
+the reddleman, who had withdrawn from the front of the van
+on the awakening of the girl, and stood in the road.
+
+"Why should you think it necessary to ask me?  I will,
+of course," said he. 
+
+"He is indeed kind," murmured Thomasin.  "I was once
+acquainted with him, Aunt, and when I saw him today I thought
+I should prefer his van to any conveyance of a stranger. 
+But I'll walk now.  Reddleman, stop the horses, please."
+
+The man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped
+them
+
+Aunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright
+saying to its owner, "I quite recognize you now. 
+What made you change from the nice business your father
+left you?"
+
+"Well, I did," he said, and looked at Thomasin,
+who blushed a little.  "Then you'll not be wanting
+me any more tonight, ma'am?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills,
+at the perishing bonfires, and at the lighted window
+of the inn they had neared.  "I think not," she said,
+"since Thomasin wishes to walk.  We can soon run up
+the path and reach home--we know it well."
+
+And after a few further words they parted, the reddleman
+moving onwards with his van, and the two women remaining
+standing in the road.  As soon as the vehicle and its
+driver had withdrawn so far as to be beyond all possible
+reach of her voice, Mrs. Yeobright turned to her niece.
+
+"Now, Thomasin," she said sternly, "what's the meaning
+of this disgraceful performance?"
+
+
+
+5 - Perplexity among Honest People
+
+
+Thomasin looked as if quite overcome by her aunt's change
+of manner.  "It means just what it seems to mean: I
+am--not married," she replied faintly.  "Excuse me--for
+humiliating you, Aunt, by this mishap--I am sorry for it. 
+But I cannot help it."
+
+"Me?  Think of yourself first."
+
+"It was nobody's fault.  When we got there the parson
+wouldn't marry us because of some trifling irregularity
+in the license."
+
+"What irregularity?"
+
+"I don't know.  Mr. Wildeve can explain.  I did not think
+when I went away this morning that I should come back
+like this."  It being dark, Thomasin allowed her emotion
+to escape her by the silent way of tears, which could
+roll down her cheek unseen. 
+
+"I could almost say that it serves you right--if I did not
+feel that you don't deserve it," continued Mrs. Yeobright,
+who, possessing two distinct moods in close contiguity,
+a gentle mood and an angry, flew from one to the other
+without the least warning.  "Remember, Thomasin,
+this business was none of my seeking; from the very first,
+when you began to feel foolish about that man, I warned
+you he would not make you happy.  I felt it so strongly
+that I did what I would never have believed myself
+capable of doing--stood up in the church, and made myself
+the public talk for weeks.  But having once consented,
+I don't submit to these fancies without good reason. 
+Marry him you must after this."
+
+"Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?"
+said Thomasin, with a heavy sigh.  "I know how wrong
+it was of me to love him, but don't pain me by talking
+like that, Aunt! You would not have had me stay there
+with him, would you?--and your house is the only home I
+have to return to.  He says we can be married in a day
+or two."
+
+"I wish he had never seen you."
+
+"Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world,
+and not let him see me again.  No, I won't have him!"
+
+"It is too late to speak so.  Come with me.  I am
+going to the inn to see if he has returned.  Of course
+I shall get to the bottom of this story at once. 
+Mr. Wildeve must not suppose he can play tricks upon me,
+or any belonging to me."
+
+"It was not that.  The license was wrong, and he couldn't
+get another the same day.  He will tell you in a moment
+how it was, if he comes."
+
+"Why didn't he bring you back?"
+
+"That was me!" again sobbed Thomasin.  "When I found we
+could not be married I didn't like to come back with him,
+and I was very ill.  Then I saw Diggory Venn, and was glad
+to get him to take me home.  I cannot explain it any better,
+and you must be angry with me if you will."
+
+"I shall see about that," said Mrs. Yeobright; and they
+turned towards the inn, known in the neighbourhood
+as the Quiet Woman, the sign of which represented
+the figure of a matron carrying her head under her arm,
+beneath which gruesome design was written the couplet
+so well known to frequenters of the inn:--
+
+
+SINCE THE WOMAN'S QUIET
+LET NO MAN BREED A RIOT.[1]
+
+
+[1] The inn which really bore this sign and legend
+stood some miles to the northwest of the present scene,
+wherein the house more immediately referred to is now no
+longer an inn; and the surroundings are much changed.
+But another inn, some of whose features are also embodied
+in this description, the RED LION at Winfrith,
+still remains as a haven for the wayfarer (1912).
+
+
+The front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow,
+whose dark shape seemed to threaten it from the sky.
+Upon the door was a neglected brass plate, bearing the
+unexpected inscription, "Mr. Wildeve, Engineer"--a useless
+yet cherished relic from the time when he had been started
+in that profession in an office at Budmouth by those who
+had hoped much from him, and had been disappointed.
+The garden was at the back, and behind this ran a still
+deep stream, forming the margin of the heath in that direction,
+meadow-land appearing beyond the stream.
+
+But the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be
+visible of any scene at present.  The water at the back
+of the house could be heard, idly spinning whirpools
+in its creep between the rows of dry feather-headed reeds
+which formed a stockade along each bank.  Their presence
+was denoted by sounds as of a congregation praying humbly,
+produced by their rubbing against each other in the slow wind. 
+
+The window, whence the candlelight had shone up the vale
+to the eyes of the bonfire group, was uncurtained,
+but the sill lay too high for a pedestrian on the outside
+to look over it into the room.  A vast shadow, in which
+could be dimly traced portions of a masculine contour,
+blotted half the ceiling. 
+
+"He seems to be at home," said Mrs. Yeobright. 
+
+"Must I come in, too, Aunt?" asked Thomasin faintly. 
+"I suppose not; it would be wrong."
+
+"You must come, certainly--to confront him, so that he
+may make no false representations to me.  We shall not
+be five minutes in the house, and then we'll walk home."
+
+Entering the open passage, she tapped at the door
+of the private parlour, unfastened it, and looked in. 
+
+The back and shoulders of a man came between Mrs. Yeobright's
+eyes and the fire.  Wildeve, whose form it was,
+immediately turned, arose, and advanced to meet his visitors.
+
+He was quite a young man, and of the two properties,
+form and motion, the latter first attracted the eye
+in him.  The grace of his movement was singular--it
+was the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing career. 
+Next came into notice the more material qualities,
+among which was a profuse crop of hair impending
+over the top of his face, lending to his forehead
+the high-cornered outline of an early Gothic shield;
+and a neck which was smooth and round as a cylinder.
+The lower half of his figure was of light build.
+Altogether he was one in whom no man would have seen
+anything to admire, and in whom no woman would have seen
+anything to dislike.
+
+He discerned the young girl's form in the passage,
+and said, "Thomasin, then, has reached home. 
+How could you leave me in that way, darling?" And turning
+to Mrs. Yeobright--"It was useless to argue with her. 
+She would go, and go alone."
+
+"But what's the meaning of it all?" demanded Mrs. Yeobright haughtily. 
+
+"Take a seat," said Wildeve, placing chairs for the two women. 
+"Well, it was a very stupid mistake, but such mistakes
+will happen.  The license was useless at Anglebury. 
+It was made out for Budmouth, but as I didn't read it I
+wasn't aware of that."
+
+"But you had been staying at Anglebury?"
+
+"No. I had been at Budmouth--till two days ago--and
+that was where I had intended to take her; but when
+I came to fetch her we decided upon Anglebury,
+forgetting that a new license would be necessary.
+There was not time to get to Budmouth afterwards."
+
+"I think you are very much to blame," said Mrs. Yeobright. 
+
+"It was quite my fault we chose Anglebury," Thomasin pleaded. 
+"I proposed it because I was not known there."
+
+"I know so well that I am to blame that you need not
+remind me of it," replied Wildeve shortly. 
+
+"Such things don't happen for nothing," said the aunt. 
+"It is a great slight to me and my family; and when it
+gets known there will be a very unpleasant time for us.
+How can she look her friends in the face tomorrow?  It
+is a very great injury, and one I cannot easily forgive. 
+It may even reflect on her character."
+
+"Nonsense," said Wildeve. 
+
+Thomasin's large eyes had flown from the face of one
+to the face of the other during this discussion, and she
+now said anxiously, "Will you allow me, Aunt, to talk it
+over alone with Damon for five minutes?  Will you, Damon?"
+
+"Certainly, dear," said Wildeve, "if your aunt will excuse us."
+He led her into an adjoining room, leaving Mrs. Yeobright
+by the fire. 
+
+As soon as they were alone, and the door closed,
+Thomasin said, turning up her pale, tearful face
+to him, "It is killing me, this, Damon! I did not mean
+to part from you in anger at Anglebury this morning;
+but I was frightened and hardly knew what I said. 
+I've not let Aunt know how much I suffered today; and it
+is so hard to command my face and voice, and to smile
+as if it were a slight thing to me; but I try to do so,
+that she may not be still more indignant with you. 
+I know you could not help it, dear, whatever Aunt
+may think."
+
+"She is very unpleasant."
+
+"Yes," Thomasin murmured, "and I suppose I seem
+so now....Damon, what do you mean to do about me?"
+
+"Do about you?"
+
+"Yes. Those who don't like you whisper things which at
+moments make me doubt you.  We mean to marry, I suppose,
+don't we?"
+
+"Of course we do.  We have only to go to Budmouth on Monday,
+and we marry at once."
+
+"Then do let us go!--O Damon, what you make me say!"
+She hid her face in her handkerchief.  "Here am I asking
+you to marry me, when by rights you ought to be on your
+knees imploring me, your cruel mistress, not to refuse you,
+and saying it would break your heart if I did. 
+I used to think it would be pretty and sweet like that;
+but how different!"
+
+"Yes, real life is never at all like that."
+
+"But I don't care personally if it never takes place,"
+she added with a little dignity; "no, I can live without you. 
+It is Aunt I think of.  She is so proud, and thinks
+so much of her family respectability, that she will be
+cut down with mortification if this story should get
+abroad before--it is done.  My cousin Clym, too, will be
+much wounded."
+
+"Then he will be very unreasonable.  In fact, you are
+all rather unreasonable."
+
+Thomasin coloured a little, and not with love.  But whatever
+the momentary feeling which caused that flush in her,
+it went as it came, and she humbly said, "I never mean
+to be, if I can help it.  I merely feel that you have
+my aunt to some extent in your power at last."
+
+"As a matter of justice it is almost due to me," said Wildeve.
+"Think what I have gone through to win her consent;
+the insult that it is to any man to have the banns
+forbidden--the double insult to a man unlucky enough to be
+cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven
+knows what, as I am.  I can never forget those banns. 
+A harsher man would rejoice now in the power I have of
+turning upon your aunt by going no further in the business."
+
+She looked wistfully at him with her sorrowful eyes as he said
+those words, and her aspect showed that more than one person
+in the room could deplore the possession of sensitiveness. 
+Seeing that she was really suffering he seemed disturbed
+and added, "This is merely a reflection you know. 
+I have not the least intention to refuse to complete
+the marriage, Tamsie mine--I could not bear it."
+
+"You could not, I know!" said the fair girl, brightening. 
+"You, who cannot bear the sight of pain in even an insect,
+or any disagreeable sound, or unpleasant smell even,
+will not long cause pain to me and mine."
+
+"I will not, if I can help it."
+
+"Your hand upon it, Damon."
+
+He carelessly gave her his hand. 
+
+"Ah, by my crown, what's that?" he said suddenly. 
+
+There fell upon their ears the sound of numerous
+voices singing in front of the house.  Among these,
+two made themselves prominent by their peculiarity: one
+was a very strong bass, the other a wheezy thin piping. 
+Thomasin recognized them as belonging to Timothy Fairway
+and Grandfer Cantle respectively. 
+
+"What does it mean--it is not skimmity-riding, I hope?"
+she said, with a frightened gaze at Wildeve. 
+
+"Of course not; no, it is that the heath-folk have come
+to sing to us a welcome.  This is intolerable!" He began
+pacing about, the men outside singing cheerily--
+
+
+"He told' her that she' was the joy' of his life', And if'
+she'd con-sent' he would make her his wife'; She could'
+not refuse' him; to church' so they went', Young Will
+was forgot', and young Sue' was content'; And then'
+was she kiss'd' and set down' on his knee', No man'
+in the world' was so lov'-ing as he'!"
+
+
+Mrs. Yeobright burst in from the outer room. 
+"Thomasin, Thomasin!" she said, looking indignantly at Wildeve;
+"here's a pretty exposure! Let us escape at once.  Come!"
+
+It was, however, too late to get away by the passage.
+A rugged knocking had begun upon the door of the front room. 
+Wildeve, who had gone to the window, came back. 
+
+"Stop!" he said imperiously, putting his hand upon
+Mrs. Yeobright's arm.  "We are regularly besieged. 
+There are fifty of them out there if there's one.
+You stay in this room with Thomasin; I'll go out and
+face them.  You must stay now, for my sake, till they
+are gone, so that it may seem as if all was right. 
+Come, Tamsie dear, don't go making a scene--we must marry
+after this; that you can see as well as I. Sit still,
+that's all--and don't speak much.  I'll manage them. 
+Blundering fools!"
+
+He pressed the agitated girl into a seat, returned to the
+outer room and opened the door.  Immediately outside,
+in the passage, appeared Grandfer Cantle singing in
+concert with those still standing in front of the house. 
+He came into the room and nodded abstractedly to Wildeve,
+his lips still parted, and his features excruciatingly
+strained in the emission of the chorus.  This being ended,
+he said heartily, "Here's welcome to the new-made couple,
+and God bless 'em!"
+
+"Thank you," said Wildeve, with dry resentment, his face
+as gloomy as a thunderstorm. 
+
+At the Grandfer's heels now came the rest of the group,
+which included Fairway, Christian, Sam the turf-cutter,
+Humphrey, and a dozen others.  All smiled upon Wildeve,
+and upon his tables and chairs likewise, from a general
+sense of friendliness towards the articles as well
+as towards their owner. 
+
+"We be not here afore Mrs. Yeobright after all,"
+said Fairway, recognizing the matron's bonnet through
+the glass partition which divided the public apartment
+they had entered from the room where the women sat. 
+"We struck down across, d'ye see, Mr. Wildeve, and she
+went round by the path."
+
+"And I see the young bride's little head!" said Grandfer,
+peeping in the same direction, and discerning Thomasin,
+who was waiting beside her aunt in a miserable and awkward way. 
+"Not quite settled in yet--well, well, there's plenty
+of time."
+
+Wildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner
+he treated them the sooner they would go, he produced
+a stone jar, which threw a warm halo over matters at once.
+
+"That's a drop of the right sort, I can see,"
+said Grandfer Cantle, with the air of a man too well-
+mannered to show any hurry to taste it. 
+
+"Yes," said Wildeve, "'tis some old mead.  I hope you
+will like it."
+
+"O ay!" replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural
+when the words demanded by politeness coincide with those
+of deepest feeling.  "There isn't a prettier drink under the sun."
+
+"I'll take my oath there isn't," added Grandfer Cantle.
+"All that can be said against mead is that 'tis
+rather heady, and apt to lie about a man a good while. 
+But tomorrow's Sunday, thank God."
+
+"I feel'd for all the world like some bold soldier after
+I had had some once," said Christian.
+
+"You shall feel so again," said Wildeve, with condescension,
+"Cups or glasses, gentlemen?"
+
+"Well, if you don't mind, we'll have the beaker, and pass
+'en round; 'tis better than heling it out in dribbles."
+
+"Jown the slippery glasses," said Grandfer Cantle. 
+"What's the good of a thing that you can't put down in
+the ashes to warm, hey, neighbours; that's what I ask?"
+
+"Right, Grandfer," said Sam; and the mead then circulated. 
+
+"Well," said Timothy Fairway, feeling demands upon his praise
+in some form or other, "'tis a worthy thing to be married,
+Mr. Wildeve; and the woman you've got is a dimant,
+so says I. Yes," he continued, to Grandfer Cantle,
+raising his voice so as to be heard through the partition,
+"her father (inclining his head towards the inner room)
+was as good a feller as ever lived.  He always had his
+great indignation ready against anything underhand."
+
+"Is that very dangerous?" said Christian.
+
+"And there were few in these parts that were upsides with him,"
+said Sam.  "Whenever a club walked he'd play the clarinet
+in the band that marched before 'em as if he'd never
+touched anything but a clarinet all his life.  And then,
+when they got to church door he'd throw down the clarinet,
+mount the gallery, snatch up the bass viol, and rozum
+away as if he'd never played anything but a bass viol. 
+Folk would say--folk that knowed what a true stave
+was--'Surely, surely that's never the same man that I saw
+handling the clarinet so masterly by now!"
+
+"I can mind it," said the furze-cutter. "'Twas a wonderful
+thing that one body could hold it all and never mix
+the fingering."
+
+"There was Kingsbere church likewise," Fairway recommenced,
+as one opening a new vein of the same mine of interest. 
+
+Wildeve breathed the breath of one intolerably bored,
+and glanced through the partition at the prisoners.
+
+"He used to walk over there of a Sunday afternoon to visit
+his old acquaintance Andrew Brown, the first clarinet there;
+a good man enough, but rather screechy in his music,
+if you can mind?"
+
+"'A was."
+
+"And neighbour Yeobright would take Andrey's place for some
+part of the service, to let Andrey have a bit of a nap,
+as any friend would naturally do."
+
+"As any friend would," said Grandfer Cantle, the other
+listeners expressing the same accord by the shorter way
+of nodding their heads. 
+
+"No sooner was Andrey asleep and the first whiff
+of neighbour Yeobright's wind had got inside Andrey's
+clarinet than everyone in church feeled in a moment
+there was a great soul among 'em. All heads would turn,
+and they'd say, 'Ah, I thought 'twas he!' One Sunday I
+can well mind--a bass viol day that time, and Yeobright
+had brought his own.  'Twas the Hundred-and-thirty-third
+to 'Lydia'; and when they'd come to 'Ran down his
+beard and o'er his robes its costly moisture shed,'
+neighbour Yeobright, who had just warmed to his work,
+drove his bow into them strings that glorious grand
+that he e'en a'most sawed the bass viol into two pieces.
+Every winder in church rattled as if 'twere a thunderstorm. 
+Old Pa'son Williams lifted his hands in his great holy
+surplice as natural as if he'd been in common clothes,
+and seemed to say hisself, 'O for such a man in our parish!'
+But not a soul in Kingsbere could hold a candle to Yeobright."
+
+"Was it quite safe when the winder shook?" Christian inquired. 
+
+He received no answer, all for the moment sitting
+rapt in admiration of the performance described. 
+As with Farinelli's singing before the princesses,
+Sheridan's renowned Begum Speech, and other such examples,
+the fortunate condition of its being for ever lost to
+the world invested the deceased Mr. Yeobright's tour
+de force on that memorable afternoon with a cumulative
+glory which comparative criticism, had that been possible,
+might considerably have shorn down. 
+
+"He was the last you'd have expected to drop off
+in the prime of life," said Humphrey. 
+
+"Ah, well; he was looking for the earth some months
+afore he went.  At that time women used to run for
+smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill Fair, and my wife
+that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid,
+hardly husband-high, went with the rest of the maidens,
+for 'a was a good, runner afore she got so heavy.
+When she came home I said--we were then just beginning
+to walk together--'What have ye got, my honey?'
+'I've won--well, I've won--a gown-piece,' says she,
+her colours coming up in a moment.  'Tis a smock for a crown,
+I thought; and so it turned out.  Ay, when I think what
+she'll say to me now without a mossel of red in her face,
+it do seem strange that 'a wouldn't say such a little thing
+then....However, then she went on, and that's what made
+me bring up the story.  Well, whatever clothes I've won,
+white or figured, for eyes to see or for eyes not to see'
+('a could do a pretty stroke of modesty in those days),
+'I'd sooner have lost it than have seen what I have. 
+Poor Mr. Yeobright was took bad directly he reached the
+fair ground, and was forced to go home again.' That was
+the last time he ever went out of the parish."
+
+"'A faltered on from one day to another, and then we
+heard he was gone."
+
+"D'ye think he had great pain when 'a died?" said Christian. 
+
+"O no--quite different.  Nor any pain of mind. 
+He was lucky enough to be God A'mighty's own man."
+
+"And other folk--d'ye think 'twill be much pain to 'em,
+Mister Fairway?"
+
+"That depends on whether they be afeard."
+
+"I bain't afeard at all, I thank God!" said Christian strenuously. 
+"I'm glad I bain't, for then 'twon't pain me....I
+don't think I be afeard--or if I be I can't help it,
+and I don't deserve to suffer.  I wish I was not afeard at all!"
+
+There was a solemn silence, and looking from the window,
+which was unshuttered and unblinded, Timothy said,
+"Well, what a fess little bonfire that one is, out by
+Cap'n Vye's! 'Tis burning just the same now as ever,
+upon my life."
+
+All glances went through the window, and nobody noticed
+that Wildeve disguised a brief, telltale look.
+Far away up the sombre valley of heath, and to the
+right of Rainbarrow, could indeed be seen the light,
+small, but steady and persistent as before. 
+
+"It was lighted before ours was," Fairway continued;
+"and yet every one in the country round is out afore
+'n."
+
+"Perhaps there's meaning in it!" murmured Christian. 
+
+"How meaning?" said Wildeve sharply. 
+
+Christian was too scattered to reply, and Timothy helped him. 
+
+"He means, sir, that the lonesome dark-eyed creature
+up there that some say is a witch--ever I should call
+a fine young woman such a name--is always up to some odd
+conceit or other; and so perhaps 'tis she."
+
+"I'd be very glad to ask her in wedlock, if she'd hae me
+and take the risk of her wild dark eyes ill-wishing me,"
+said Grandfer Cantle staunchly. 
+
+"Don't ye say it, Father!" implored Christian. 
+
+"Well, be dazed if he who do marry the maid won't hae
+an uncommon picture for his best parlour," said Fairway
+in a liquid tone, placing down the cup of mead at the end
+of a good pull.
+
+"And a partner as deep as the North Star," said Sam,
+taking up the cup and finishing the little that remained. 
+"Well, really, now I think we must be moving," said Humphrey,
+observing the emptiness of the vessel. 
+
+"But we'll gie 'em another song?" said Grandfer Cantle.
+"I'm as full of notes as a bird!"
+
+"Thank you, Grandfer," said Wildeve.  "But we will not
+trouble you now.  Some other day must do for that--when
+I have a party."
+
+"Be jown'd if I don't learn ten new songs for't, or I
+won't learn a line!" said Grandfer Cantle.  "And you may
+be sure I won't disappoint ye by biding away, Mr. Wildeve."
+
+"I quite believe you," said that gentleman. 
+
+All then took their leave, wishing their entertainer long
+life and happiness as a married man, with recapitulations
+which occupied some time.  Wildeve attended them to the door,
+beyond which the deep-dyed upward stretch of heath stood
+awaiting them, an amplitude of darkness reigning from their
+feet almost to the zenith, where a definite form first
+became visible in the lowering forehead of Rainbarrow. 
+Diving into the dense obscurity in a line headed by Sam
+the turf-cutter, they pursued their trackless way home.
+
+When the scratching of the furze against their leggings
+had fainted upon the ear, Wildeve returned to the room
+where he had left Thomasin and her aunt.  The women
+were gone. 
+
+They could only have left the house in one way,
+by the back window; and this was open. 
+
+Wildeve laughed to himself, remained a moment thinking,
+and idly returned to the front room.  Here his glance fell
+upon a bottle of wine which stood on the mantelpiece.
+"Ah--old Dowden!" he murmured; and going to the kitchen
+door shouted, "Is anybody here who can take something to
+old Dowden?"
+
+There was no reply.  The room was empty, the lad who acted
+as his factotum having gone to bed.  Wildeve came back
+put on his hat, took the bottle, and left the house,
+turning the key in the door, for there was no guest at
+the inn tonight.  As soon as he was on the road the little
+bonfire on Mistover Knap again met his eye. 
+
+"Still waiting, are you, my lady?" he murmured. 
+
+However, he did not proceed that way just then;
+but leaving the hill to the left of him, he stumbled
+over a rutted road that brought him to a cottage which,
+like all other habitations on the heath at this hour,
+was only saved from being visible by a faint shine from its
+bedroom window.  This house was the home of Olly Dowden,
+the besom-maker, and he entered. 
+
+The lower room was in darkness; but by feeling his way he
+found a table, whereon he placed the bottle, and a minute
+later emerged again upon the heath.  He stood and looked
+northeast at the undying little fire--high up above him,
+though not so high as Rainbarrow. 
+
+We have been told what happens when a woman deliberates;
+and the epigram is not always terminable with woman,
+provided that one be in the case, and that a fair one.
+Wildeve stood, and stood longer, and breathed perplexedly,
+and then said to himself with resignation, "Yes--by Heaven,
+I must go to her, I suppose!"
+
+Instead of turning in the direction of home he pressed
+on rapidly by a path under Rainbarrow towards what was
+evidently a signal light. 
+
+
+
+6 - The Figure against the Sky
+
+
+When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site
+of the bonfire to its accustomed loneliness, a closely
+wrapped female figure approached the barrow from that
+quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay. 
+Had the reddleman been watching he might have recognized
+her as the woman who had first stood there so singularly,
+and vanished at the approach of strangers.  She ascended
+to her old position at the top, where the red coals
+of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes
+in the corpse of day.  There she stood still around her
+stretching the vast night atmosphere, whose incomplete
+darkness in comparison with the total darkness of the heath
+below it might have represented a venial beside a mortal sin. 
+
+That she was tall and straight in build, that she was
+lady-like in her movements, was all that could be learnt
+of her just now, her form being wrapped in a shawl folded in
+the old cornerwise fashion, and her head in a large kerchief,
+a protection not superfluous at this hour and place. 
+Her back was towards the wind, which blew from the northwest;
+but whether she had avoided that aspect because of the
+chilly gusts which played about her exceptional position,
+or because her interest lay in the southeast, did not
+at first appear. 
+
+Her reason for standing so dead still as the pivot
+of this circle of heath-country was just as obscure. 
+Her extraordinary fixity, her conspicuous loneliness,
+her heedlessness of night, betokened among other things
+an utter absence of fear.  A tract of country unaltered
+from that sinister condition which made Caesar anxious every
+year to get clear of its glooms before the autumnal equinox,
+a kind of landscape and weather which leads travellers from
+the South to describe our island as Homer's Cimmerian land,
+was not, on the face of it, friendly to women.
+
+It might reasonably have been supposed that she was listening
+to the wind, which rose somewhat as the night advanced,
+and laid hold of the attention.  The wind, indeed, seemed made
+for the scene, as the scene seemed made for the hour. 
+Part of its tone was quite special; what was heard there
+could be heard nowhere else.  Gusts in innumerable series
+followed each other from the northwest, and when each one
+of them raced past the sound of its progress resolved
+into three.  Treble, tenor, and bass notes were to be
+found therein.  The general ricochet of the whole over
+pits and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. 
+Next there could be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. 
+Below these in force, above them in pitch, a dwindled voice
+strove hard at a husky tune, which was the peculiar local
+sound alluded to.  Thinner and less immediately traceable
+than the other two, it was far more impressive than either. 
+In it lay what may be called the linguistic peculiarity
+of the heath; and being audible nowhere on earth off a heath,
+it afforded a shadow of reason for the woman's tenseness,
+which continued as unbroken as ever.
+
+Throughout the blowing of these plaintive November winds
+that note bore a great resemblance to the ruins of human
+song which remain to the throat of fourscore and ten. 
+It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and it brushed
+so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed,
+the material minutiae in which it originated could
+be realized as by touch.  It was the united products
+of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these were neither
+stems, leaves, fruit, blades, prickles, lichen, nor moss. 
+
+They were the mummied heathbells of the past summer,
+originally tender and purple, now washed colourless by
+Michaelmas rains, and dried to dead skins by October suns. 
+So low was an individual sound from these that a
+combination of hundreds only just emerged from silence,
+and the myriads of the whole declivity reached the woman's
+ear but as a shrivelled and intermittent recitative. 
+Yet scarcely a single accent among the many afloat tonight
+could have such power to impress a listener with thoughts
+of its origin.  One inwardly saw the infinity of those
+combined multitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny
+trumpets was seized on entered, scoured and emerged from
+by the wind as thoroughly as if it were as vast as a crater. 
+
+"The spirit moved them."  A meaning of the phrase forced itself
+upon the attention; and an emotional listener's fetichistic
+mood might have ended in one of more advanced quality. 
+It was not, after all, that the left-hand expanse of old
+blooms spoke, or the right-hand, or those of the slope
+in front; but it was the single person of something
+else speaking through each at once. 
+
+Suddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild
+rhetoric of night a sound which modulated so naturally
+into the rest that its beginning and ending were hardly
+to be distinguished.  The bluffs, and the bushes,
+and the heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so did
+the woman; and her articulation was but as another phrase
+of the same discourse as theirs.  Thrown out on the winds
+it became twined in with them, and with them it flew away. 
+
+What she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at
+something in her mind which had led to her presence here. 
+There was a spasmodic abandonment about it as if,
+in allowing herself to utter the sound.  the woman's
+brain had authorized what it could not regulate. 
+One point was evident in this; that she had been existing
+in a suppressed state, and not in one of languor,
+or stagnation.
+
+Far away down the valley the faint shine from the window
+of the inn still lasted on; and a few additional
+moments proved that the window, or what was within it,
+had more to do with the woman's sigh than had either
+her own actions or the scene immediately around. 
+She lifted her left hand, which held a closed telescope.
+This she rapidly extended, as if she were well accustomed
+to the operation, and raising it to her eye directed it
+towards the light beaming from the inn. 
+
+The handkerchief which had hooded her head was now a
+little thrown back, her face being somewhat elevated.
+A profile was visible against the dull monochrome of
+cloud around her; and it was as though side shadows from
+the features of Sappho and Mrs. Siddons had converged
+upwards from the tomb to form an image like neither but
+suggesting both.  This, however, was mere superficiality. 
+In respect of character a face may make certain admissions
+by its outline; but it fully confesses only in its changes. 
+So much is this the case that what is called the play of the
+features often helps more in understanding a man or woman
+than the earnest labours of all the other members together. 
+Thus the night revealed little of her whose form it was embracing,
+for the mobile parts of her countenance could not be seen. 
+
+At last she gave up her spying attitude, closed the telescope,
+and turned to the decaying embers.  From these no appreciable
+beams now radiated, except when a more than usually
+smart gust brushed over their faces and raised a fitful
+glow which came and went like the blush of a girl. 
+She stooped over the silent circle, and selecting from the
+brands a piece of stick which bore the largest live coal
+at its end, brought it to where she had been standing before.
+
+She held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal
+with her mouth at the same time; till it faintly illuminated
+the sod, and revealed a small object, which turned out
+to be an hourglass, though she wore a watch.  She blew
+long enough to show that the sand had all slipped through.
+
+"Ah!" she said, as if surprised.
+
+The light raised by her breath had been very fitful,
+and a momentary irradiation of flesh was all that it had
+disclosed of her face.  That consisted of two matchless
+lips and a cheek only, her head being still enveloped. 
+She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand,
+the telescope under her arm, and moved on.
+
+Along the ridge ran a faint foot-track, which the
+lady followed.  Those who knew it well called it a path;
+and, while a mere visitor would have passed it unnoticed
+even by day, the regular haunters of the heath were at no
+loss for it at midnight.  The whole secret of following
+these incipient paths, when there was not light enough
+in the atmosphere to show a turnpike road, lay in the
+development of the sense of touch in the feet, which comes
+with years of night-rambling in little-trodden spots. 
+To a walker practised in such places a difference between
+impact on maiden herbage, and on the crippled stalks
+of a slight footway, is perceptible through the thickest boot or shoe. 
+
+The solitary figure who walked this beat took no notice
+of the windy tune still played on the dead heathbells. 
+She did not turn her head to look at a group of dark
+creatures further on, who fled from her presence as she
+skirted a ravine where they fed.  They were about a score
+of the small wild ponies known as heath-croppers. They
+roamed at large on the undulations of Egdon, but in numbers
+too few to detract much from the solitude. 
+
+The pedestrian noticed nothing just now, and a clue
+to her abstraction was afforded by a trivial incident. 
+A bramble caught hold of her skirt, and checked her progress. 
+Instead of putting it off and hastening along, she yielded
+herself up to the pull, and stood passively still. 
+When she began to extricate herself it was by turning
+round and round, and so unwinding the prickly switch. 
+She was in a desponding reverie. 
+
+Her course was in the direction of the small undying fire
+which had drawn the attention of the men on Rainbarrow
+and of Wildeve in the valley below.  A faint illumination
+from its rays began to glow upon her face, and the fire
+soon revealed itself to be lit, not on the level ground,
+but on a salient corner or redan of earth, at the junction
+of two converging bank fences.  Outside was a ditch,
+dry except immediately under the fire, where there was
+a large pool, bearded all round by heather and rushes. 
+In the smooth water of the pool the fire appeared
+upside down. 
+
+The banks meeting behind were bare of a hedge,
+save such as was formed by disconnected tufts of furze,
+standing upon stems along the top, like impaled heads
+above a city wall.  A white mast, fitted up with spars
+and other nautical tackle, could be seen rising against
+the dark clouds whenever the flames played brightly enough
+to reach it.  Altogether the scene had much the appearance
+of a fortification upon which had been kindled a beacon fire. 
+
+Nobody was visible; but ever and anon a whitish something
+moved above the bank from behind, and vanished again. 
+This was a small human hand, in the act of lifting pieces
+of fuel into the fire, but for all that could be seen the hand,
+like that which troubled Belshazzar, was there alone. 
+Occasionally an ember rolled off the bank, and dropped
+with a hiss into the pool. 
+
+At one side of the pool rough steps built of clods enabled
+everyone who wished to do so to mount the bank; which the
+woman did.  Within was a paddock in an uncultivated state,
+though bearing evidence of having once been tilled;
+but the heath and fern had insidiously crept in,
+and were reasserting their old supremacy.  Further ahead
+were dimly visible an irregular dwelling-house, garden,
+and outbuildings, backed by a clump of firs.
+
+The young lady--for youth had revealed its presence in her
+buoyant bound up the bank--walked along the top instead
+of descending inside, and came to the corner where the fire
+was burning.  One reason for the permanence of the blaze
+was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces
+of wood, cleft and sawn--the knotty boles of old thorn
+trees which grew in twos and threes about the hillsides.
+A yet unconsumed pile of these lay in the inner angle
+of the bank; and from this corner the upturned face of a
+little boy greeted her eves.  He was dilatorily throwing
+up a piece of wood into the fire every now and then,
+a business which seemed to have engaged him a considerable
+part of the evening, for his face was somewhat weary. 
+
+"I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia," he said,
+with a sigh of relief.  "I don't like biding by myself."
+
+"Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. 
+I have been gone only twenty minutes."
+
+"It seemed long," murmured the sad boy.  "And you have
+been so many times."
+
+"Why, I thought you would be pleased to have a bonfire. 
+Are you not much obliged to me for making you one?"
+
+"Yes; but there's nobody here to play wi' me."
+
+"I suppose nobody has come while I've been away?"
+
+"Nobody except your grandfather--he looked out of doors
+once for 'ee. I told him you were walking round upon
+the hill to look at the other bonfires."
+
+"A good boy."
+
+"I think I hear him coming again, miss."
+
+An old man came into the remoter light of the fire from
+the direction of the homestead.  He was the same who had
+overtaken the reddleman on the road that afternoon.
+He looked wistfully to the top of the bank at the woman
+who stood there, and his teeth, which were quite unimpaired,
+showed like parian from his parted lips. 
+
+"When are you coming indoors, Eustacia?" he asked. 
+"'Tis almost bedtime.  I've been home these two hours,
+and am tired out.  Surely 'tis somewhat childish of you to stay
+out playing at bonfires so long, and wasting such fuel.
+My precious thorn roots, the rarest of all firing,
+that I laid by on purpose for Christmas--you have burnt 'em
+nearly all!"
+
+"I promised Johnny a bonfire, and it pleases him not
+to let it go out just yet," said Eustacia, in a way
+which told at once that she was absolute queen here.
+"Grandfather, you go in to bed.  I shall follow you soon. 
+You like the fire, don't you, Johnny?"
+
+The boy looked up doubtfully at her and murmured,
+"I don't think I want it any longer."
+
+Her grandfather had turned back again, and did not hear
+the boy's reply.  As soon as the white-haired man
+had vanished she said in a tone of pique to the child,
+"Ungrateful little boy, how can you contradict me?
+Never shall you have a bonfire again unless you keep it
+up now.  Come, tell me you like to do things for me,
+and don't deny it."
+
+The repressed child said, "Yes, I do, miss," and continued
+to stir the fire perfunctorily. 
+
+"Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence,"
+said Eustacia, more gently.  "Put in one piece of wood
+every two or three minutes, but not too much at once. 
+I am going to walk along the ridge a little longer,
+but I shall keep on coming to you.  And if you hear a frog
+jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in,
+be sure you run and tell me, because it is a sign of rain."
+
+"Yes, Eustacia."
+
+"Miss Vye, sir."
+
+"Miss Vy--stacia."
+
+"That will do.  Now put in one stick more."
+
+The little slave went on feeding the fire as before. 
+He seemed a mere automaton, galvanized into moving and
+speaking by the wayward Eustacia's will.  He might have been
+the brass statue which Albertus Magnus is said to have
+animated just so far as to make it chatter, and move,
+and be his servant. 
+
+Before going on her walk again the young girl stood
+still on the bank for a few instants and listened.
+It was to the full as lonely a place as Rainbarrow, though at
+rather a lower level; and it was more sheltered from wind
+and weather on account of the few firs to the north. 
+The bank which enclosed the homestead, and protected it
+from the lawless state of the world without, was formed
+of thick square clods, dug from the ditch on the outside,
+and built up with a slight batter or incline, which forms
+no slight defense where hedges will not grow because of
+the wind and the wilderness, and where wall materials
+are unattainable.  Otherwise the situation was quite open,
+commanding the whole length of the valley which reached
+to the river behind Wildeve's house.  High above this
+to the right, and much nearer thitherward than the Quiet
+Woman Inn, the blurred contour of Rainbarrow obstructed
+the sky. 
+
+After her attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow
+ravines a gesture of impatience escaped Eustacia. 
+She vented petulant words every now and then, but there
+were sighs between her words, and sudden listenings
+between her sighs.  Descending from her perch she again
+sauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she
+did not go the whole way. 
+
+Twice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes
+and each time she said--
+
+"Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?"
+
+"No, Miss Eustacia," the child replied. 
+
+"Well," she said at last, "I shall soon be going in,
+and then I will give you the crooked sixpence, and let you
+go home."
+
+"Thank'ee, Miss Eustacia," said the tired stoker,
+breathing more easily.  And Eustacia again strolled away
+from the fire, but this time not towards Rainbarrow. 
+She skirted the bank and went round to the wicket before
+the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the scene. 
+
+Fifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks,
+with the fire upon it; within the bank, lifting up to the
+fire one stick at a time, just as before, the figure of
+the little child.  She idly watched him as he occasionally
+climbed up in the nook of the bank and stood beside
+the brands.  The wind blew the smoke, and the child's hair,
+and the corner of his pinafore, all in the same direction;
+the breeze died, and the pinafore and hair lay still,
+and the smoke went up straight. 
+
+While Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy's
+form visibly started--he slid down the bank and ran
+across towards the white gate.
+
+"Well?" said Eustacia.
+
+"A hopfrog have jumped into the pond.  Yes, I heard 'en!"
+
+"Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. 
+You will not be afraid?" She spoke hurriedly, as if her
+heart had leapt into her throat at the boy's words. 
+
+"No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence."
+
+"Yes. here it is.  Now run as fast as you can--not that
+way--through the garden here.  No other boy in the heath
+has had such a bonfire as yours."
+
+The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing,
+marched away into the shadows with alacrity.  When he
+was gone Eustacia, leaving her telescope and hourglass
+by the gate, brushed forward from the wicket towards
+the angle of the bank, under the fire. 
+
+Here, screened by the outwork, she waited.  In a few
+moments a splash was audible from the pond outside.
+Had the child been there he would have said that a second
+frog had jumped in; but by most people the sound would
+have been likened to the fall of a stone into the water. 
+Eustacia stepped upon the bank. 
+
+"Yes?" she said, and held her breath. 
+
+Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against
+the low-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer
+margin of the pool.  He came round it and leapt upon
+the bank beside her.  A low laugh escaped her--the third
+utterance which the girl had indulged in tonight.  The first,
+when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed anxiety;
+the second, on the ridge, had expressed impatience;
+the present was one of triumphant pleasure.  She let
+her joyous eyes rest upon him without speaking, as upon
+some wondrous thing she had created out of chaos. 
+
+"I have come," said the man, who was Wildeve.
+"You give me no peace.  Why do you not leave me alone?
+I have seen your bonfire all the evening."  The words
+were not without emotion, and retained their level tone
+as if by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes. 
+
+At this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover
+the girl seemed to repress herself also.  "Of course you
+have seen my fire," she answered with languid calmness,
+artificially maintained.  "Why shouldn't I have a bonfire
+on the Fifth of November, like other denizens of the heath?"
+
+"I knew it was meant for me."
+
+"How did you know it?  I have had no word with you
+since you--you chose her, and walked about with her,
+and deserted me entirely, as if I had never been yours
+life and soul so irretrievably!"
+
+"Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day
+of the month and at this same place you lighted exactly
+such a fire as a signal for me to come and see you?  Why
+should there have been a bonfire again by Captain Vye's
+house if not for the same purpose?"
+
+"Yes, yes--I own it," she cried under her breath, with a drowsy
+fervour of manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her. 
+"Don't begin speaking to me as you did, Damon; you will
+drive me to say words I would not wish to say to you. 
+I had given you up, and resolved not to think of you any more;
+and then I heard the news, and I came out and got the fire
+ready because I thought that you had been faithful to me."
+
+"What have you heard to make you think that?"
+said Wildeve, astonished. 
+
+"That you did not marry her!" she murmured exultingly.
+"And I knew it was because you loved me best, and couldn't
+do it....Damon, you have been cruel to me to go away,
+and I have said I would never forgive you.  I do not think
+I can forgive you entirely, even now--it is too much for a
+woman of any spirit to quite overlook."
+
+"If I had known you wished to call me up here only
+to reproach me, I wouldn't have come."
+
+"But I don't mind it, and I do forgive you now that you
+have not married her, and have come back to me!"
+
+"Who told you that I had not married her?"
+
+"My grandfather.  He took a long walk today, and as he
+was coming home he overtook some person who told him
+of a broken-off wedding--he thought it might be yours,
+and I knew it was."
+
+"Does anybody else know?"
+
+"I suppose not.  Now Damon, do you see why I lit my signal
+fire?  You did not think I would have lit it if I had
+imagined you to have become the husband of this woman. 
+It is insulting my pride to suppose that."
+
+Wildeve was silent; it was evident that he had supposed
+as much. 
+
+"Did you indeed think I believed you were married?"
+she again demanded earnestly.  "Then you wronged me;
+and upon my life and heart I can hardly bear to recognize
+that you have such ill thoughts of me! Damon, you are not
+worthy of me--I see it, and yet I love you.  Never mind,
+let it go--I must bear your mean opinion as best I may....It
+is true, is it not," she added with ill-concealed anxiety,
+on his making no demonstration, "that you could not bring
+yourself to give me up, and are still going to love me best
+of all?"
+
+"Yes; or why should I have come?" he said touchily. 
+"Not that fidelity will be any great merit in me after your
+kind speech about my unworthiness, which should have been
+said by myself if by anybody, and comes with an ill grace
+from you.  However, the curse of inflammability is upon me,
+and I must live under it, and take any snub from a woman. 
+It has brought me down from engineering to innkeeping--what
+lower stage it has in store for me I have yet to learn."
+He continued to look upon her gloomily. 
+
+She seized the moment, and throwing back the shawl so
+that the firelight shone full upon her face and throat,
+said with a smile, "Have you seen anything better than
+that in your travels?"
+
+Eustacia was not one to commit herself to such a position
+without good ground.  He said quietly, "No."
+
+"Not even on the shoulders of Thomasin?"
+
+"Thomasin is a pleasing and innocent woman."
+
+"That's nothing to do with it," she cried with
+quick passionateness.  "We will leave her out;
+there are only you and me now to think of."  After a long
+look at him she resumed with the old quiescent warmth,
+"Must I go on weakly confessing to you things a woman
+ought to conceal; and own that no words can express
+how gloomy I have been because of that dreadful belief
+I held till two hours ago--that you had quite deserted me?"
+
+"I am sorry I caused you that pain."
+
+"But perhaps it is not wholly because of you that I get gloomy,"
+she archly added.  "It is in my nature to feel like that. 
+It was born in my blood, I suppose."
+
+"Hypochondriasis."
+
+"Or else it was coming into this wild heath.  I was happy
+enough at Budmouth.  O the times, O the days at Budmouth!
+But Egdon will be brighter again now."
+
+"I hope it will," said Wildeve moodily.  "Do you know
+the consequence of this recall to me, my old darling?  I
+shall come to see you again as before, at Rainbarrow."
+
+"Of course you will."
+
+"And yet I declare that until I got here tonight I intended,
+after this one good-bye, never to meet you again."
+
+"I don't thank you for that," she said, turning away,
+while indignation spread through her like subterranean heat. 
+"You may come again to Rainbarrow if you like, but you
+won't see me; and you may call, but I shall not listen;
+and you may tempt me, but I won't give myself to you
+any more."
+
+"You have said as much before, sweet; but such natures
+as yours don't so easily adhere to their words. 
+Neither, for the matter of that, do such natures as mine."
+
+"This is the pleasure I have won by my trouble,"
+she whispered bitterly.  "Why did I try to recall you?  Damon,
+a strange warring takes place in my mind occasionally. 
+I think when I become calm after you woundings, 'Do I embrace
+a cloud of common fog after all?' You are a chameleon,
+and now you are at your worst colour.  Go home, or I shall
+hate you!"
+
+He looked absently towards Rainbarrow while one might
+have counted twenty, and said, as if he did not much mind
+all this, "Yes, I will go home.  Do you mean to see me again?"
+
+"If you own to me that the wedding is broken off because
+you love me best."
+
+"I don't think it would be good policy," said Wildeve, smiling. 
+"You would get to know the extent of your power too clearly."
+
+"But tell me!"
+
+"You know."
+
+"Where is she now?"
+
+"I don't know.  I prefer not to speak of her to you. 
+I have not yet married her; I have come in obedience to
+your call.  That is enough."
+
+"I merely lit that fire because I was dull, and thought
+I would get a little excitement by calling you up and
+triumphing over you as the Witch of Endor called up Samuel.
+I determined you should come; and you have come! I have
+shown my power.  A mile and half hither, and a mile and half
+back again to your home--three miles in the dark for me. 
+Have I not shown my power?"
+
+He shook his head at her.  "I know you too well, my Eustacia;
+I know you too well.  There isn't a note in you which I
+don't know; and that hot little bosom couldn't play such
+a cold-blooded trick to save its life.  I saw a woman
+on Rainbarrow at dusk looking down towards my house. 
+I think I drew out you before you drew out me."
+
+The revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly
+in Wildeve now; and he leant forward as if about to put
+his face towards her cheek. 
+
+"O no," she said, intractably moving to the other side
+of the decayed fire.  "What did you mean by that?"
+
+"Perhaps I may kiss your hand?"
+
+"No, you may not."
+
+"Then I may shake your hand?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I wish you good night without caring for either.
+Good-bye, good-bye."
+
+She returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-
+master he vanished on the other side of the pool as he
+had come. 
+
+Eustacia sighed--it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a
+sigh which shook her like a shiver.  Whenever a flash
+of reason darted like an electric light upon her lover-
+-as it sometimes would--and showed his imperfections,
+she shivered thus.  But it was over in a second,
+and she loved on.  She knew that he trifled with her;
+but she loved on.  She scattered the half-burnt brands,
+went indoors immediately, and up to her bedroom without
+a light.  Amid the rustles which denoted her to be undressing
+in the darkness other heavy breaths frequently came;
+and the same kind of shudder occasionally moved through
+her when, ten minutes later, she lay on her bed asleep. 
+
+
+
+7 - Queen of Night
+
+
+Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity.  On Olympus
+she would have done well with a little preparation. 
+She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess,
+that is, those which make not quite a model woman. 
+Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to be entirely
+in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff,
+the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in
+the world would have noticed the change of government. 
+There would have been the same inequality of lot, the same
+heaping up of favours here, of contumely there, the same
+generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas,
+the same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we
+endure now. 
+
+She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy;
+without ruddiness, as without pallor; and soft to the
+touch as a cloud.  To see her hair was to fancy that a
+whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form
+its shadow--it closed over her forehead like nightfall
+extinguishing the western glow. 
+
+Her nerves extended into those tresses, and her temper
+could always be softened by stroking them down.  When her
+hair was brushed she would instantly sink into stillness
+and look like the Sphinx.  If, in passing under one of
+the Egdon banks, any of its thick skeins were caught,
+as they sometimes were, by a prickly tuft of the large
+Ulex Europoeus--which will act as a sort of hairbrush--she
+would go back a few steps, and pass against it a second time. 
+
+She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries,
+and their light, as it came and went, and came again,
+was partially hampered by their oppressive lids and lashes;
+and of these the under lid was much fuller than it usually
+is with English women.  This enabled her to indulge
+in reverie without seeming to do so--she might have been
+believed capable of sleeping without closing them up. 
+Assuming that the souls of men and women were visible essences,
+you could fancy the colour of Eustacia's soul to be flamelike.
+The sparks from it that rose into her dark pupils gave
+the same impression. 
+
+The mouth seemed formed less to speak than to quiver,
+less to quiver than to kiss.  Some might have added,
+less to kiss than to curl.  Viewed sideways, the closing-line
+of her lips formed, with almost geometric precision,
+the curve so well known in the arts of design as the
+cima-recta, or ogee.  The sight of such a flexible
+bend as that on grim Egdon was quite an apparition. 
+It was felt at once that the mouth did not come over
+from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates whose lips
+met like the two halves of a muffin.  One had fancied
+that such lip-curves were mostly lurking underground
+in the South as fragments of forgotten marbles.  So fine
+were the lines of her lips that, though full, each corner
+of her mouth was as clearly cut as the point of a spear. 
+This keenness of corner was only blunted when she was
+given over to sudden fits of gloom, one of the phases
+of the night-side of sentiment which she knew too well
+for her years.
+
+Her presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon
+roses, rubies, and tropical midnight; her moods recalled
+lotus-eaters and the march in Athalie; her motions,
+the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, the viola. 
+In a dim light, and with a slight rearrangement of her hair,
+her general figure might have stood for that of either
+of the higher female deities.  The new moon behind her head,
+an old helmet upon it, a diadem of accidental dewdrops
+round her brow, would have been adjuncts sufficient to
+strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or Hera respectively,
+with as close an approximation to the antique as that
+which passes muster on many respected canvases. 
+
+But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had
+proved to be somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. 
+Her power was limited, and the consciousness of this
+limitation had biassed her development.  Egdon was
+her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed
+much of what was dark in its tone, though inwardly
+and eternally unreconciled thereto.  Her appearance
+accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness,
+and the shady splendour of her beauty was the real
+surface of the sad and stifled warmth within her.  A true
+Tartarean dignity sat upon her brow, and not factitiously
+or with marks of constraint, for it had grown in her with years. 
+
+Across the upper part of her head she wore a thin
+fillet of black velvet, restraining the luxuriance
+of her shady hair, in a way which added much to this
+class of majesty by irregularly clouding her forehead. 
+"Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than
+a narrow band drawn over the brow," says Richter.
+Some of the neighbouring girls wore coloured ribbon for the
+same purpose, and sported metallic ornaments elsewhere;
+but if anyone suggested coloured ribbon and metallic
+ornaments to Eustacia Vye she laughed and went on. 
+
+Why did a woman of this sort live on Egdon Heath?  Budmouth
+was her native place, a fashionable seaside resort
+at that date.  She was the daughter of the bandmaster
+of a regiment which had been quartered there--a Corfiote
+by birth, and a fine musician--who met his future wife
+during her trip thither with her father the captain,
+a man of good family.  The marriage was scarcely in accord
+with the old man's wishes, for the bandmaster's pockets
+were as light as his occupation.  But the musician did
+his best; adopted his wife's name, made England permanently
+his home, took great trouble with his child's education,
+the expenses of which were defrayed by the grandfather,
+and throve as the chief local musician till her mother's
+death, when he left off thriving, drank, and died also. 
+The girl was left to the care of her grandfather, who,
+since three of his ribs became broken in a shipwreck,
+had lived in this airy perch on Egdon, a spot which had
+taken his fancy because the house was to be had for
+next to nothing, and because a remote blue tinge on the
+horizon between the hills, visible from the cottage door,
+was traditionally believed to be the English Channel. 
+She hated the change; she felt like one banished;
+but here she was forced to abide. 
+
+Thus it happened that in Eustacia's brain were juxtaposed
+the strangest assortment of ideas, from old time and from new. 
+There was no middle distance in her perspective--romantic
+recollections of sunny afternoons on an esplanade,
+with military bands, officers, and gallants around, stood like
+gilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding Egdon. 
+Every bizarre effect that could result from the random
+intertwining of watering-place glitter with the grand
+solemnity of a heath, was to be found in her.  Seeing nothing
+of human life now, she imagined all the more of what she had seen. 
+
+Where did her dignity come from?  By a latent vein
+from Alcinous' line, her father hailing from Phaeacia's
+isle?--or from Fitzalan and De Vere, her maternal grandfather
+having had a cousin in the peerage?  Perhaps it was the
+gift of Heaven--a happy convergence of natural laws. 
+Among other things opportunity had of late years been denied
+her of learning to be undignified, for she lived lonely. 
+Isolation on a heath renders vulgarity well-nigh impossible. 
+It would have been as easy for the heath-ponies, bats,
+and snakes to be vulgar as for her.  A narrow life
+in Budmouth might have completely demeaned her.
+
+The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts
+to queen it over is to look as if you had lost them;
+and Eustacia did that to a triumph.  In the captain's
+cottage she could suggest mansions she had never seen. 
+Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion
+than any of them, the open hills.  Like the summer condition
+of the place around her, she was an embodiment of the
+phrase "a populous solitude"--apparently so listless,
+void, and quiet, she was really busy and full. 
+
+To be loved to madness--such was her great desire.
+Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away
+the eating loneliness of her days.  And she seemed to long
+for the abstraction called passionate love more than for
+any particular lover. 
+
+She could show a most reproachful look at times, but it
+was directed less against human beings than against certain
+creatures of her mind, the chief of these being Destiny,
+through whose interference she dimly fancied it arose
+that love alighted only on gliding youth--that any love
+she might win would sink simultaneously with the sand
+in the glass.  She thought of it with an ever-growing
+consciousness of cruelty, which tended to breed actions
+of reckless unconventionality, framed to snatch a year's,
+a week's, even an hour's passion from anywhere while it
+could be won.  Through want of it she had sung without
+being merry, possessed without enjoying, outshone
+without triumphing.  Her loneliness deepened her desire. 
+On Egdon, coldest and meanest kisses were at famine prices,
+and where was a mouth matching hers to be found?
+
+Fidelity in love for fidelity's sake had less attraction
+for her than for most women; fidelity because of love's grip
+had much.  A blaze of love, and extinction, was better than
+a lantern glimmer of the same which should last long years. 
+On this head she knew by prevision what most women learn
+only by experience--she had mentally walked round love,
+told the towers thereof, considered its palaces, and concluded
+that love was but a doleful joy.  Yet she desired it,
+as one in a desert would be thankful for brackish water.
+
+She often repeated her prayers; not at particular times, but,
+like the unaffectedly devout, when she desired to pray. 
+Her prayer was always spontaneous, and often ran thus,
+"O deliver my heart from this fearful gloom and loneliness;
+send me great love from somewhere, else I shall die."
+
+Her high gods were William the Conqueror, Strafford,
+and Napoleon Buonaparte, as they had appeared in the Lady's
+History used at the establishment in which she was educated.
+Had she been a mother she would have christened her boys
+such names as Saul or Sisera in preference to Jacob or David,
+neither of whom she admired.  At school she had used to side
+with the Philistines in several battles, and had wondered
+if Pontius Pilate were as handsome as he was frank and fair. 
+
+Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed,
+weighed in relation to her situation among the very
+rearward of thinkers, very original.  Her instincts
+towards social non-comformity were at the root of this. 
+In the matter of holidays, her mood was that of horses who,
+when turned out to grass, enjoy looking upon their kind
+at work on the highway.  She only valued rest to herself
+when it came in the midst of other people's labour. 
+Hence she hated Sundays when all was at rest, and often
+said they would be the death of her.  To see the heathmen
+in their Sunday condition, that is, with their hands
+in their pockets, their boots newly oiled, and not laced
+up (a particularly Sunday sign), walking leisurely among
+the turves and furze-faggots they had cut during the week,
+and kicking them critically as if their use were unknown,
+was a fearful heaviness to her.  To relieve the tedium
+of this untimely day she would overhaul the cupboards
+containing her grandfather's old charts and other rubbish,
+humming Saturday-night ballads of the country people the while.
+But on Saturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm,
+and it was always on a weekday that she read the Bible,
+that she might be unoppressed with a sense of doing
+her duty. 
+
+Such views of life were to some extent the natural
+begettings of her situation upon her nature.  To dwell
+on a heath without studying its meanings was like wedding
+a foreigner without learning his tongue.  The subtle
+beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only
+caught its vapours.  An environment which would have made
+a contented woman a poet, a suffering woman a devotee,
+a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy woman thoughtful,
+made a rebellious woman saturnine. 
+
+Eustacia had got beyond the vision of some marriage
+of inexpressible glory; yet, though her emotions were
+in full vigour, she cared for no meaner union.  Thus we
+see her in a strange state of isolation.  To have lost
+the godlike conceit that we may do what we will, and not
+to have acquired a homely zest for doing what we can,
+shows a grandeur of temper which cannot be objected to in
+the abstract, for it denotes a mind that, though disappointed,
+forswears compromise.  But, if congenial to philosophy,
+it is apt to be dangerous to the commonwealth.  In a world
+where doing means marrying, and the commonwealth is one
+of hearts and hands, the same peril attends the condition. 
+
+And so we see our Eustacia--for at times she was not
+altogether unlovable--arriving at that stage of enlightenment
+which feels that nothing is worth while, and filling up
+the spare hours of her existence by idealizing Wildeve
+for want of a better object.  This was the sole reason
+of his ascendency: she knew it herself.  At moments her
+pride rebelled against her passion for him, and she even
+had longed to be free.  But there was only one circumstance
+which could dislodge him, and that was the advent of a greater man. 
+
+For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits,
+and took slow walks to recover them, in which she carried
+her grandfather's telescope and her grandmother's
+hourglass--the latter because of a peculiar pleasure she
+derived from watching a material representation of time's
+gradual glide away.  She seldom schemed, but when she
+did scheme, her plans showed rather the comprehensive
+strategy of a general than the small arts called womanish,
+though she could utter oracles of Delphian ambiguity
+when she did not choose to be direct.  In heaven she
+will probably sit between the Heloises and the Cleopatras.
+
+
+
+8 - Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody
+
+
+As soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire
+he clasped the money tight in the palm of his hand,
+as if thereby to fortify his courage, and began to run. 
+There was really little danger in allowing a child to go
+home alone on this part of Egdon Heath.  The distance to
+the boy's house was not more than three-eighths of a mile,
+his father's cottage, and one other a few yards further on,
+forming part of the small hamlet of Mistover Knap: the
+third and only remaining house was that of Captain Vye
+and Eustacia, which stood quite away from the small cottages. 
+and was the loneliest of lonely houses on these thinly
+populated slopes. 
+
+He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming
+more courageous, walked leisurely along, singing in an old
+voice a little song about a sailor-boy and a fair one,
+and bright gold in store.  In the middle of this the child
+stopped--from a pit under the hill ahead of him shone a light,
+whence proceeded a cloud of floating dust and a smacking noise. 
+
+Only unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy.
+The shrivelled voice of the heath did not alarm him,
+for that was familiar.  The thornbushes which arose
+in his path from time to time were less satisfactory,
+for they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit
+after dark of putting on the shapes of jumping madmen,
+sprawling giants, and hideous cripples.  Lights were not
+uncommon this evening, but the nature of all of them
+was different from this.  Discretion rather than terror
+prompted the boy to turn back instead of passing the light,
+with a view of asking Miss Eustacia Vye to let her servant
+accompany him home. 
+
+When the boy had reascended to the top of the valley
+he found the fire to be still burning on the bank,
+though lower than before.  Beside it, instead of Eustacia's
+solitary form, he saw two persons, the second being a man. 
+The boy crept along under the bank to ascertain from
+the nature of the proceedings if it would be prudent
+to interrupt so splendid a creature as Miss Eustacia
+on his poor trivial account. 
+
+After listening under the bank for some minutes to the talk
+he turned in a perplexed and doubting manner and began
+to withdraw as silently as he had come.  That he did not,
+upon the whole, think it advisable to interrupt her
+conversation with Wildeve, without being prepared to bear
+the whole weight of her displeasure, was obvious.
+
+Here was a Scyllaeo-Charybdean position for a poor boy.
+Pausing when again safe from discovery, he finally
+decided to face the pit phenomenon as the lesser evil. 
+With a heavy sigh he retraced the slope, and followed
+the path he had followed before. 
+
+The light had gone, the rising dust had disappeared--he hoped
+for ever.  He marched resolutely along, and found nothing
+to alarm him till, coming within a few yards of the sandpit,
+he heard a slight noise in front, which led him to halt. 
+The halt was but momentary, for the noise resolved itself
+into the steady bites of two animals grazing. 
+
+"Two he'th-croppers down here," he said aloud.
+"I have never known 'em come down so far afore."
+
+The animals were in the direct line of his path,
+but that the child thought little of; he had played
+round the fetlocks of horses from his infancy. 
+On coming nearer, however, the boy was somewhat surprised
+to find that the little creatures did not run off,
+and that each wore a clog, to prevent his going astray;
+this signified that they had been broken in.  He could
+now see the interior of the pit, which, being in the side
+of the hill, had a level entrance.  In the innermost
+corner the square outline of a van appeared, with its
+back towards him.  A light came from the interior,
+and threw a moving shadow upon the vertical face of gravel
+at the further side of the pit into which the vehicle faced.
+
+The child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy,
+and his dread of those wanderers reached but to that
+mild pitch which titillates rather than pains. 
+Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and his family
+from being gipsies themselves.  He skirted the gravel
+pit at a respectful distance, ascended the slope,
+and came forward upon the brow, in order to look into
+the open door of the van and see the original of the shadow. 
+
+The picture alarmed the boy.  By a little stove inside
+the van sat a figure red from head to heels--the man who
+had been Thomasin's friend.  He was darning a stocking,
+which was red like the rest of him.  Moreover, as he
+darned he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of which were
+red also. 
+
+At this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the
+outer shadows was audibly shaking off the clog attached
+to its foot.  Aroused by the sound, the reddleman laid
+down his stocking, lit a lantern which hung beside him,
+and came out from the van.  In sticking up the candle
+he lifted the lantern to his face, and the light shone
+into the whites of his eyes and upon his ivory teeth,
+which, in contrast with the red surrounding, lent him
+a startling aspect enough to the gaze of a juvenile. 
+The boy knew too well for his peace of mind upon whose lair
+he had lighted.  Uglier persons than gipsies were known
+to cross Egdon at times, and a reddleman was one of them. 
+
+"How I wish 'twas only a gipsy!" he murmured. 
+
+The man was by this time coming back from the horses.
+In his fear of being seen the boy rendered detection certain
+by nervous motion.  The heather and peat stratum overhung
+the brow of the pit in mats, hiding the actual verge. 
+The boy had stepped beyond the solid ground; the heather
+now gave way, and down he rolled over the scarp of grey sand
+to the very foot of the man. 
+
+The red man opened the lantern and turned it upon
+the figure of the prostrate boy.
+
+"Who be ye?" he said. 
+
+"Johnny Nunsuch, master!"
+
+"What were you doing up there?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Watching me, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"What did you watch me for?"
+
+"Because I was coming home from Miss Vye's bonfire."
+
+"Beest hurt?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why, yes, you be--your hand is bleeding.  Come under
+my tilt and let me tie it up."
+
+"Please let me look for my sixpence."
+
+"How did you come by that?"
+
+"Miss Vye gied it to me for keeping up her bonfire."
+
+The sixpence was found, and the man went to the van,
+the boy behind, almost holding his breath. 
+
+The man took a piece of rag from a satchel containing
+sewing materials, tore off a strip, which, like everything
+else, was tinged red, and proceeded to bind up the wound. 
+
+"My eyes have got foggy-like--please may I sit down,
+master?" said the boy. 
+
+"To be sure, poor chap.  'Tis enough to make you feel fainty. 
+Sit on that bundle."
+
+The man finished tying up the gash, and the boy said,
+"I think I'll go home now, master."
+
+"You are rather afraid of me.  Do you know what I be?"
+
+The child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down
+with much misgiving and finally said, "Yes."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"The reddleman!" he faltered.
+
+"Yes, that's what I be.  Though there's more than one.
+You little children think there's only one cuckoo, one fox,
+one giant, one devil, and one reddleman, when there's lots
+of us all."
+
+"Is there?  You won't carry me off in your bags, will ye,
+master?  'Tis said that the reddleman will sometimes."
+
+"Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. 
+You see all these bags at the back of my cart?  They are
+not full of little boys--only full of red stuff."
+
+"Was you born a reddleman?"
+
+"No, I took to it.  I should be as white as you if I
+were to give up the trade--that is, I should be white
+in time--perhaps six months; not at first, because 'tis
+grow'd into my skin and won't wash out.  Now, you'll never
+be afraid of a reddleman again, will ye?"
+
+"No, never.  Willy Orchard said he seed a red ghost
+here t'other day--perhaps that was you?"
+
+"I was here t'other day."
+
+"Were you making that dusty light I saw by now?"
+
+"Oh yes, I was beating out some bags.  And have you had a good
+bonfire up there?  I saw the light.  Why did Miss Vye want
+a bonfire so bad that she should give you sixpence to keep it up?"
+
+"I don't know.  I was tired, but she made me bide
+and keep up the fire just the same, while she kept
+going up across Rainbarrow way."
+
+"And how long did that last?"
+
+"Until a hopfrog jumped into the pond."
+
+The reddleman suddenly ceased to talk idly.  "A hopfrog?"
+he inquired.  "Hopfrogs don't jump into ponds this time
+of year."
+
+"They do, for I heard one."
+
+"Certain-sure?"
+
+"Yes. She told me afore that I should hear'n; and so I did. 
+They say she's clever and deep, and perhaps she charmed
+'en to come."
+
+"And what then?"
+
+"Then I came down here, and I was afeard, and I went back;
+but I didn't like to speak to her, because of the gentleman,
+and I came on here again."
+
+"A gentleman--ah! What did she say to him, my man?"
+
+"Told him she supposed he had not married the other woman
+because he liked his old sweetheart best; and things
+like that."
+
+"What did the gentleman say to her, my sonny?"
+
+"He only said he did like her best, and how he was coming
+to see her again under Rainbarrow o' nights."
+
+"Ha!" cried the reddleman, slapping his hand against the side
+of his van so that the whole fabric shook under the blow. 
+"That's the secret o't!"
+
+The little boy jumped clean from the stool. 
+
+"My man, don't you be afraid," said the dealer in red,
+suddenly becoming gentle.  "I forgot you were here. 
+That's only a curious way reddlemen have of going mad
+for a moment; but they don't hurt anybody.  And what did
+the lady say then?"
+
+"I can't mind.  Please, Master Reddleman, may I go
+home-along now?"
+
+"Ay, to be sure you may.  I'll go a bit of ways with you."
+
+He conducted the boy out of the gravel pit and into the path
+leading to his mother's cottage.  When the little figure
+had vanished in the darkness the reddleman returned,
+resumed his seat by the fire, and proceeded to darn again. 
+
+
+
+9 - Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
+
+
+Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. 
+Since the introduction of railways Wessex farmers have
+managed to do without these Mephistophelian visitants,
+and the bright pigment so largely used by shepherds in
+preparing sheep for the fair is obtained by other routes. 
+Even those who yet survive are losing the poetry of existence
+which characterized them when the pursuit of the trade
+meant periodical journeys to the pit whence the material
+was dug, a regular camping out from month to month,
+except in the depth of winter, a peregrination among farms
+which could be counted by the hundred, and in spite of this
+Arab existence the preservation of that respectability
+which is insured by the never-failing production of a
+well-lined purse. 
+
+Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on,
+and stamps unmistakably, as with the mark of Cain,
+any person who has handled it half an hour.
+
+A child's first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in
+his life.  That blood-coloured figure was a sublimation
+of all the horrid dreams which had afflicted the juvenile
+spirit since imagination began.  "The reddleman is coming
+for you!" had been the formulated threat of Wessex mothers
+for many generations.  He was successfully supplanted
+for a while, at the beginning of the present century,
+by Buonaparte; but as process of time rendered the latter
+personage stale and ineffective the older phrase resumed
+its early prominence.  And now the reddleman has in his
+turn followed Buonaparte to the land of worn-out bogeys,
+and his place is filled by modern inventions. 
+
+The reddleman lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. 
+He was about as thriving as travelling basket and mat makers;
+but he had nothing to do with them.  He was more decently
+born and brought up than the cattledrovers who passed
+and repassed him in his wanderings; but they merely nodded
+to him.  His stock was more valuable than that of pedlars;
+but they did not think so, and passed his cart with eyes
+straight ahead.  He was such an unnatural colour to look
+at that the men of roundabouts and waxwork shows seemed
+gentlemen beside him; but he considered them low company,
+and remained aloof.  Among all these squatters and folks
+of the road the reddleman continually found himself; yet he
+was not of them.  His occupation tended to isolate him,
+and isolated he was mostly seen to be. 
+
+It was sometimes suggested that reddlemen were criminals
+for whose misdeeds other men wrongfully suffered--that in
+escaping the law they had not escaped their own consciences,
+and had taken to the trade as a lifelong penance.
+Else why should they have chosen it?  In the present case
+such a question would have been particularly apposite.
+The reddleman who had entered Egdon that afternoon was
+an instance of the pleasing being wasted to form the
+ground-work of the singular, when an ugly foundation would
+have done just as well for that purpose.  The one point
+that was forbidding about this reddleman was his colour. 
+Freed from that he would have been as agreeable a specimen
+of rustic manhood as one would often see.  A keen observer
+might have been inclined to think--which was, indeed,
+partly the truth--that he had relinquished his proper station
+in life for want of interest in it.  Moreover, after looking
+at him one would have hazarded the guess that good nature,
+and an acuteness as extreme as it could be without
+verging on craft, formed the framework of his character.
+
+While he darned the stocking his face became rigid
+with thought.  Softer expressions followed this, and then
+again recurred the tender sadness which had sat upon
+him during his drive along the highway that afternoon. 
+Presently his needle stopped.  He laid down the stocking,
+arose from his seat, and took a leathern pouch from a hook
+in the corner of the van.  This contained among other
+articles a brown-paper packet, which, to judge from the
+hinge-like character of its worn folds, seemed to have
+been carefully opened and closed a good many times. 
+He sat down on a three-legged milking stool that formed
+the only seat in the van, and, examining his packet
+by the light of a candle, took thence an old letter
+and spread it open.  The writing had originally been
+traced on white paper, but the letter had now assumed
+a pale red tinge from the accident of its situation;
+and the black strokes of writing thereon looked like the
+twigs of a winter hedge against a vermilion sunset. 
+The letter bore a date some two years previous to that time,
+and was signed "Thomasin Yeobright."  It ran as follows:--
+
+
+DEAR DIGGORY VENN,--The question you put when you
+overtook me coming home from Pond-close gave me such
+a surprise that I am afraid I did not make you exactly
+understand what I meant.  Of course, if my aunt had
+not met me I could have explained all then at once,
+but as it was there was no chance.  I have been quite
+uneasy since, as you know I do not wish to pain you,
+yet I fear I shall be doing so now in contradicting
+what I seemed to say then.  I cannot, Diggory, marry you,
+or think of letting you call me your sweetheart. 
+I could not, indeed, Diggory.  I hope you will not
+much mind my saying this, and feel in a great pain. 
+It makes me very sad when I think it may, for I like you
+very much, and I always put you next to my cousin Clym
+in my mind.  There are so many reasons why we cannot
+be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter. 
+I did not in the least expect that you were going to
+speak on such a thing when you followed me, because I
+had never thought of you in the sense of a lover at all.
+You must not becall me for laughing when you spoke;
+you mistook when you thought I laughed at you as a
+foolish man.  I laughed because the idea was so odd,
+and not at you at all.  The great reason with my own
+personal self for not letting you court me is, that I
+do not feel the things a woman ought to feel who consents
+to walk with you with the meaning of being your wife. 
+It is not as you think, that I have another in my mind,
+for I do not encourage anybody, and never have in my life. 
+Another reason is my aunt.  She would not, I know, agree to it,
+even if I wished to have you.  She likes you very well,
+but she will want me to look a little higher than a small
+dairy-farmer, and marry a professional man.  I hope you
+will not set your heart against me for writing plainly,
+but I felt you might try to see me again, and it is better
+that we should not meet.  I shall always think of you
+as a good man, and be anxious for your well-doing. I send
+this by Jane Orchard's little maid,--And remain Diggory,
+your faithful friend,
+
+THOMASIN YEOBRIGHT.
+
+To MR.  VENN, Dairy-farmer.
+
+
+Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn
+morning long ago, the reddleman and Thomasin had not met
+till today.  During the interval he had shifted his position
+even further from hers than it had originally been,
+by adopting the reddle trade; though he was really
+in very good circumstances still.  Indeed, seeing that
+his expenditure was only one-fourth of his income,
+he might have been called a prosperous man. 
+
+Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees;
+and the business to which he had cynically devoted himself
+was in many ways congenial to Venn.  But his wanderings,
+by mere stress of old emotions, had frequently taken
+an Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon her
+who attracted him thither.  To be in Thomasin's heath,
+and near her, yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure
+left to him.
+
+Then came the incident of that day, and the reddleman,
+still loving her well, was excited by this accidental
+service to her at a critical juncture to vow an active
+devotion to her cause, instead of, as hitherto, sighing and
+holding aloof.  After what had happened it was impossible
+that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve's intentions. 
+But her hope was apparently centred upon him; and dismissing
+his regrets Venn determined to aid her to be happy in
+her own chosen way.  That this way was, of all others,
+the most distressing to himself, was awkward enough;
+but the reddleman's love was generous. 
+
+His first active step in watching over Thomasin's interests
+was taken about seven o'clock the next evening and was
+dictated by the news which he had learnt from the sad boy. 
+That Eustacia was somehow the cause of Wildeve's carelessness
+in relation to the marriage had at once been Venn's
+conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting between them. 
+It did not occur to his mind that Eustacia's love signal
+to Wildeve was the tender effect upon the deserted beauty
+of the intelligence which her grandfather had brought home. 
+His instinct was to regard her as a conspirator against
+rather than as an antecedent obstacle to Thomasin's happiness. 
+
+During the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn
+the condition of Thomasin, but he did not venture
+to intrude upon a threshold to which he was a stranger,
+particularly at such an unpleasant moment as this.
+He had occupied his time in moving with his ponies
+and load to a new point in the heath, eastward to his
+previous station; and here he selected a nook with a
+careful eye to shelter from wind and rain, which seemed
+to mean that his stay there was to be a comparatively
+extended one.  After this he returned on foot some part
+of the way that he had come; and, it being now dark,
+he diverged to the left till he stood behind a holly bush
+on the edge of a pit not twenty yards from Rainbarrow. 
+
+He watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. 
+Nobody except himself came near the spot that night. 
+
+But the loss of his labour produced little effect upon
+the reddleman.  He had stood in the shoes of Tantalus,
+and seemed to look upon a certain mass of disappointment
+as the natural preface to all realizations, without which
+preface they would give cause for alarm. 
+
+The same hour the next evening found him again at the
+same place; but Eustacia and Wildeve, the expected trysters,
+did not appear. 
+
+He pursued precisely the same course yet four nights longer,
+and without success.  But on the next, being the day-week
+of their previous meeting, he saw a female shape floating
+along the ridge and the outline of a young man ascending
+from the valley.  They met in the little ditch encircling
+the tumulus--the original excavation from which it
+had been thrown up by the ancient British people. 
+
+The reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin,
+was aroused to strategy in a moment.  He instantly left
+the bush and crept forward on his hands and knees.
+When he had got as close as he might safely venture without
+discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind, the
+conversation of the trysting pair could not be overheard. 
+
+Near him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas
+strewn with large turves, which lay edgeways and upside
+down awaiting removal by Timothy Fairway, previous to
+the winter weather.  He took two of these as he lay,
+and dragged them over him till one covered his head
+and shoulders, the other his back and legs.  The reddleman
+would now have been quite invisible, even by daylight;
+the turves, standing upon him with the heather upwards,
+looked precisely as if they were growing.  He crept
+along again, and the turves upon his back crept with him. 
+Had he approached without any covering the chances
+are that he would not have been perceived in the dusk;
+approaching thus, it was as though he burrowed underground. 
+In this manner he came quite close to where the two
+were standing. 
+
+"Wish to consult me on the matter?" reached his ears
+in the rich, impetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. 
+"Consult me?  It is an indignity to me to talk so--I won't
+bear it any longer!" She began weeping.  "I have loved you,
+and have shown you that I loved you, much to my regret;
+and yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you
+wish to consult with me whether it would not be better
+to marry Thomasin.  Better--of course it would be. 
+Marry her--she is nearer to your own position in life than
+I am!"
+
+"Yes, yes; that's very well," said Wildeve peremptorily. 
+"But we must look at things as they are.  Whatever blame
+may attach to me for having brought it about,
+Thomasin's position is at present much worse than yours. 
+I simply tell you that I am in a strait."
+
+"But you shall not tell me! You must see that it is only
+harassing me.  Damon, you have not acted well; you have
+sunk in my opinion.  You have not valued my courtesy--the
+courtesy of a lady in loving you--who used to think
+of far more ambitious things.  But it was Thomasin's fault.
+
+She won you away from me, and she deserves to suffer for it. 
+Where is she staying now?  Not that I care, nor where I
+am myself.  Ah, if I were dead and gone how glad she would
+be! Where is she, I ask?"
+
+"Thomasin is now staying at her aunt's shut up in a bedroom,
+and keeping out of everybody's sight," he said indifferently.
+
+"I don't think you care much about her even now,"
+said Eustacia with sudden joyousness, "for if you did you
+wouldn't talk so coolly about her.  Do you talk so coolly
+to her about me?  Ah, I expect you do! Why did you originally
+go away from me?  I don't think I can ever forgive you,
+except on one condition, that whenever you desert me,
+you come back again, sorry that you served me so."
+
+"I never wish to desert you."
+
+"I do not thank you for that.  I should hate it to be
+all smooth.  Indeed, I think I like you to desert me
+a little once now and then.  Love is the dismallest thing
+where the lover is quite honest.  O, it is a shame to
+say so; but it is true!" She indulged in a little laugh. 
+"My low spirits begin at the very idea.  Don't you offer
+me tame love, or away you go!"
+
+"I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman,"
+said Wildeve, "so that I could be faithful to you without
+injuring a worthy person.  It is I who am the sinner
+after all; I am not worth the little finger of either of you."
+
+"But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from
+any sense of justice," replied Eustacia quickly. 
+"If you do not love her it is the most merciful thing
+in the long run to leave her as she is.  That's always
+the best way.  There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose. 
+When you have left me I am always angry with myself
+for things that I have said to you."
+
+Wildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. 
+The pause was filled up by the intonation of a pollard
+thorn a little way to windward, the breezes filtering
+through its unyielding twigs as through a strainer. 
+It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched teeth. 
+
+She continued, half sorrowfully, "Since meeting you last,
+it has occurred to me once or twice that perhaps it
+was not for love of me you did not marry her.  Tell me,
+Damon--I'll try to bear it.  Had I nothing whatever to do
+with the matter?"
+
+"Do you press me to tell?"
+
+"Yes, I must know.  I see I have been too ready to believe
+in my own power."
+
+"Well, the immediate reason was that the license would
+not do for the place, and before I could get another she
+ran away.  Up to that point you had nothing to do with it. 
+Since then her aunt has spoken to me in a tone which I
+don't at all like."
+
+"Yes, yes! I am nothing in it--I am nothing in it. 
+You only trifle with me.  Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye,
+be made of to think so much of you!"
+
+"Nonsense; do not be so passionate....Eustacia, how we
+roved among these bushes last year, when the hot days
+had got cool, and the shades of the hills kept us almost
+invisible in the hollows!"
+
+She remained in moody silence till she said, "Yes; and
+how I used to laugh at you for daring to look up to me!
+But you have well made me suffer for that since."
+
+"Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had
+found someone fairer than you.  A blessed find for me, Eustacia."
+
+"Do you still think you found somebody fairer?"
+
+"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced
+so nicely that a feather would turn them."
+
+"But don't you really care whether I meet you or whether
+I don't?" she said slowly. 
+
+"I care a little, but not enough to break my rest,"
+replied the young man languidly.  "No, all that's past. 
+I find there are two flowers where I thought there
+was only one.  Perhaps there are three, or four, or any
+number as good as the first....Mine is a curious fate.
+Who would have thought that all this could happen
+to me?"
+
+She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either
+love or anger seemed an equally possible issue, "Do you
+love me now?"
+
+"Who can say?"
+
+"Tell me; I will know it!"
+
+"I do, and I do not," said he mischievously.  "That is,
+I have my times and my seasons.  One moment you are too tall,
+another moment you are too do-nothing, another too melancholy,
+another too dark, another I don't know what, except--that you
+are not the whole world to me that you used to be, my dear. 
+But you are a pleasant lady to know and nice to meet,
+and I dare say as sweet as ever--almost."
+
+Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said,
+in a voice of suspended mightiness, "I am for a walk,
+and this is my way."
+
+"Well, I can do worse than follow you."
+
+"You know you can't do otherwise, for all your moods
+and changes!" she answered defiantly.  "Say what you will;
+try as you may; keep away from me all that you can--you
+will never forget me.  You will love me all your life long. 
+You would jump to marry me!"
+
+"So I would!" said Wildeve.  "Such strange thoughts
+as I've had from time to time, Eustacia; and they come
+to me this moment.  You hate the heath as much as ever;
+that I know."
+
+"I do," she murmured deeply.  "'Tis my cross, my shame,
+and will be my death!"
+
+"I abhor it too," said he.  "How mournfully the wind
+blows round us now!"
+
+She did not answer.  Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive. 
+Compound utterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it
+was possible to view by ear the features of the neighbourhood. 
+Acoustic pictures were returned from the darkened scenery;
+they could hear where the tracts of heather began and ended;
+where the furze was growing stalky and tall; where it had
+been recently cut; in what direction the fir-clump lay,
+and how near was the pit in which the hollies grew;
+for these differing features had their voices no less
+than their shapes and colours. 
+
+"God, how lonely it is!" resumed Wildeve.  "What are
+picturesque ravines and mists to us who see nothing else?"
+Why should we stay here?  Will you go with me to America?
+I have kindred in Wisconsin."
+
+"That wants consideration."
+
+"It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were
+a wild bird or a landscape-painter. Well?"
+
+"Give me time," she softly said, taking his hand. 
+"America is so far away.  Are you going to walk with me
+a little way?"
+
+As Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from
+the base of the barrow, and Wildeve followed her,
+so that the reddleman could hear no more.
+
+He lifted the turves and arose.  Their black figures sank
+and disappeared from against the sky.  They were as two
+horns which the sluggish heath had put forth from its crown,
+like a mollusc, and had now again drawn in. 
+
+The reddleman's walk across the vale, and over into the
+next where his cart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young
+fellow of twenty-four. His spirit was perturbed to aching. 
+The breezes that blew around his mouth in that walk
+carried off upon them the accents of a commination. 
+
+He entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. 
+Without lighting his candle he sat down at once on
+the three-legged stool, and pondered on what he had
+seen and heard touching that still-loved one of his. 
+He uttered a sound which was neither sigh nor sob, but was
+even more indicative than either of a troubled mind. 
+
+"My Tamsie," he whispered heavily.  "What can be done?  Yes,
+I will see that Eustacia Vye."
+
+
+
+10 - A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion
+
+
+The next morning, at the time when the height of the
+sun appeared very insignificant from any part of the
+heath as compared with the altitude of Rainbarrow,
+and when all the little hills in the lower levels
+were like an archipelago in a fog-formed Aegean,
+the reddleman came from the brambled nook which he
+had adopted as his quarters and ascended the slopes of Mistover Knap. 
+
+Though these shaggy hills were apparently so solitary,
+several keen round eyes were always ready on such a
+wintry morning as this to converge upon a passer-by.
+Feathered species sojourned here in hiding which would
+have created wonder if found elsewhere.  A bustard
+haunted the spot, and not many years before this five
+and twenty might have been seen in Egdon at one time.
+Marsh-harriers looked up from the valley by Wildeve's.
+A cream-coloured courser had used to visit this hill,
+a bird so rare that not more than a dozen have ever been
+seen in England; but a barbarian rested neither night
+nor day till he had shot the African truant, and after
+that event cream-coloured coursers thought fit to enter
+Egdon no more. 
+
+A traveller who should walk and observe any of these
+visitants as Venn observed them now could feel himself
+to be in direct communication with regions unknown to man. 
+Here in front of him was a wild mallard--just arrived from
+the home of the north wind.  The creature brought within him
+an amplitude of Northern knowledge.  Glacial catastrophes,
+snowstorm episodes, glittering auroral effects, Polaris in
+the zenith, Franklin underfoot--the category of his commonplaces
+was wonderful.  But the bird, like many other philosophers,
+seemed as he looked at the reddleman to think that a present
+moment of comfortable reality was worth a decade of memories. 
+
+Venn passed on through these towards the house of the
+isolated beauty who lived up among them and despised them. 
+The day was Sunday; but as going to church, except to be
+married or buried, was exceptional at Egdon, this made
+little difference.  He had determined upon the bold stroke
+of asking for an interview with Miss Vye--to attack her
+position as Thomasin's rival either by art or by storm,
+showing therein, somewhat too conspicuously, the want of
+gallantry characteristic of a certain astute sort of men,
+from clowns to kings.  The great Frederick making war
+on the beautiful Archduchess, Napoleon refusing terms
+to the beautiful Queen of Prussia, were not more dead
+to difference of sex than the reddleman was, in his
+peculiar way, in planning the displacement of Eustacia. 
+
+To call at the captain's cottage was always more or
+less an undertaking for the inferior inhabitants. 
+Though occasionally chatty, his moods were erratic,
+and nobody could be certain how he would behave at any
+particular moment.  Eustacia was reserved, and lived very much
+to herself.  Except the daughter of one of the cotters,
+who was their servant, and a lad who worked in the garden
+and stable, scarcely anyone but themselves ever entered
+the house.  They were the only genteel people of the
+district except the Yeobrights, and though far from rich,
+they did not feel that necessity for preserving a friendly
+face towards every man, bird, and beast which influenced
+their poorer neighbours.
+
+When the reddleman entered the garden the old man was
+looking through his glass at the stain of blue sea in
+the distant landscape, the little anchors on his buttons
+twinkling in the sun.  He recognized Venn as his companion
+on the highway, but made no remark on that circumstance,
+merely saying, "Ah, reddleman--you here?  Have a glass
+of grog?"
+
+Venn declined, on the plea of it being too early, and stated
+that his business was with Miss Vye.  The captain surveyed
+him from cap to waistcoat and from waistcoat to leggings
+for a few moments, and finally asked him to go indoors. 
+
+Miss Vye was not to be seen by anybody just then;
+and the reddleman waited in the window-bench of the kitchen,
+his hands hanging across his divergent knees, and his cap
+hanging from his hands. 
+
+"I suppose the young lady is not up yet?" he presently
+said to the servant.
+
+"Not quite yet.  Folks never call upon ladies at this
+time of day."
+
+"Then I'll step outside," said Venn.  "If she is willing
+to see me, will she please send out word, and I'll come in."
+
+The reddleman left the house and loitered on the
+hill adjoining.  A considerable time elapsed, and no
+request for his presence was brought.  He was beginning
+to think that his scheme had failed, when he beheld the
+form of Eustacia herself coming leisurely towards him. 
+A sense of novelty in giving audience to that singular
+figure had been sufficient to draw her forth. 
+
+She seemed to feel, after a bare look at Diggory Venn,
+that the man had come on a strange errand, and that he was
+not so mean as she had thought him; for her close approach
+did not cause him to writhe uneasily, or shift his feet,
+or show any of those little signs which escape an ingenuous
+rustic at the advent of the uncommon in womankind.
+On his inquiring if he might have a conversation with
+her she replied, "Yes, walk beside me," and continued
+to move on. 
+
+Before they had gone far it occurred to the perspicacious
+reddleman that he would have acted more wisely
+by appearing less unimpressionable, and he resolved
+to correct the error as soon as he could find opportunity.
+
+"I have made so bold, miss, as to step across and tell
+you some strange news which has come to my ears about
+that man."
+
+"Ah! what man?"
+
+He jerked his elbow to the southeast--the direction
+of the Quiet Woman. 
+
+Eustacia turned quickly to him.  "Do you mean Mr. Wildeve?"
+
+"Yes, there is trouble in a household on account of him,
+and I have come to let you know of it, because I believe
+you might have power to drive it away."
+
+"I?  What is the trouble?"
+
+"It is quite a secret.  It is that he may refuse to marry
+Thomasin Yeobright after all."
+
+Eustacia, though set inwardly pulsing by his words,
+was equal to her part in such a drama as this. 
+She replied coldly, "I do not wish to listen to this,
+and you must not expect me to interfere."
+
+"But, miss, you will hear one word?"
+
+"I cannot.  I am not interested in the marriage, and even
+if I were I could not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding."
+
+"As the only lady on the heath I think you might," said Venn
+with subtle indirectness.  "This is how the case stands. 
+Mr. Wildeve would marry Thomasin at once, and make all
+matters smooth, if so be there were not another woman
+in the case.  This other woman is some person he has
+picked up with, and meets on the heath occasionally,
+I believe.  He will never marry her, and yet through
+her he may never marry the woman who loves him dearly. 
+Now, if you, miss, who have so much sway over us menfolk,
+were to insist that he should treat your young neighbour
+Tamsin with honourable kindness and give up the other woman,
+he would perhaps do it, and save her a good deal of misery."
+
+"Ah, my life!" said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed
+her lips so that the sun shone into her mouth as into
+a tulip, and lent it a similar scarlet fire.  "You think
+too much of my influence over menfolk indeed, reddleman. 
+If I had such a power as you imagine I would go straight
+and use it for the good of anybody who has been kind
+to me--which Thomasin Yeobright has not particularly,
+to my knowledge."
+
+"Can it be that you really don't know of it--how much
+she had always thought of you?"
+
+"I have never heard a word of it.  Although we live
+only two miles apart I have never been inside her aunt's
+house in my life."
+
+The superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn
+that thus far he had utterly failed.  He inwardly sighed
+and felt it necessary to unmask his second argument.
+
+"Well, leaving that out of the question, 'tis in your power,
+I assure you, Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good
+to another woman."
+
+She shook her head. 
+
+"Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve.  It is law
+with all men who see 'ee. They say, 'This well-
+favoured lady coming--what's her name?  How handsome!'
+Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright," the reddleman persisted,
+saying to himself, "God forgive a rascal for lying!" And she
+was handsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking so.
+There was a certain obscurity in Eustacia's beauty,
+and Venn's eye was not trained.  In her winter dress, as now,
+she was like the tiger-beetle, which, when observed in
+dull situations, seems to be of the quietest neutral colour,
+but under a full illumination blazes with dazzling splendour. 
+
+Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she
+endangered her dignity thereby.  "Many women are lovelier
+than Thomasin," she said, "so not much attaches to that."
+
+The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: "He is a man
+who notices the looks of women, and you could twist him
+to your will like withywind, if you only had the mind."
+
+"Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him
+I cannot do living up here away from him."
+
+The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. 
+"Miss Vye!" he said. 
+
+"Why do you say that--as if you doubted me?" She spoke faintly,
+and her breathing was quick.  "The idea of your speaking in
+that tone to me!" she added, with a forced smile of hauteur. 
+"What could have been in your mind to lead you to speak like that?"
+
+"Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don't know
+this man?--I know why, certainly.  He is beneath you,
+and you are ashamed."
+
+"You are mistaken.  What do you mean?"
+
+The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. 
+"I was at the meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard
+every word," he said.  "The woman that stands between
+Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself."
+
+It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the
+mortification of Candaules' wife glowed in her. 
+The moment had arrived when her lip would tremble in spite
+of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be kept down. 
+
+"I am unwell," she said hurriedly.  "No--it is not that--I
+am not in a humour to hear you further.  Leave me, please."
+
+"I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you. 
+What I would put before you is this.  However it may come
+about--whether she is to blame, or you--her case is without
+doubt worse than yours.  Your giving up Mr. Wildeve will
+be a real advantage to you, for how could you marry him?
+Now she cannot get off so easily--everybody will blame
+her if she loses him.  Then I ask you--not because her
+right is best, but because her situation is worst--to
+give him up to her."
+
+"No--I won't, I won't!" she said impetuously, quite forgetful
+of her previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling. 
+"Nobody has ever been served so! It was going on well--I
+will not be beaten down--by an inferior woman like her. 
+It is very well for you to come and plead for her,
+but is she not herself the cause of all her own trouble?
+Am I not to show favour to any person I may choose without
+asking permission of a parcel of cottagers?  She has come
+between me and my inclination, and now that she finds
+herself rightly punished she gets you to plead for her!"
+
+"Indeed," said Venn earnestly, "she knows nothing whatever
+about it.  It is only I who ask you to give him up. 
+It will be better for her and you both.  People will say
+bad things if they find out that a lady secretly meets
+a man who has ill-used another woman."
+
+"I have NOT injured her--he was mine before he was
+hers! He came back--because--because he liked me best!"
+she said wildly.  "But I lose all self-respect in talking
+to you.  What am I giving way to!"
+
+"I can keep secrets," said Venn gently.  "You need not fear. 
+I am the only man who knows of your meetings with him.
+There is but one thing more to speak of, and then I will
+be gone.  I heard you say to him that you hated living
+here--that Egdon Heath was a jail to you."
+
+"I did say so.  There is a sort of beauty in the scenery,
+I know; but it is a jail to me.  The man you mention does
+not save me from that feeling, though he lives here. 
+I should have cared nothing for him had there been a better
+person near."
+
+The reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from
+her his third attempt seemed promising.  "As we have
+now opened our minds a bit, miss," he said, "I'll tell
+you what I have got to propose.  Since I have taken
+to the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know."
+
+She inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes
+rested in the misty vale beneath them. 
+
+"And in my travels I go near Budmouth.  Now Budmouth is
+a wonderful place--wonderful--a great salt sheening sea
+bending into the land like a bow--thousands of gentlepeople
+walking up and down--bands of music playing--officers
+by sea and officers by land walking among the rest--out
+of every ten folks you meet nine of 'em in love."
+
+"I know it," she said disdainfully.  "I know Budmouth
+better than you.  I was born there.  My father came to
+be a military musician there from abroad.  Ah, my soul,
+Budmouth! I wish I was there now."
+
+The reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could
+blaze on occasion.  "If you were, miss," he replied,
+"in a week's time you would think no more of Wildeve
+than of one of those he'th-croppers that we see yond.
+Now, I could get you there."
+
+"How?" said Eustacia, with intense curiosity in her
+heavy eyes. 
+
+"My uncle has been for five and twenty years the trusty
+man of a rich widow-lady who has a beautiful house
+facing the sea.  This lady has become old and lame,
+and she wants a young company-keeper to read and sing
+to her, but can't get one to her mind to save her life,
+though she've advertised in the papers, and tried half
+a dozen.  She would jump to get you, and Uncle would make
+it all easy."
+
+"I should have to work, perhaps?"
+
+"No, not real work--you'd have a little to do, such as reading
+and that.  You would not be wanted till New Year's Day."
+
+"I knew it meant work," she said, drooping to languor again. 
+
+"I confess there would be a trifle to do in the way of
+amusing her; but though idle people might call it work,
+working people would call it play.  Think of the company
+and the life you'd lead, miss; the gaiety you'd see,
+and the gentleman you'd marry.  My uncle is to inquire
+for a trustworthy young lady from the country, as she don't
+like town girls."
+
+"It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won't go. 
+O, if I could live in a gay town as a lady should,
+and go my own ways, and do my own doings, I'd give
+the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman, that would I."
+
+"Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance
+shall be yours," urged her companion. 
+
+"Chance--'tis no chance," she said proudly.  "What can
+a poor man like you offer me, indeed?--I am going indoors. 
+I have nothing more to say.  Don't your horses want feeding,
+or your reddlebags want mending, or don't you want
+to find buyers for your goods, that you stay idling here
+like this?"
+
+Venn spoke not another word.  With his hands behind him
+he turned away, that she might not see the hopeless
+disappointment in his face.  The mental clearness and power
+he had found in this lonely girl had indeed filled his manner
+with misgiving even from the first few minutes of close
+quarters with her.  Her youth and situation had led him
+to expect a simplicity quite at the beck of his method. 
+But a system of inducement which might have carried weaker
+country lasses along with it had merely repelled Eustacia. 
+As a rule, the word Budmouth meant fascination on Egdon. 
+That Royal port and watering place, if truly mirrored in the
+minds of the heathfolk, must have combined, in a charming
+and indescribable manner a Carthaginian bustle of building
+with Tarentine luxuriousness and Baian health and beauty. 
+Eustacia felt little less extravagantly about the place;
+but she would not sink her independence to get there. 
+
+When Diggory Venn had gone quite away, Eustacia walked
+to the bank and looked down the wild and picturesque
+vale towards the sun, which was also in the direction
+of Wildeve's. The mist had now so far collapsed that
+the tips of the trees and bushes around his house
+could just be discerned, as if boring upwards through
+a vast white cobweb which cloaked them from the day. 
+There was no doubt that her mind was inclined thitherward;
+indefinitely, fancifully--twining and untwining about
+him as the single object within her horizon on which
+dreams might crystallize.  The man who had begun by
+being merely her amusement, and would never have been
+more than her hobby but for his skill in deserting
+her at the right moments, was now again her desire. 
+Cessation in his love-making had revivified her love.
+Such feeling as Eustacia had idly given to Wildeve was dammed
+into a flood by Thomasin.  She had used to tease Wildeve,
+but that was before another had favoured him.  Often a drop
+of irony into an indifferent situation renders the whole piquant. 
+
+"I will never give him up--never!" she said impetuously.
+
+The reddleman's hint that rumour might show her to disadvantage
+had no permanent terror for Eustacia.  She was as unconcerned
+at that contingency as a goddess at a lack of linen. 
+This did not originate in inherent shamelessness,
+but in her living too far from the world to feel the impact
+of public opinion.  Zenobia in the desert could hardly have
+cared what was said about her at Rome.  As far as social
+ethics were concerned Eustacia approached the savage state,
+though in emotion she was all the while an epicure. 
+She had advanced to the secret recesses of sensuousness,
+yet had hardly crossed the threshold of conventionality. 
+
+
+
+11 - The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman
+
+
+The reddleman had left Eustacia's presence with desponding
+views on Thomasin's future happiness; but he was awakened
+to the fact that one other channel remained untried
+by seeing, as he followed the way to his van, the form
+of Mrs. Yeobright slowly walking towards the Quiet Woman.
+He went across to her; and could almost perceive in her
+anxious face that this journey of hers to Wildeve was
+undertaken with the same object as his own to Eustacia. 
+
+She did not conceal the fact.  "Then," said the reddleman,
+"you may as well leave it alone, Mrs. Yeobright."
+
+"I half think so myself," she said.  "But nothing else
+remains to be done besides pressing the question upon him."
+
+"I should like to say a word first," said Venn firmly. 
+"Mr. Wildeve is not the only man who has asked Thomasin
+to marry him; and why should not another have a chance?
+Mrs. Yeobright, I should be glad to marry your niece. 
+and would have done it any time these last two years. 
+There, now it is out, and I have never told anybody before
+but herself."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was not demonstrative, but her eyes
+involuntarily glanced towards his singular though shapely figure. 
+
+"Looks are not everything," said the reddleman,
+noticing the glance.  "There's many a calling that don't
+bring in so much as mine, if it comes to money; and perhaps
+I am not so much worse off than Wildeve.  There is nobody
+so poor as these professional fellows who have failed;
+and if you shouldn't like my redness--well, I am not red
+by birth, you know; I only took to this business for a freak;
+and I might turn my hand to something else in good time."
+
+"I am much obliged to you for your interest in my niece;
+but I fear there would be objections.  More than that,
+she is devoted to this man."
+
+"True; or I shouldn't have done what I have this morning."
+
+"Otherwise there would be no pain in the case, and you
+would not see me going to his house now.  What was
+Thomasin's answer when you told her of your feelings?"
+
+"She wrote that you would object to me; and other things."
+
+"She was in a measure right.  You must not take this
+unkindly--I merely state it as a truth.  You have been
+good to her, and we do not forget it.  But as she
+was unwilling on her own account to be your wife,
+that settles the point without my wishes being concerned."
+
+"Yes. But there is a difference between then and now,
+ma'am. She is distressed now, and I have thought that if
+you were to talk to her about me, and think favourably of
+me yourself, there might be a chance of winning her round,
+and getting her quite independent of this Wildeve's
+backward and forward play, and his not knowing whether
+he'll have her or no."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright shook her head.  "Thomasin thinks, and I
+think with her, that she ought to be Wildeve's wife,
+if she means to appear before the world without a slur
+upon her name.  If they marry soon, everybody will believe
+that an accident did really prevent the wedding.  If not,
+it may cast a shade upon her character--at any rate make
+her ridiculous.  In short, if it is anyhow possible they
+must marry now."
+
+"I thought that till half an hour ago.  But, after all,
+why should her going off with him to Anglebury for a few
+hours do her any harm?  Anybody who knows how pure she
+is will feel any such thought to be quite unjust. 
+I have been trying this morning to help on this marriage with
+Wildeve--yes, I, ma'am--in the belief that I ought to do it,
+because she was so wrapped up in him.  But I much question
+if I was right, after all.  However, nothing came of it. 
+And now I offer myself."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright appeared disinclined to enter further
+into the question.  "I fear I must go on," she said. 
+"I do not see that anything else can be done."
+
+And she went on.  But though this conversation did
+not divert Thomasin's aunt from her purposed interview
+with Wildeve, it made a considerable difference in her
+mode of conducting that interview.  She thanked God
+for the weapon which the reddleman had put into her hands.
+
+Wildeve was at home when she reached the inn.  He showed
+her silently into the parlour, and closed the door. 
+Mrs. Yeobright began--
+
+"I have thought it my duty to call today.  A new proposal
+has been made to me, which has rather astonished me.
+It will affect Thomasin greatly; and I have decided that it
+should at least be mentioned to you."
+
+"Yes?  What is it?" he said civilly. 
+
+"It is, of course, in reference to her future.  You may
+not be aware that another man has shown himself anxious to
+marry Thomasin.  Now, though I have not encouraged him yet,
+I cannot conscientiously refuse him a chance any longer. 
+I don't wish to be short with you; but I must be fair
+to him and to her."
+
+"Who is the man?" said Wildeve with surprise. 
+
+"One who has been in love with her longer than she
+has with you.  He proposed to her two years ago. 
+At that time she refused him."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He has seen her lately, and has asked me for permission
+to pay his addresses to her.  She may not refuse him twice."
+
+"What is his name?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright declined to say.  "He is a man Thomasin likes,"
+she added, "and one whose constancy she respects at least.
+It seems to me that what she refused then she would be glad
+to get now.  She is much annoyed at her awkward position."
+
+"She never once told me of this old lover."
+
+"The gentlest women are not such fools as to show EVERY card."
+
+"Well, if she wants him I suppose she must have him."
+
+"It is easy enough to say that; but you don't see
+the difficulty.  He wants her much more than she wants him;
+and before I can encourage anything of the sort I must have
+a clear understanding from you that you will not interfere
+to injure an arrangement which I promote in the belief
+that it is for the best.  Suppose, when they are engaged,
+and everything is smoothly arranged for their marriage,
+that you should step between them and renew your suit?  You
+might not win her back, but you might cause much unhappiness."
+
+"Of course I should do no such thing," said Wildeve "But
+they are not engaged yet.  How do you know that Thomasin
+would accept him?"
+
+"That's a question I have carefully put to myself;
+and upon the whole the probabilities are in favour
+of her accepting him in time.  I flatter myself that I
+have some influence over her.  She is pliable, and I
+can be strong in my recommendations of him."
+
+"And in your disparagement of me at the same time."
+
+"Well, you may depend upon my not praising you,"
+she said drily.  "And if this seems like manoeuvring,
+you must remember that her position is peculiar,
+and that she has been hardly used.  I shall also be
+helped in making the match by her own desire to escape
+from the humiliation of her present state; and a woman's
+pride in these cases will lead her a very great way. 
+A little managing may be required to bring her round;
+but I am equal to that, provided that you agree to the one
+thing indispensable; that is, to make a distinct declaration
+that she is to think no more of you as a possible husband.
+That will pique her into accepting him."
+
+"I can hardly say that just now, Mrs. Yeobright. 
+It is so sudden."
+
+"And so my whole plan is interfered with! It is very
+inconvenient that you refuse to help my family even to the
+small extent of saying distinctly you will have nothing to
+do with us."
+
+Wildeve reflected uncomfortably.  "I confess I was not
+prepared for this," he said.  "Of course I'll give
+her up if you wish, if it is necessary.  But I thought
+I might be her husband."
+
+"We have heard that before."
+
+"Now, Mrs. Yeobright, don't let us disagree.  Give me
+a fair time.  I don't want to stand in the way of any
+better chance she may have; only I wish you had let me
+know earlier.  I will write to you or call in a day or two.
+Will that suffice?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, "provided you promise not to communicate
+with Thomasin without my knowledge."
+
+"I promise that," he said.  And the interview then terminated,
+Mrs. Yeobright returning homeward as she had come.
+
+By far the greatest effect of her simple strategy
+on that day was, as often happens, in a quarter quite
+outside her view when arranging it.  In the first place,
+her visit sent Wildeve the same evening after dark
+to Eustacia's house at Mistover. 
+
+At this hour the lonely dwelling was closely blinded
+and shuttered from the chill and darkness without. 
+Wildeve's clandestine plan with her was to take a little
+gravel in his hand and hold it to the crevice at the
+top of the window shutter, which was on the outside,
+so that it should fall with a gentle rustle,
+resembling that of a mouse, between shutter and glass.
+This precaution in attracting her attention was to avoid
+arousing the suspicions of her grandfather. 
+
+The soft words, "I hear; wait for me," in Eustacia's
+voice from within told him that she was alone. 
+
+He waited in his customary manner by walking round the
+enclosure and idling by the pool, for Wildeve was never asked
+into the house by his proud though condescending mistress.
+She showed no sign of coming out in a hurry.  The time
+wore on, and he began to grow impatient.  In the course
+of twenty minutes she appeared from round the corner,
+and advanced as if merely taking an airing. 
+
+"You would not have kept me so long had you known what I
+come about," he said with bitterness.  "Still, you are
+worth waiting for."
+
+"What has happened?" said Eustacia.  "I did not know you
+were in trouble.  I too am gloomy enough."
+
+"I am not in trouble," said he.  "It is merely that affairs
+have come to a head, and I must take a clear course."
+
+"What course is that?" she asked with attentive interest. 
+
+"And can you forget so soon what I proposed to you the
+other night?  Why, take you from this place, and carry
+you away with me abroad."
+
+"I have not forgotten.  But why have you come so unexpectedly
+to repeat the question, when you only promised to come
+next Saturday?  I thought I was to have plenty of time
+to consider."
+
+"Yes, but the situation is different now."
+
+"Explain to me."
+
+"I don't want to explain, for I may pain you."
+
+"But I must know the reason of this hurry."
+
+"It is simply my ardour, dear Eustacia.  Everything is
+smooth now."
+
+"Then why are you so ruffled?"
+
+"I am not aware of it.  All is as it should be. 
+Mrs. Yeobright--but she is nothing to us."
+
+"Ah, I knew she had something to do with it! Come,
+I don't like reserve."
+
+"No--she has nothing.  She only says she wishes me to give
+up Thomasin because another man is anxious to marry her. 
+The woman, now she no longer needs me, actually shows off!"
+Wildeve's vexation has escaped him in spite of himself. 
+
+Eustacia was silent a long while.  "You are in the awkward
+position of an official who is no longer wanted,"
+she said in a changed tone. 
+
+"It seems so.  But I have not yet seen Thomasin."
+
+"And that irritates you.  Don't deny it, Damon.  You are
+actually nettled by this slight from an unexpected quarter."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And you come to get me because you cannot get her. 
+This is certainly a new position altogether.  I am to be
+a stop-gap."
+
+"Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day."
+
+Eustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence. 
+What curious feeling was this coming over her?  Was it
+really possible that her interest in Wildeve had been
+so entirely the result of antagonism that the glory
+and the dream departed from the man with the first sound
+that he was no longer coveted by her rival?  She was, then,
+secure of him at last.  Thomasin no longer required him. 
+What a humiliating victory! He loved her best, she thought;
+and yet--dared she to murmur such treacherous criticism ever
+so softly?--what was the man worth whom a woman inferior to
+herself did not value?  The sentiment which lurks more or less
+in all animate nature--that of not desiring the undesired
+of others--was lively as a passion in the supersubtle,
+epicurean heart of Eustacia.  Her social superiority
+over him, which hitherto had scarcely ever impressed her,
+became unpleasantly insistent, and for the first time
+she felt that she had stooped in loving him.
+
+"Well, darling, you agree?" said Wildeve. 
+
+"If it could be London, or even Budmouth, instead of America,"
+she murmured languidly.  "Well, I will think. 
+It is too great a thing for me to decide offhand.
+I wish I hated the heath less--or loved you more."
+
+"You can be painfully frank.  You loved me a month ago
+warmly enough to go anywhere with me."
+
+"And you loved Thomasin."
+
+"Yes, perhaps that was where the reason lay," he returned,
+with almost a sneer.  "I don't hate her now."
+
+"Exactly. The only thing is that you can no longer get her."
+
+"Come--no taunts, Eustacia, or we shall quarrel. 
+If you don't agree to go with me, and agree shortly,
+I shall go by myself."
+
+"Or try Thomasin again.  Damon, how strange it seems
+that you could have married her or me indifferently,
+and only have come to me because I am--cheapest! Yes,
+yes--it is true.  There was a time when I should have
+exclaimed against a man of that sort, and been quite wild;
+but it is all past now."
+
+"Will you go, dearest?  Come secretly with me to Bristol,
+marry me, and turn our backs upon this dog-hole of England
+for ever?  Say Yes."
+
+"I want to get away from here at almost any cost,"
+she said with weariness, "but I don't like to go with you. 
+Give me more time to decide."
+
+"I have already," said Wildeve.  "Well, I give you one
+more week."
+
+"A little longer, so that I may tell you decisively. 
+I have to consider so many things.  Fancy Thomasin being
+anxious to get rid of you! I cannot forget it."
+
+"Never mind that.  Say Monday week.  I will be here
+precisely at this time."
+
+"Let it be at Rainbarrow," said she.  "This is too near home;
+my grandfather may be walking out."
+
+"Thank you, dear.  On Monday week at this time I will
+be at the Barrow.  Till then good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye. No, no, you must not touch me now.
+Shaking hands is enough till I have made up my mind."
+
+Eustacia watched his shadowy form till it had disappeared. 
+She placed her hand to her forehead and breathed heavily;
+and then her rich, romantic lips parted under that homely
+impulse--a yawn.  She was immediately angry at having
+betrayed even to herself the possible evanescence of her
+passion for him.  She could not admit at once that she
+might have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his
+mediocrity now was to admit her own great folly heretofore. 
+And the discovery that she was the owner of a disposition
+so purely that of the dog in the manger had something in it
+which at first made her ashamed. 
+
+The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright's diplomacy was indeed remarkable,
+though not as yet of the kind she had anticipated. 
+It had appreciably influenced Wildeve, but it was
+influencing Eustacia far more.  Her lover was no longer
+to her an exciting man whom many women strove for,
+and herself could only retain by striving with them. 
+He was a superfluity.
+
+She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which
+is not exactly grief, and which especially attends the
+dawnings of reason in the latter days of an ill-judged,
+transient love.  To be conscious that the end of the dream
+is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is one
+of the most wearisome as well as the most curious stages
+along the course between the beginning of a passion and its end. 
+
+Her grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in
+pouring some gallons of newly arrived rum into the square
+bottles of his square cellaret.  Whenever these home
+supplies were exhausted he would go to the Quiet Woman,
+and, standing with his back to the fire, grog in hand,
+tell remarkable stories of how he had lived seven years
+under the waterline of his ship, and other naval wonders,
+to the natives, who hoped too earnestly for a treat
+of ale from the teller to exhibit any doubts of his truth. 
+
+He had been there this evening.  "I suppose you have heard
+the Egdon news, Eustacia?" he said, without looking up
+from the bottles.  "The men have been talking about it
+at the Woman as if it were of national importance."
+
+"I have heard none," she said. 
+
+"Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming
+home next week to spend Christmas with his mother. 
+He is a fine fellow by this time, it seems.  I suppose
+you remember him?"
+
+"I never saw him in my life."
+
+"Ah, true; he left before you came here.  I well remember
+him as a promising boy."
+
+"Where has he been living all these years?"
+
+"In that rookery of pomp and vanity, Paris, I believe."
+
+
+
+book two
+
+THE ARRIVAL
+
+
+
+1 - Tidings of the Comer
+
+
+On the fine days at this time of the year, and earlier,
+certain ephemeral operations were apt to disturb,
+in their trifling way, the majestic calm of Egdon Heath. 
+They were activities which, beside those of a town, a village,
+or even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment of
+stagnation merely, a creeping of the flesh of somnolence.
+But here, away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills,
+among which mere walking had the novelty of pageantry,
+and where any man could imagine himself to be Adam without
+the least difficulty, they attracted the attention of
+every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep,
+and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from
+hillocks at a safe distance. 
+
+The performance was that of bringing together and building
+into a stack the furze faggots which Humphrey had been
+cutting for the captain's use during the foregoing
+fine days.  The stack was at the end of the dwelling,
+and the men engaged in building it were Humphrey and Sam,
+the old man looking on. 
+
+It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o'clock;
+but the winter solstice having stealthily come on,
+the lowness of the sun caused the hour to seem later
+than it actually was, there being little here to remind
+an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience
+of the sky as a dial.  In the course of many days and
+weeks sunrise had advanced its quarters from northeast
+to southeast, sunset had receded from northwest to southwest;
+but Egdon had hardly heeded the change. 
+
+Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really
+more like a kitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping
+chimney-corner. The air was still, and while she lingered
+a moment here alone sounds of voices in conversation
+came to her ears directly down the chimney.  She entered
+the recess, and, listening, looked up the old irregular shaft,
+with its cavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered
+about on its way to the square bit of sky at the top,
+from which the daylight struck down with a pallid glare
+upon the tatters of soot draping the flue as seaweed
+drapes a rocky fissure.
+
+She remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney,
+and the voices were those of the workers. 
+
+Her grandfather joined in the conversation.  "That lad ought
+never to have left home.  His father's occupation would
+have suited him best, and the boy should have followed on. 
+I don't believe in these new moves in families. 
+My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should my son
+have been if I had had one."
+
+"The place he's been living at is Paris," said Humphrey,
+"and they tell me 'tis where the king's head was cut off
+years ago.  My poor mother used to tell me about that business. 
+'Hummy,' she used to say, 'I was a young maid then,
+and as I was at home ironing Mother's caps one afternoon
+the parson came in and said, "They've cut the king's
+head off, Jane; and what 'twill be next God knows."'"
+
+"A good many of us knew as well as He before long,"
+said the captain, chuckling.  "I lived seven years
+under water on account of it in my boyhood--in that
+damned surgery of the Triumph, seeing men brought
+down to the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to
+Jericho....And so the young man has settled in Paris. 
+Manager to a diamond merchant, or some such thing,
+is he not?"
+
+"Yes, sir, that's it.  'Tis a blazing great business
+that he belongs to, so I've heard his mother say--like
+a king's palace, as far as diments go."
+
+"I can well mind when he left home," said Sam.
+
+"'Tis a good thing for the feller," said Humphrey. 
+"A sight of times better to be selling diments than nobbling
+about here."
+
+"It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place."
+
+"A good few indeed, my man," replied the captain. 
+"Yes, you may make away with a deal of money and be neither
+drunkard nor glutton."
+
+"They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real
+perusing man, with the strangest notions about things. 
+There, that's because he went to school early,
+such as the school was."
+
+"Strange notions, has he?" said the old man.  "Ah, there's
+too much of that sending to school in these days! It
+only does harm.  Every gatepost and barn's door you come
+to is sure to have some bad word or other chalked upon
+it by the young rascals--a woman can hardly pass for
+shame sometimes.  If they'd never been taught how to write
+they wouldn't have been able to scribble such villainy. 
+Their fathers couldn't do it, and the country was all
+the better for it."
+
+"Now, I should think, Cap'n, that Miss Eustacia had about
+as much in her head that comes from books as anybody
+about here?"
+
+"Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic
+nonsense in her head it would be better for her,"
+said the captain shortly; after which he walked away. 
+
+"I say, Sam," observed Humphrey when the old man was gone,
+"she and Clym Yeobright would make a very pretty
+pigeon-pair--hey?  If they wouldn't I'll be dazed! Both
+of one mind about niceties for certain, and learned
+in print, and always thinking about high doctrine--there
+couldn't be a better couple if they were made o' purpose. 
+Clym's family is as good as hers.  His father was a farmer,
+that's true; but his mother was a sort of lady, as we know.
+Nothing would please me better than to see them two man and wife."
+
+"They'd look very natty, arm-in-crook together,
+and their best clothes on, whether or no, if he's
+at all the well-favoured fellow he used to be."
+
+"They would, Humphrey.  Well, I should like to see the chap
+terrible much after so many years.  If I knew for certain
+when he was coming I'd stroll out three or four miles
+to meet him and help carry anything for'n; though I
+suppose he's altered from the boy he was.  They say he
+can talk French as fast as a maid can eat blackberries;
+and if so, depend upon it we who have stayed at home
+shall seem no more than scroff in his eyes."
+
+"Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes; but how he's coming from Budmouth I don't know."
+
+"That's a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. 
+I wonder such a nice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come
+home into it.  What a nunnywatch we were in, to be sure,
+when we heard they weren't married at all, after singing
+to 'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if I should
+like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool
+of by a man.  It makes the family look small."
+
+"Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. 
+Her health is suffering from it, I hear, for she will
+bide entirely indoors.  We never see her out now,
+scampering over the furze with a face as red as a rose,
+as she used to do."
+
+"I've heard she wouldn't have Wildeve now if he asked her."
+
+"You have?  'Tis news to me."
+
+While the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed
+thus Eustacia's face gradually bent to the hearth
+in a profound reverie, her toe unconsciously tapping
+the dry turf which lay burning at her feet. 
+
+The subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting
+to her.  A young and clever man was coming into that lonely
+heath from, of all contrasting places in the world, Paris. 
+It was like a man coming from heaven.  More singular still,
+the heathmen had instinctively coupled her and this
+man together in their minds as a pair born for each other. 
+
+That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia
+with visions enough to fill the whole blank afternoon.
+Such sudden alternations from mental vacuity do sometimes
+occur thus quietly.  She could never have believed in
+the morning that her colourless inner world would before
+night become as animated as water under a microscope,
+and that without the arrival of a single visitor. 
+The words of Sam and Humphrey on the harmony between
+the unknown and herself had on her mind the effect of the
+invading Bard's prelude in the Castle of Indolence,
+at which myriads of imprisoned shapes arose where had
+previously appeared the stillness of a void. 
+
+Involved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time.
+When she became conscious of externals it was dusk. 
+The furze-rick was finished; the men had gone home. 
+Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she would take
+a walk at this her usual time; and she determined
+that her walk should be in the direction of Blooms-End,
+the birthplace of young Yeobright and the present home
+of his mother.  She had no reason for walking elsewhere,
+and why should she not go that way?  The scene of the
+daydream is sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen.
+To look at the palings before the Yeobrights'
+house had the dignity of a necessary performance. 
+Strange that such a piece of idling should have seemed an
+important errand. 
+
+She put on her bonnet, and, leaving the house, descended the
+hill on the side towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly
+along the valley for a distance of a mile and a half. 
+This brought her to a spot in which the green bottom
+of the dale began to widen, the furze bushes to recede yet
+further from the path on each side, till they were diminished
+to an isolated one here and there by the increasing
+fertility of the soil.  Beyond the irregular carpet of
+grass was a row of white palings, which marked the verge
+of the heath in this latitude.  They showed upon the dusky
+scene that they bordered as distinctly as white lace
+on velvet.  Behind the white palings was a little garden;
+behind the garden an old, irregular, thatched house,
+facing the heath, and commanding a full view of the valley. 
+This was the obscure, removed spot to which was about
+to return a man whose latter life had been passed in the
+French capital--the centre and vortex of the fashionable world. 
+
+
+
+2 - The People at Blooms-End Make Ready
+
+
+All that afternoon the expected arrival of the subject
+of Eustacia's ruminations created a bustle of preparation
+at Blooms-End. Thomasin had been persuaded by her aunt,
+and by an instinctive impulse of loyalty towards her cousin Clym,
+to bestir herself on his account with an alacrity unusual
+in her during these most sorrowful days of her life. 
+At the time that Eustacia was listening to the rick-makers'
+conversation on Clym's return, Thomasin was climbing into
+a loft over her aunt's fuelhouse, where the store-apples
+were kept, to search out the best and largest of them
+for the coming holiday-time.
+
+The loft was lighted by a semicircular hole,
+through which the pigeons crept to their lodgings in the
+same high quarters of the premises; and from this hole
+the sun shone in a bright yellow patch upon the figure
+of the maiden as she knelt and plunged her naked arms
+into the soft brown fern, which, from its abundance,
+was used on Egdon in packing away stores of all kinds. 
+The pigeons were flying about her head with the
+greatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just
+visible above the floor of the loft, lit by a few stray
+motes of light, as she stood halfway up the ladder,
+looking at a spot into which she was not climber enough to venture. 
+
+"Now a few russets, Tamsin.  He used to like them almost
+as well as ribstones."
+
+Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook,
+where more mellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. 
+Before picking them out she stopped a moment. 
+
+"Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?" she said,
+gazing abstractedly at the pigeon-hole. which admitted
+the sunlight so directly upon her brown hair and transparent
+tissues that it almost seemed to shine through her. 
+
+"If he could have been dear to you in another way,"
+said Mrs. Yeobright from the ladder, "this might have been
+a happy meeting."
+
+"Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?"
+
+"Yes," said her aunt, with some warmth.  "To thoroughly
+fill the air with the past misfortune, so that other girls
+may take warning and keep clear of it."
+
+Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. 
+"I am a warning to others, just as thieves and drunkards
+and gamblers are," she said in a low voice.  "What a
+class to belong to! Do I really belong to them?  'Tis
+absurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me
+think that I do, by the way they behave towards me?  Why
+don't people judge me by my acts?  Now, look at me as I
+kneel here, picking up these apples--do I look like a
+lost woman?...I wish all good women were as good as I!"
+she added vehemently. 
+
+"Strangers don't see you as I do," said Mrs. Yeobright;
+"they judge from false report.  Well, it is a silly job,
+and I am partly to blame."
+
+"How quickly a rash thing can be done!" replied the girl. 
+Her lips were quivering, and tears so crowded themselves
+into her eyes that she could hardly distinguish apples
+from fern as she continued industriously searching to hide
+her weakness. 
+
+"As soon as you have finished getting the apples,"
+her aunt said, descending the ladder, "come down,
+and we'll go for the holly.  There is nobody on the heath
+this afternoon, and you need not fear being stared at. 
+We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in
+our preparations."
+
+Thomasin came down when the apples were collected,
+and together they went through the white palings to
+the heath beyond.  The open hills were airy and clear,
+and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often appears
+on a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination
+independently toned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts
+of landscape streaming visibly across those further off;
+a stratum of ensaffroned light was imposed on a stratum
+of deep blue, and behind these lay still remoter scenes
+wrapped in frigid grey. 
+
+They reached the place where the hollies grew,
+which was in a conical pit, so that the tops of the trees
+were not much above the general level of the ground.
+Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes,
+as she had done under happier circumstances on many
+similar occasions, and with a small chopper that they
+had brought she began to lop off the heavily berried boughs. 
+
+"Don't scratch your face," said her aunt, who stood at
+the edge of the pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid
+the glistening green and scarlet masses of the tree. 
+"Will you walk with me to meet him this evening?"
+
+"I should like to.  Else it would seem as if I had
+forgotten him," said Thomasin, tossing out a bough. 
+"Not that that would matter much; I belong to one man;
+nothing can alter that.  And that man I must marry,
+for my pride's sake."
+
+"I am afraid--" began Mrs. Yeobright. 
+
+"Ah, you think, 'That weak girl--how is she going to get
+a man to marry her when she chooses?' But let me tell you
+one thing, Aunt: Mr. Wildeve is not a profligate man,
+any more than I am an improper woman.  He has an
+unfortunate manner, and doesn't try to make people
+like him if they don't wish to do it of their own accord."
+
+"Thomasin," said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye
+upon her niece, "do you think you deceive me in your
+defence of Mr. Wildeve?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has
+changed its colour since you have found him not to be
+the saint you thought him, and that you act a part to me."
+
+"He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him."
+
+"Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment
+agree to be his wife if that had not happened to entangle
+you with him?"
+
+Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed.
+"Aunt," she said presently, "I have, I think, a right to
+refuse to answer that question."
+
+"Yes, you have."
+
+"You may think what you choose.  I have never implied
+to you by word or deed that I have grown to think otherwise
+of him, and I never will.  And I shall marry him."
+
+"Well, wait till he repeats his offer.  I think he
+may do it, now that he knows--something I told him. 
+I don't for a moment dispute that it is the most proper
+thing for you to marry him.  Much as I have objected to him
+in bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure. 
+It is the only way out of a false position, and a very
+galling one."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+"That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours."
+
+"Aunt," said Thomasin, with round eyes, "what DO you mean?"
+
+"Don't be alarmed; it was my duty.  I can say no more
+about it now, but when it is over I will tell you exactly
+what I said, and why I said it."
+
+Thomasin was perforce content. 
+
+"And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage
+from Clym for the present?" she next asked. 
+
+"I have given my word to.  But what is the use of it?
+He must soon know what has happened.  A mere look
+at your face will show him that something is wrong."
+
+Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. 
+"Now, hearken to me," she said, her delicate voice expanding
+into firmness by a force which was other than physical. 
+"Tell him nothing.  If he finds out that I am not worthy
+to be his cousin, let him.  But, since he loved me once,
+we will not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon.
+The air is full of the story, I know; but gossips will
+not dare to speak of it to him for the first few days. 
+His closeness to me is the very thing that will hinder the tale
+from reaching him early.  If I am not made safe from sneers
+in a week or two I will tell him myself."
+
+The earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented
+further objections.  Her aunt simply said, "Very well. 
+He should by rights have been told at the time that the
+wedding was going to be.  He will never forgive you
+for your secrecy."
+
+"Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished
+to spare him, and that I did not expect him home so soon.
+And you must not let me stand in the way of your
+Christmas party.  Putting it off would only make matters worse."
+
+"Of course I shall not.  I do not wish to show myself beaten
+before all Egdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve. 
+We have enough berries now, I think, and we had better
+take them home.  By the time we have decked the house
+with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must think
+of starting to meet him."
+
+Thomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair
+and dress the loose berries which had fallen thereon,
+and went down the hill with her aunt, each woman
+bearing half the gathered boughs.  It was now nearly
+four o'clock, and the sunlight was leaving the vales. 
+When the west grew red the two relatives came again
+from the house and plunged into the heath in a different
+direction from the first, towards a point in the distant
+highway along which the expected man was to return. 
+
+
+
+3 - How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream
+
+
+Eustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes
+in the direction of Mrs. Yeobright's house and premises. 
+No light, sound, or movement was perceptible there.
+The evening was chilly; the spot was dark and lonely. 
+She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and after
+lingering ten or fifteen minutes she turned again
+towards home. 
+
+She had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front
+of her betokened the approach of persons in conversation
+along the same path.  Soon their heads became visible
+against the sky.  They were walking slowly; and though it
+was too dark for much discovery of character from aspect,
+the gait of them showed that they were not workers on
+the heath.  Eustacia stepped a little out of the foot-track
+to let them pass.  They were two women and a man;
+and the voices of the women were those of Mrs. Yeobright
+and Thomasin.
+
+They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared
+to discern her dusky form.  There came to her ears
+in a masculine voice, "Good night!"
+
+She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round.
+She could not, for a moment, believe that chance,
+unrequested, had brought into her presence the soul
+of the house she had gone to inspect, the man without
+whom her inspection would not have been thought of. 
+
+She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. 
+Such was her intentness, however, that it seemed
+as if her ears were performing the functions of seeing
+as well as hearing.  This extension of power can almost
+be believed in at such moments.  The deaf Dr. Kitto was
+probably under the influence of a parallel fancy when he
+described his body as having become, by long endeavour,
+so sensitive to vibrations that he had gained the power
+of perceiving by it as by ears.
+
+She could follow every word that the ramblers uttered. 
+They were talking no secrets.  They were merely indulging
+in the ordinary vivacious chat of relatives who have long
+been parted in person though not in soul.  But it was not
+to the words that Eustacia listened; she could not even
+have recalled, a few minutes later, what the words were.
+It was to the alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth
+of them--the voice that had wished her good night. 
+Sometimes this throat uttered Yes, sometimes it uttered No;
+sometimes it made inquiries about a time worn denizen
+of the place.  Once it surprised her notions by remarking
+upon the friendliness and geniality written in the faces of
+the hills around. 
+
+The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear.
+Thus much had been granted her; and all besides withheld. 
+No event could have been more exciting.  During the greater
+part of the afternoon she had been entrancing herself
+by imagining the fascination which must attend a man come
+direct from beautiful Paris--laden with its atmosphere,
+familiar with its charms.  And this man had greeted her.
+
+With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations
+of the women wasted away from her memory; but the accents
+of the other stayed on.  Was there anything in the voice
+of Mrs. Yeobright's son--for Clym it was--startling as a
+sound?  No; it was simply comprehensive.  All emotional
+things were possible to the speaker of that "good night."
+Eustacia's imagination supplied the rest--except the solution
+to one riddle.  What COULD the tastes of that man
+be who saw friendliness and geniality in these shaggy hills?
+
+On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through
+a highly charged woman's head; and they indicate themselves
+on her face; but the changes, though actual, are minute. 
+Eustacia's features went through a rhythmical succession
+of them.  She glowed; remembering the mendacity
+of the imagination, she flagged; then she freshened;
+then she fired; then she cooled again.  It was a cycle
+of aspects, produced by a cycle of visions. 
+
+Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited.
+Her grandfather was enjoying himself over the fire,
+raking about the ashes and exposing the red-hot surface
+of the turves, so that their lurid glare irradiated the
+chimney-corner with the hues of a furnace. 
+
+"Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?"
+she said, coming forward and stretching her soft hands
+over the warmth.  "I wish we were.  They seem to be very
+nice people."
+
+"Be hanged if I know why," said the captain.  "I liked
+the old man well enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. 
+But you would never have cared to go there, even if you
+might have, I am well sure."
+
+"Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. 
+They sit in the kitchen, drink mead and elder-wine, and
+sand the floor to keep it clean.  A sensible way of life;
+but how would you like it?"
+
+"I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman?
+A curate's daughter, was she not?"
+
+"Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did;
+and I suppose she has taken kindly to it by this time.
+Ah, I recollect that I once accidentally offended her,
+and I have never seen her since."
+
+That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain,
+and one which she hardly ever forgot.  She dreamt a dream;
+and few human beings, from Nebuchadnezzar to the
+Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable one. 
+Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream
+was certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's
+situation before.  It had as many ramifications
+as the Cretan labyrinth, as many fluctuations as the
+northern lights, as much colour as a parterre in June,
+and was as crowded with figures as a coronation. 
+To Queen Scheherazade the dream might have seemed not far
+removed from commonplace; and to a girl just returned
+from all the courts of Europe it might have seemed
+not more than interesting.  But amid the circumstances
+of Eustacia's life it was as wonderful as a dream could be. 
+
+There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation
+scenes a less extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly
+appeared behind the general brilliancy of the action. 
+She was dancing to wondrous music, and her partner was
+the man in silver armour who had accompanied her through
+the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet
+being closed.  The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. 
+Soft whispering came into her ear from under the
+radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman in Paradise. 
+Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers,
+dived into one of the pools of the heath, and came out
+somewhere into an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows. 
+"It must be here," said the voice by her side, and blushingly
+looking up she saw him removing his casque to kiss her. 
+At that moment there was a cracking noise, and his figure
+fell into fragments like a pack of cards.
+
+She cried aloud.  "O that I had seen his face!"
+
+Eustacia awoke.  The cracking had been that of the window
+shutter downstairs, which the maid-servant was opening
+to let in the day, now slowly increasing to Nature's
+meagre allowance at this sickly time of the year.
+"O that I had seen his face!" she said again.  "'Twas meant
+for Mr. Yeobright!"
+
+When she became cooler she perceived that many of the
+phases of the dream had naturally arisen out of the images
+and fancies of the day before.  But this detracted
+little from its interest, which lay in the excellent
+fuel it provided for newly kindled fervour.  She was
+at the modulating point between indifference and love,
+at the stage called "having a fancy for."  It occurs once
+in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it
+is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest will. 
+
+The perfervid woman was by this time half in love
+with a vision.  The fantastic nature of her passion,
+which lowered her as an intellect, raised her as a soul. 
+If she had had a little more self-control she would have
+attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning,
+and so have killed it off.  If she had had a little less
+pride she might have gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights'
+premises at Blooms-End at any maidenly sacrifice until she
+had seen him.  But Eustacia did neither of these things. 
+She acted as the most exemplary might have acted,
+being so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day
+upon the Egdon hills, and kept her eyes employed. 
+
+The first occasion passed, and he did not come that way. 
+
+She promenaded a second time, and was again the sole
+wanderer there.
+
+The third time there was a dense fog; she looked around,
+but without much hope.  Even if he had been walking within
+twenty yards of her she could not have seen him. 
+
+At the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain
+in torrents, and she turned back. 
+
+The fifth sally was in the afternoon; it was fine,
+and she remained out long, walking to the very top of
+the valley in which Blooms-End lay.  She saw the white
+paling about half a mile off; but he did not appear.
+It was almost with heart-sickness that she came home
+and with a sense of shame at her weakness.  She resolved
+to look for the man from Paris no more. 
+
+But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner
+had Eustacia formed this resolve than the opportunity
+came which, while sought, had been entirely withholden. 
+
+
+
+4 - Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure
+
+
+In the evening of this last day of expectation, which was
+the twenty-third of December, Eustacia was at home alone.
+She had passed the recent hour in lamenting over a rumour
+newly come to her ears--that Yeobright's visit to his
+mother was to be of short duration, and would end some
+time the next week.  "Naturally," she said to herself. 
+A man in the full swing of his activities in a gay city
+could not afford to linger long on Egdon Heath.  That she
+would behold face to face the owner of the awakening voice
+within the limits of such a holiday was most unlikely,
+unless she were to haunt the environs of his mother's house
+like a robin, to do which was difficult and unseemly. 
+
+The customary expedient of provincial girls and men
+in such circumstances is churchgoing.  In an ordinary
+village or country town one can safely calculate that,
+either on Christmas day or the Sunday contiguous,
+any native home for the holidays, who has not through age
+or ennui lost the appetite for seeing and being seen,
+will turn up in some pew or other, shining with hope,
+self-consciousness, and new clothes.  Thus the congregation
+on Christmas morning is mostly a Tussaud collection
+of celebrities who have been born in the neighbourhood.
+Hither the mistress, left neglected at home all the year,
+can steal and observe the development of the returned
+lover who has forgotten her, and think as she watches
+him over her prayer book that he may throb with a
+renewed fidelity when novelties have lost their charm. 
+And hither a comparatively recent settler like Eustacia
+may betake herself to scrutinize the person of a native
+son who left home before her advent upon the scene,
+and consider if the friendship of his parents be worth
+cultivating during his next absence in order to secure a
+knowledge of him on his next return. 
+
+But these tender schemes were not feasible among the scattered
+inhabitants of Egdon Heath.  In name they were parishioners,
+but virtually they belonged to no parish at all.
+People who came to these few isolated houses to keep
+Christmas with their friends remained in their friends'
+chimney-corners drinking mead and other comforting liquors
+till they left again for good and all.  Rain, snow, ice,
+mud everywhere around, they did not care to trudge two or three
+miles to sit wet-footed and splashed to the nape of their
+necks among those who, though in some measure neighbours,
+lived close to the church, and entered it clean and dry. 
+Eustacia knew it was ten to one that Clym Yeobright would
+go to no church at all during his few days of leave,
+and that it would be a waste of labour for her to go driving
+the pony and gig over a bad road in hope to see him there.
+
+It was dusk, and she was sitting by the fire in the dining-room
+or hall, which they occupied at this time of the year
+in preference to the parlour, because of its large hearth,
+constructed for turf-fires, a fuel the captain was partial
+to in the winter season.  The only visible articles
+in the room were those on the window-sill, which showed
+their shapes against the low sky, the middle article being
+the old hourglass, and the other two a pair of ancient
+British urns which had been dug from a barrow near,
+and were used as flowerpots for two razor-leaved cactuses. 
+Somebody knocked at the door.  The servant was out;
+so was her grandfather.  The person, after waiting a minute,
+came in and tapped at the door of the room.
+
+"Who's there?" said Eustacia. 
+
+"Please, Cap'n Vye, will you let us----"
+
+Eustacia arose and went to the door.  "I cannot allow
+you to come in so boldly.  You should have waited."
+
+"The cap'n said I might come in without any fuss,"
+was answered in a lad's pleasant voice. 
+
+"Oh, did he?" said Eustacia more gently.  "What do
+you want, Charley?"
+
+"Please will your grandfather lend us his fuelhouse
+to try over our parts in, tonight at seven o'clock?"
+
+"What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?"
+
+"Yes, miss.  The cap'n used to let the old mummers
+practise here."
+
+"I know it.  Yes, you may use the fuelhouse if you like,"
+said Eustacia languidly. 
+
+The choice of Captain Vye's fuelhouse as the scene
+of rehearsal was dictated by the fact that his dwelling
+was nearly in the centre of the heath.  The fuelhouse
+was as roomy as a barn, and was a most desirable place
+for such a purpose.  The lads who formed the company
+of players lived at different scattered points around,
+and by meeting in this spot the distances to be traversed
+by all the comers would be about equally proportioned. 
+
+For mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. 
+The mummers themselves were not afflicted with any such
+feeling for their art, though at the same time they
+were not enthusiastic.  A traditional pastime is to be
+distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking
+feature than in this, that while in the revival all is
+excitement and fervour, the survival is carried on with
+a stolidity and absence of stir which sets one wondering
+why a thing that is done so perfunctorily should be kept
+up at all.  Like Balaam and other unwilling prophets,
+the agents seem moved by an inner compulsion to say
+and do their allotted parts whether they will or no. 
+This unweeting manner of performance is the true ring
+by which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized survival
+may be known from a spurious reproduction.
+
+The piece was the well-known play of Saint George, and
+all who were behind the scenes assisted in the preparations,
+including the women of each household.  Without the
+co-operation of sisters and sweethearts the dresses
+were likely to be a failure; but on the other hand,
+this class of assistance was not without its drawbacks.
+The girls could never be brought to respect tradition
+in designing and decorating the armour; they insisted on
+attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet in any situation
+pleasing to their taste.  Gorget, gusset, basinet, cuirass,
+gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine
+eyes were practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of
+fluttering colour.
+
+It might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom,
+had a sweetheart, and that Jim, who fought on the side
+of the Moslem, had one likewise.  During the making
+of the costumes it would come to the knowledge of Joe's
+sweetheart that Jim's was putting brilliant silk scallops
+at the bottom of her lover's surcoat, in addition to the
+ribbons of the visor, the bars of which, being invariably
+formed of coloured strips about half an inch wide
+hanging before the face, were mostly of that material. 
+Joe's sweetheart straight-way placed brilliant silk on the
+scallops of the hem in question, and, going a little further,
+added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces.  Jim's, not
+to be outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere. 
+
+The result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier,
+of the Christian army, was distinguished by no peculiarity
+of accoutrement from the Turkish Knight; and what was worse,
+on a casual view Saint George himself might be mistaken
+for his deadly enemy, the Saracen.  The guisers themselves,
+though inwardly regretting this confusion of persons,
+could not afford to offend those by whose assistance they
+so largely profited, and the innovations were allowed
+to stand. 
+
+There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity. 
+The Leech or Doctor preserved his character intact--his
+darker habiliments, peculiar hat, and the bottle of
+physic slung under his arm, could never be mistaken. 
+And the same might be said of the conventional figure
+of Father Christmas, with his gigantic club, an older man,
+who accompanied the band as general protector in long
+night journeys from parish to parish, and was bearer
+of the purse. 
+
+Seven o'clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in
+a short time Eustacia could hear voices in the fuelhouse.
+To dissipate in some trifling measure her abiding sense
+of the murkiness of human life she went to the "linhay"
+or lean-to shed, which formed the root-store of their
+dwelling and abutted on the fuelhouse.  Here was a small
+rough hole in the mud wall, originally made for pigeons,
+through which the interior of the next shed could be viewed.
+A light came from it now; and Eustacia stepped upon a stool
+to look in upon the scene. 
+
+On a ledge in the fuelhouse stood three tall rushlights
+and by the light of them seven or eight lads were
+marching about, haranguing, and confusing each other,
+in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play. 
+Humphrey and Sam, the furze-and turf-cutters, were
+there looking on, so also was Timothy Fairway, who leant
+against the wall and prompted the boys from memory,
+interspersing among the set words remarks and anecdotes
+of the superior days when he and others were the Egdon
+mummers-elect that these lads were now. 
+
+"Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be," he said.
+"Not that such mumming would have passed in our time. 
+Harry as the Saracen should strut a bit more, and John needn't
+holler his inside out.  Beyond that perhaps you'll do. 
+Have you got all your clothes ready?"
+
+"We shall by Monday."
+
+"Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright's."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Yeobright's. What makes her want to see ye?  I
+should think a middle-aged woman was tired of mumming."
+
+"She's got up a bit of a party, because 'tis the first
+Christmas that her son Clym has been home for a long time."
+
+"To be sure, to be sure--her party! I am going myself. 
+I almost forgot it, upon my life."
+
+Eustacia's face flagged.  There was to be a party at
+the Yeobrights'; she, naturally, had nothing to do with it. 
+She was a stranger to all such local gatherings, and had
+always held them as scarcely appertaining to her sphere. 
+But had she been going, what an opportunity would have
+been afforded her of seeing the man whose influence
+was penetrating her like summer sun! To increase that
+influence was coveted excitement; to cast it off might be
+to regain serenity; to leave it as it stood was tantalizing. 
+
+The lads and men prepared to leave the premises, and Eustacia
+returned to her fireside.  She was immersed in thought,
+but not for long.  In a few minutes the lad Charley,
+who had come to ask permission to use the place,
+returned with the key to the kitchen.  Eustacia heard him,
+and opening the door into the passage said, "Charley, come here."
+
+The lad was surprised.  He entered the front room not
+without blushing; for he, like many, had felt the power
+of this girl's face and form. 
+
+She pointed to a seat by the fire, and entered
+the other side of the chimney-corner herself. 
+It could be seen in her face that whatever motive
+she might have had in asking the youth indoors would soon appear. 
+
+"Which part do you play, Charley--the Turkish Knight,
+do you not?" inquired the beauty, looking across the smoke
+of the fire to him on the other side. 
+
+"Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight," he replied diffidently. 
+
+"Is yours a long part?"
+
+"Nine speeches, about."
+
+"Can you repeat them to me?  If so I should like to hear them."
+
+The lad smiled into the glowing turf and began--
+
+    "Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
+     Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,"
+
+continuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the
+concluding catastrophe of his fall by the hand of Saint George. 
+
+Eustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. 
+When the lad ended she began, precisely in the same words,
+and ranted on without hitch or divergence till she too
+reached the end.  It was the same thing, yet how different. 
+Like in form, it had the added softness and finish
+of a Raffaelle after Perugino, which, while faithfully
+reproducing the original subject, entirely distances the
+original art. 
+
+Charley's eyes rounded with surprise.  "Well, you be
+a clever lady!" he said, in admiration.  "I've been
+three weeks learning mine."
+
+"I have heard it before," she quietly observed. 
+"Now, would you do anything to please me, Charley?"
+
+"I'd do a good deal, miss."
+
+"Would you let me play your part for one night?"
+
+"Oh, miss! But your woman's gown--you couldn't."
+
+"I can get boy's clothes--at least all that would be wanted
+besides the mumming dress.  What should I have to give
+you to lend me your things, to let me take your place
+for an hour or two on Monday night, and on no account
+to say a word about who or what I am?  You would, of course,
+have to excuse yourself from playing that night, and to say
+that somebody--a cousin of Miss Vye's--would act for you. 
+The other mummers have never spoken to me in their lives
+so that it would be safe enough; and if it were not,
+I should not mind.  Now, what must I give you to agree
+to this?  Half a crown?"
+
+The youth shook his head
+
+"Five shillings?"
+
+He shook his head again.  "Money won't do it," he said,
+brushing the iron head of the firedog with the hollow
+of his hand. 
+
+"What will, then, Charley?" said Eustacia in a disappointed tone. 
+
+"You know what you forbade me at the Maypoling, miss,"
+murmured the lad, without looking at her, and still
+stroking the firedog's head. 
+
+"Yes," said Eustacia, with a little more hauteur. 
+"You wanted to join hands with me in the ring, if I recollect?"
+
+"Half an hour of that, and I'll agree, miss."
+
+Eustacia regarded the youth steadfastly.  He was three years
+younger than herself, but apparently not backward for his age. 
+"Half an hour of what?" she said, though she guessed what. 
+
+"Holding your hand in mine."
+
+She was silent.  "Make it a quarter of an hour," she said
+
+"Yes, Miss Eustacia--I will, if I may kiss it too. 
+A quarter of an hour.  And I'll swear to do the best I
+can to let you take my place without anybody knowing. 
+Don't you think somebody might know your tongue, miss?"
+
+"It is possible.  But I will put a pebble in my mouth
+to make is less likely.  Very well; you shall be allowed
+to have my hand as soon as you bring the dress and your
+sword and staff.  I don't want you any longer now."
+
+Charley departed, and Eustacia felt more and more interest
+in life.  Here was something to do: here was some one
+to see, and a charmingly adventurous way to see him. 
+"Ah," she said to herself, "want of an object to live
+for--that's all is the matter with me!"
+
+Eustacia's manner was as a rule of a slumberous sort,
+her passions being of the massive rather than the vivacious kind. 
+But when aroused she would make a dash which, just for
+the time, was not unlike the move of a naturally lively person.
+
+On the question of recognition she was somewhat indifferent. 
+By the acting lads themselves she was not likely to be known. 
+With the guests who might be assembled she was hardly so secure. 
+Yet detection, after all, would be no such dreadful thing. 
+The fact only could be detected, her true motive never.
+It would be instantly set down as the passing freak
+of a girl whose ways were already considered singular. 
+That she was doing for an earnest reason what would most
+naturally be done in jest was at any rate a safe secret. 
+
+
+The next evening Eustacia stood punctually at the fuelhouse
+door, waiting for the dusk which was to bring Charley
+with the trappings.  Her grandfather was at home tonight,
+and she would be unable to ask her confederate indoors. 
+
+He appeared on the dark ridge of heathland, like a fly
+on a Negro, bearing the articles with him, and came up
+breathless with his walk. 
+
+"Here are the things," he whispered, placing them upon
+the threshold.  "And now, Miss Eustacia--"
+
+"The payment.  It is quite ready.  I am as good as my word."
+
+She leant against the door-post, and gave him her hand.
+Charley took it in both his own with a tenderness
+beyond description, unless it was like that of a child
+holding a captured sparrow. 
+
+"Why, there's a glove on it!" he said in a deprecating way. 
+
+"I have been walking," she observed. 
+
+"But, miss!"
+
+"Well--it is hardly fair."  She pulled off the glove,
+and gave him her bare hand. 
+
+They stood together minute after minute, without
+further speech, each looking at the blackening scene,
+and each thinking his and her own thoughts. 
+
+"I think I won't use it all up tonight," said Charley devotedly,
+when six or eight minutes had been passed by him caressing
+her hand.  "May I have the other few minutes another time?"
+
+"As you like," said she without the least emotion. 
+"But it must be over in a week.  Now, there is only one
+thing I want you to do--to wait while I put on the dress,
+and then to see if I do my part properly.  But let me look
+first indoors."
+
+She vanished for a minute or two, and went in. 
+Her grandfather was safely asleep in his chair.  "Now, then,"
+she said, on returning, "walk down the garden a little way,
+and when I am ready I'll call you."
+
+Charley walked and waited, and presently heard a soft whistle. 
+He returned to the fuelhouse door. 
+
+"Did you whistle, Miss Vye?"
+
+"Yes; come in," reached him in Eustacia's voice from a
+back quarter.  "I must not strike a light till the door
+is shut, or it may be seen shining.  Push your hat into the
+hole through to the wash-house, if you can feel your way across."
+
+Charley did as commanded, and she struck the light revealing
+herself to be changed in sex, brilliant in colours,
+and armed from top to toe.  Perhaps she quailed a little
+under Charley's vigorous gaze, but whether any shyness
+at her male attire appeared upon her countenance could
+not be seen by reason of the strips of ribbon which used
+to cover the face in mumming costumes, representing the
+barred visor of the mediaeval helmet. 
+
+"It fits pretty well," she said, looking down at the
+white overalls, "except that the tunic, or whatever
+you call it, is long in the sleeve.  The bottom
+of the overalls I can turn up inside.  Now pay attention."
+
+Eustacia then proceeded in her delivery, striking the
+sword against the staff or lance at the minatory phrases,
+in the orthodox mumming manner, and strutting up and down. 
+Charley seasoned his admiration with criticism of the
+gentlest kind, for the touch of Eustacia's hand yet
+remained with him. 
+
+"And now for your excuse to the others," she said. 
+"Where do you meet before you go to Mrs. Yeobright's?"
+
+"We thought of meeting here, miss, if you have nothing
+to say against it.  At eight o'clock, so as to get there
+by nine."
+
+"Yes. Well, you of course must not appear.  I will march
+in about five minutes late, ready-dressed, and tell them
+that you can't come.  I have decided that the best plan
+will be for you to be sent somewhere by me, to make
+a real thing of the excuse.  Our two heath-croppers
+are in the habit of straying into the meads, and tomorrow
+evening you can go and see if they are gone there. 
+I'll manage the rest.  Now you may leave me."
+
+"Yes, miss.  But I think I'll have one minute more
+of what I am owed, if you don't mind."
+
+Eustacia gave him her hand as before. 
+
+"One minute," she said, and counted on till she reached
+seven or eight minutes.  Hand and person she then
+withdrew to a distance of several feet, and recovered
+some of her old dignity.  The contract completed,
+she raised between them a barrier impenetrable as a wall. 
+
+"There, 'tis all gone; and I didn't mean quite all,"
+he said, with a sigh. 
+
+"You had good measure," said she, turning away. 
+
+"Yes, miss.  Well, 'tis over, and now I'll get home-along."
+
+
+
+5 - Through the Moonlight
+
+
+The next evening the mummers were assembled in the same spot,
+awaiting the entrance of the Turkish Knight. 
+
+"Twenty minutes after eight by the Quiet Woman, and Charley
+not come."
+
+"Ten minutes past by Blooms-End."
+
+"It wants ten minutes to, by Grandfer Cantle's watch."
+
+"And 'tis five minutes past by the captain's clock."
+
+On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day.  The time
+at any moment was a number of varying doctrines professed
+by the different hamlets, some of them having originally
+grown up from a common root, and then become divided
+by secession, some having been alien from the beginning. 
+West Egdon believed in Blooms-End time, East Egdon
+in the time of the Quiet Woman Inn.  Grandfer Cantle's
+watch had numbered many followers in years gone by,
+but since he had grown older faiths were shaken. 
+Thus, the mummers having gathered hither from scattered
+points each came with his own tenets on early and late;
+and they waited a little longer as a compromise.
+
+Eustacia had watched the assemblage through the hole;
+and seeing that now was the proper moment to enter,
+she went from the "linhay" and boldly pulled the bobbin
+of the fuelhouse door.  Her grandfather was safe at the
+Quiet Woman.
+
+"Here's Charley at last! How late you be, Charley."
+
+"'Tis not Charley," said the Turkish Knight from within
+his visor.  "'Tis a cousin of Miss Vye's, come to take
+Charley's place from curiosity.  He was obliged to go and
+look for the heath-croppers that have got into the meads,
+and I agreed to take his place, as he knew he couldn't come
+back here again tonight.  I know the part as well as he."
+
+Her graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner
+in general won the mummers to the opinion that they
+had gained by the exchange, if the newcomer were perfect
+in his part. 
+
+"It don't matter--if you be not too young," said Saint George. 
+Eustacia's voice had sounded somewhat more juvenile
+and fluty than Charley's.
+
+"I know every word of it, I tell you," said Eustacia decisively. 
+Dash being all that was required to carry her triumphantly through,
+she adopted as much as was necessary.  "Go ahead, lads,
+with the try-over. I'll challenge any of you to find a mistake in me."
+
+The play was hastily rehearsed, whereupon the other mummers
+were delighted with the new knight.  They extinguished
+the candles at half-past eight, and set out upon the heath
+in the direction of Mrs. Yeobright's house at Bloom's-End.
+
+There was a slight hoarfrost that night, and the moon,
+though not more than half full, threw a spirited and enticing
+brightness upon the fantastic figures of the mumming band,
+whose plumes and ribbons rustled in their walk like
+autumn leaves.  Their path was not over Rainbarrow now,
+but down a valley which left that ancient elevation
+a little to the east.  The bottom of the vale was green
+to a width of ten yards or thereabouts, and the shining
+facets of frost upon the blades of grass seemed to move
+on with the shadows of those they surrounded.  The masses
+of furze and heath to the right and left were dark as ever;
+a mere half-moon was powerless to silver such sable
+features as theirs.
+
+Half-an-hour of walking and talking brought them to the spot
+in the valley where the grass riband widened and led down to
+the front of the house.  At sight of the place Eustacia who had
+felt a few passing doubts during her walk with the youths,
+again was glad that the adventure had been undertaken. 
+She had come out to see a man who might possibly have the
+power to deliver her soul from a most deadly oppression. 
+What was Wildeve?  Interesting, but inadequate.
+Perhaps she would see a sufficient hero tonight. 
+
+As they drew nearer to the front of the house the mummers became
+aware that music and dancing were briskly flourishing within. 
+Every now and then a long low note from the serpent,
+which was the chief wind instrument played at these times,
+advanced further into the heath than the thin treble part,
+and reached their ears alone; and next a more than usual
+loud tread from a dancer would come the same way. 
+With nearer approach these fragmentary sounds became
+pieced together, and were found to be the salient points
+of the tune called "Nancy's Fancy."
+
+He was there, of course.  Who was she that he danced with?
+Perhaps some unknown woman, far beneath herself in culture,
+was by the most subtle of lures sealing his fate this
+very instant.  To dance with a man is to concentrate
+a twelvemonth's regulation fire upon him in the fragment
+of an hour.  To pass to courtship without acquaintance,
+to pass to marriage without courtship, is a skipping of
+terms reserved for those alone who tread this royal road.
+She would see how his heart lay by keen observation of
+them all. 
+
+The enterprising lady followed the mumming company through
+the gate in the white paling, and stood before the open porch. 
+The house was encrusted with heavy thatchings, which dropped
+between the upper windows; the front, upon which the
+moonbeams directly played, had originally been white;
+but a huge pyracanth now darkened the greater portion. 
+
+It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately
+within the surface of the door, no apartment intervening.
+The brushing of skirts and elbows, sometimes the bumping
+of shoulders, could be heard against the very panels. 
+Eustacia, though living within two miles of the place,
+had never seen the interior of this quaint old habitation. 
+Between Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never
+existed much acquaintance, the former having come as a
+stranger and purchased the long-empty house at Mistover
+Knap not long before the death of Mrs. Yeobright's husband;
+and with that event and the departure of her son
+such friendship as had grown up became quite broken off. 
+
+"Is there no passage inside the door, then?" asked Eustacia
+as they stood within the porch. 
+
+"No," said the lad who played the Saracen.  "The door
+opens right upon the front sitting-room, where the spree's
+going on."
+
+"So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance."
+
+"That's it.  Here we must bide till they have done,
+for they always bolt the back door after dark."
+
+"They won't be much longer," said Father Christmas. 
+
+This assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event. 
+Again the instruments ended the tune; again they
+recommenced with as much fire and pathos as if it were
+the first strain.  The air was now that one without
+any particular beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps,
+among all the dances which throng an inspired fiddler's fancy,
+best conveys the idea of the interminable--the celebrated
+"Devil's Dream."  The fury of personal movement that was
+kindled by the fury of the notes could be approximately
+imagined by these outsiders under the moon, from the
+occasional kicks of toes and heels against the door,
+whenever the whirl round had been of more than customary velocity. 
+
+The first five minutes of listening was interesting enough
+to the mummers.  The five minutes extended to ten minutes,
+and these to a quarter of an hour; but no signs of ceasing were
+audible in the lively "Dream."  The bumping against the door,
+the laughter, the stamping, were all as vigorous as ever,
+and the pleasure in being outside lessened considerably. 
+
+"Why does Mrs. Yeobright give parties of this sort?"
+Eustacia asked, a little surprised to hear merriment
+so pronounced. 
+
+"It is not one of her bettermost parlour-parties. She's
+asked the plain neighbours and workpeople without drawing
+any lines, just to give 'em a good supper and such like. 
+Her son and she wait upon the folks."
+
+"I see," said Eustacia. 
+
+"'Tis the last strain, I think," said Saint George,
+with his ear to the panel.  "A young man and woman have
+just swung into this corner, and he's saying to her,
+'Ah, the pity; 'tis over for us this time, my own.'"
+
+"Thank God," said the Turkish Knight, stamping, and taking
+from the wall the conventional lance that each of the
+mummers carried.  Her boots being thinner than those of
+the young men, the hoar had damped her feet and made them cold. 
+
+"Upon my song 'tis another ten minutes for us,"
+said the Valiant Soldier, looking through the keyhole
+as the tune modulated into another without stopping. 
+"Grandfer Cantle is standing in this corner, waiting his turn."
+
+"'Twon't be long; 'tis a six-handed reel," said the Doctor.
+
+"Why not go in, dancing or no?  They sent for us,"
+said the Saracen. 
+
+"Certainly not," said Eustacia authoritatively, as she paced
+smartly up and down from door to gate to warm herself.
+"We should burst into the middle of them and stop the dance,
+and that would be unmannerly."
+
+"He thinks himself somebody because he has had a bit
+more schooling than we," said the Doctor. 
+
+"You may go to the deuce!" said Eustacia. 
+
+There was a whispered conversation between three or four
+of them, and one turned to her. 
+
+"Will you tell us one thing?" he said, not without gentleness. 
+"Be you Miss Vye?  We think you must be."
+
+"You may think what you like," said Eustacia slowly.
+"But honourable lads will not tell tales upon a lady."
+
+"We'll say nothing, miss.  That's upon our honour."
+
+"Thank you," she replied. 
+
+At this moment the fiddles finished off with a screech,
+and the serpent emitted a last note that nearly lifted
+the roof.  When, from the comparative quiet within,
+the mummers judged that the dancers had taken their seats,
+Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his head
+inside the door.
+
+"Ah, the mummers, the mummers!" cried several guests at once. 
+"Clear a space for the mummers."
+
+Humpbacked Father Christmas then made a complete entry,
+swinging his huge club, and in a general way clearing the
+stage for the actors proper, while he informed the company
+in smart verse that he was come, welcome or welcome not;
+concluding his speech with
+
+
+     "Make room, make room, my gallant boys,
+        And give us space to rhyme;
+      We've come to show Saint George's play,
+        Upon this Christmas time."
+
+
+The guests were now arranging themselves at one end of the room,
+the fiddler was mending a string, the serpent-player
+was emptying his mouthpiece, and the play began. 
+First of those outside the Valiant Soldier entered,
+in the interest of Saint George--
+
+     "Here come I, the Valiant Soldier;
+        Slasher is my name";
+
+and so on.  This speech concluded with a challenge
+to the infidel, at the end of which it was Eustacia's
+duty to enter as the Turkish Knight.  She, with the
+rest who were not yet on, had hitherto remained
+in the moonlight which streamed under the porch. 
+With no apparent effort or backwardness she came in, beginning--
+
+
+     "Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
+      Who learnt in Turkish land to fight;
+      I'll fight this man with courage bold:
+      If his blood's hot I'll make it cold!"
+
+
+During her declamation Eustacia held her head erect,
+and spoke as roughly as she could, feeling pretty secure
+from observation.  But the concentration upon her part
+necessary to prevent discovery, the newness of the scene,
+the shine of the candles, and the confusing effect upon
+her vision of the ribboned visor which hid her features,
+left her absolutely unable to perceive who were present
+as spectators.  On the further side of a table bearing
+candles she could faintly discern faces, and that was all.
+
+Meanwhile Jim Starks as the Valiant Soldier had
+come forward, and, with a glare upon the Turk, replied--
+
+     "If, then, thou art that Turkish Knight,
+      Draw out thy sword, and let us fight!"
+
+And fight they did; the issue of the combat being that the
+Valiant Soldier was slain by a preternaturally inadequate
+thrust from Eustacia, Jim, in his ardour for genuine
+histrionic art, coming down like a log upon the stone
+floor with force enough to dislocate his shoulder.
+Then, after more words from the Turkish Knight,
+rather too faintly delivered, and statements that he'd
+fight Saint George and all his crew, Saint George
+himself magnificently entered with the well-known flourish--
+
+
+     "Here come I, Saint George, the valiant man,
+      With naked sword and spear in hand,
+Who fought the dragon and brought him to the slaughter,
+And by this won fair Sabra, the King of Egypt's
+daughter;
+     What mortal man would dare to stand
+     Before me with my sword in hand?"
+
+
+This was the lad who had first recognized Eustacia;
+and when she now, as the Turk, replied with suitable defiance,
+and at once began the combat, the young fellow took especial
+care to use his sword as gently as possible.  Being wounded,
+the Knight fell upon one knee, according to the direction. 
+The Doctor now entered, restored the Knight by giving him
+a draught from the bottle which he carried, and the fight
+was again resumed, the Turk sinking by degrees until
+quite overcome--dying as hard in this venerable drama
+as he is said to do at the present day. 
+
+This gradual sinking to the earth was, in fact,
+one reason why Eustacia had thought that the part of
+the Turkish Knight, though not the shortest, would suit
+her best.  A direct fall from upright to horizontal,
+which was the end of the other fighting characters,
+was not an elegant or decorous part for a girl. 
+But it was easy to die like a Turk, by a dogged decline. 
+
+Eustacia was now among the number of the slain, though not
+on the floor, for she had managed to sink into a sloping
+position against the clock-case, so that her head was
+well elevated.  The play proceeded between Saint George,
+the Saracen, the Doctor, and Father Christmas; and Eustacia,
+having no more to do, for the first time found leisure
+to observe the scene round, and to search for the form
+that had drawn her hither.
+
+
+
+6 - The Two Stand Face to Face
+
+
+The room had been arranged with a view to the dancing,
+the large oak table having been moved back till it stood
+as a breastwork to the fireplace.  At each end, behind,
+and in the chimney-corner were grouped the guests,
+many of them being warm-faced and panting, among whom
+Eustacia cursorily recognized some well-to-do persons
+from beyond the heath.  Thomasin, as she had expected,
+was not visible, and Eustacia recollected that a
+light had shone from an upper window when they were
+outside--the window, probably, of Thomasin's room. 
+A nose, chin, hands, knees, and toes projected from the seat
+within the chimney opening, which members she found to unite
+in the person of Grandfer Cantle, Mrs. Yeobright's occasional
+assistant in the garden, and therefore one of the invited. 
+The smoke went up from an Etna of peat in front of him,
+played round the notches of the chimney-crook, struck
+against the salt-box, and got lost among the flitches. 
+
+Another part of the room soon riveted her gaze. 
+At the other side of the chimney stood the settle,
+which is the necessary supplement to a fire so open
+that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up
+the smoke.  It is, to the hearths of old-fashioned
+cavernous fireplaces, what the east belt of trees is to the
+exposed country estate, or the north wall to the garden. 
+Outside the settle candles gutter, locks of hair wave,
+young women shiver, and old men sneeze.  Inside is Paradise. 
+Not a symptom of a draught disturbs the air; the sitters'
+backs are as warm as their faces, and songs and old tales
+are drawn from the occupants by the comfortable heat,
+like fruit from melon plants in a frame. 
+
+It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that
+Eustacia was concerned.  A face showed itself with marked
+distinctness against the dark-tanned wood of the upper part. 
+The owner, who was leaning against the settle's outer end,
+was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as he was called here;
+she knew it could be nobody else.  The spectacle constituted
+an area of two feet in Rembrandt's intensest manner. 
+A strange power in the lounger's appearance lay in
+the fact that, though his whole figure was visible,
+the observer's eye was only aware of his face. 
+
+To one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man,
+though a youth might hardly have seen any necessity
+for the term of immaturity.  But it was really one of
+those faces which convey less the idea of so many years
+as its age than of so much experience as its store. 
+The number of their years may have adequately summed
+up Jared, Mahalaleel, and the rest of the antediluvians,
+but the age of a modern man is to be measured by the
+intensity of his history. 
+
+The face was well shaped, even excellently.  But the mind
+within was beginning to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon
+to trace its idiosyncrasies as they developed themselves. 
+The beauty here visible would in no long time be ruthlessly
+over-run by its parasite, thought, which might just as
+well have fed upon a plainer exterior where there was
+nothing it could harm.  Had Heaven preserved Yeobright
+from a wearing habit of meditation, people would have said,
+"A handsome man."  Had his brain unfolded under sharper
+contours they would have said, "A thoughtful man."  But an
+inner strenuousness was preying upon an outer symmetry,
+and they rated his look as singular. 
+
+Hence people who began by beholding him ended by perusing him. 
+His countenance was overlaid with legible meanings. 
+Without being thought-worn he yet had certain marks
+derived from a perception of his surroundings, such as
+are not unfrequently found on men at the end of the four
+or five years of endeavour which follow the close
+of placid pupilage.  He already showed that thought
+is a disease of flesh, and indirectly bore evidence
+that ideal physical beauty is incompatible with emotional
+development and a full recognition of the coil of things. 
+Mental luminousness must be fed with the oil of life,
+even though there is already a physical need for it;
+and the pitiful sight of two demands on one supply was
+just showing itself here. 
+
+When standing before certain men the philosopher regrets
+that thinkers are but perishable tissue, the artist
+that perishable tissue has to think.  Thus to deplore,
+each from his point of view, the mutually destructive
+interdependence of spirit and flesh would have been
+instinctive with these in critically observing Yeobright. 
+
+As for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving
+against depression from without, and not quite succeeding. 
+The look suggested isolation, but it revealed something more.
+As is usual with bright natures, the deity that lies
+ignominiously chained within an ephemeral human carcase
+shone out of him like a ray. 
+
+The effect upon Eustacia was palpable.  The extraordinary
+pitch of excitement that she had reached beforehand would,
+indeed, have caused her to be influenced by the most
+commonplace man.  She was troubled at Yeobright's presence. 
+
+The remainder of the play ended--the Saracen's head
+was cut off, and Saint George stood as victor. 
+Nobody commented, any more than they would have commented
+on the fact of mushrooms coming in autumn or snowdrops
+in spring.  They took the piece as phlegmatically as did
+the actors themselves.  It was a phase of cheerfulness
+which was, as a matter of course, to be passed through
+every Christmas; and there was no more to be said. 
+
+They sang the plaintive chant which follows the play,
+during which all the dead men rise to their feet in a silent
+and awful manner, like the ghosts of Napoleon's soldiers
+in the Midnight Review.  Afterwards the door opened,
+and Fairway appeared on the threshold, accompanied by
+Christian and another.  They had been waiting outside
+for the conclusion of the play, as the players had waited
+for the conclusion of the dance.
+
+"Come in, come in," said Mrs. Yeobright; and Clym went
+forward to welcome them.  "How is it you are so late?
+Grandfer Cantle has been here ever so long, and we thought
+you'd have come with him, as you live so near one another."
+
+"Well, I should have come earlier," Mr. Fairway said
+and paused to look along the beam of the ceiling for a
+nail to hang his hat on; but, finding his accustomed
+one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all the nails
+in the walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at
+last relieved himself of the hat by ticklishly balancing
+it between the candle-box and the head of the clock-case.
+"I should have come earlier, ma'am," he resumed, with a
+more composed air, "but I know what parties be, and how
+there's none too much room in folks' houses at such times,
+so I thought I wouldn't come till you'd got settled a bit."
+
+"And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright," said Christian
+earnestly, "but Father there was so eager that he had no
+manners at all, and left home almost afore 'twas dark.
+I told him 'twas barely decent in a' old man to come
+so oversoon; but words be wind."
+
+"Klk! I wasn't going to bide waiting about, till half
+the game was over! I'm as light as a kite when anything's
+going on!" crowed Grandfer Cantle from the chimneyseat. 
+
+Fairway had meanwhile concluded a critical gaze at Yeobright. 
+"Now, you may not believe it," he said to the rest of the room,
+"but I should never have knowed this gentleman if I had
+met him anywhere off his own he'th--he's altered so much."
+
+"You too have altered, and for the better, I think Timothy,"
+said Yeobright, surveying the firm figure of Fairway. 
+
+"Master Yeobright, look me over too.  I have altered
+for the better, haven't I, hey?" said Grandfer Cantle,
+rising and placing himself something above half a foot
+from Clym's eye, to induce the most searching criticism. 
+
+"To be sure we will," said Fairway, taking the candle and
+moving it over the surface of the Grandfer's countenance,
+the subject of his scrutiny irradiating himself with light
+and pleasant smiles, and giving himself jerks of juvenility. 
+
+"You haven't changed much," said Yeobright. 
+
+"If there's any difference, Grandfer is younger,"
+appended Fairway decisively. 
+
+"And yet not my own doing, and I feel no pride in it,"
+said the pleased ancient.  "But I can't be cured of my vagaries;
+them I plead guilty to.  Yes, Master Cantle always was that,
+as we know.  But I am nothing by the side of you,
+Mister Clym."
+
+"Nor any o' us," said Humphrey, in a low rich tone
+of admiration, not intended to reach anybody's ears. 
+
+"Really, there would have been nobody here who could
+have stood as decent second to him, or even third,
+if I hadn't been a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we
+was called for our smartness)," said Grandfer Cantle. 
+"And even as 'tis we all look a little scammish beside him. 
+But in the year four 'twas said there wasn't a finer figure
+in the whole South Wessex than I, as I looked when dashing
+past the shop-winders with the rest of our company on
+the day we ran out o' Budmouth because it was thoughted
+that Boney had landed round the point.  There was I,
+straight as a young poplar, wi' my firelock, and my bagnet,
+and my spatterdashes, and my stock sawing my jaws off,
+and my accoutrements sheening like the seven stars! Yes,
+neighbours, I was a pretty sight in my soldiering days. 
+You ought to have seen me in four!"
+
+"'Tis his mother's side where Master Clym's figure comes from,
+bless ye," said Timothy.  "I know'd her brothers well. 
+Longer coffins were never made in the whole country
+of South Wessex, and 'tis said that poor George's knees
+were crumpled up a little e'en as 'twas."
+
+"Coffins, where?" inquired Christian, drawing nearer.
+"Have the ghost of one appeared to anybody, Master Fairway?"
+
+"No, no.  Don't let your mind so mislead your ears,
+Christian; and be a man," said Timothy reproachfully. 
+
+"I will."  said Christian.  "But now I think o't my
+shadder last night seemed just the shape of a coffin. 
+What is it a sign of when your shade's like a coffin,
+neighbours?  It can't be nothing to be afeared of,
+I suppose?"
+
+"Afeared, no!" said the Grandfer.  "Faith, I was never
+afeard of nothing except Boney, or I shouldn't ha'
+been the soldier I was.  Yes, 'tis a thousand pities you
+didn't see me in four!"
+
+By this time the mummers were preparing to leave;
+but Mrs. Yeobright stopped them by asking them to sit
+down and have a little supper.  To this invitation
+Father Christmas, in the name of them all, readily agreed. 
+
+Eustacia was happy in the opportunity of staying a little longer.
+The cold and frosty night without was doubly frigid to her. 
+But the lingering was not without its difficulties. 
+Mrs. Yeobright, for want of room in the larger apartment,
+placed a bench for the mummers halfway through the pantry door,
+which opened from the sitting-room. Here they seated
+themselves in a row, the door being left open--thus they
+were still virtually in the same apartment.  Mrs. Yeobright
+now murmured a few words to her son, who crossed the room
+to the pantry door, striking his head against the mistletoe
+as he passed, and brought the mummers beef and bread,
+cake pastry, mead, and elder-wine, the waiting being
+done by him and his mother, that the little maid-servant
+might sit as guest.  The mummers doffed their helmets,
+and began to eat and drink. 
+
+"But you will surely have some?" said Clym to the Turkish
+Knight, as he stood before that warrior, tray in hand. 
+She had refused, and still sat covered, only the sparkle
+of her eyes being visible between the ribbons which covered her face. 
+
+"None, thank you," replied Eustacia.
+
+"He's quite a youngster," said the Saracen apologetically,
+"and you must excuse him.  He's not one of the old set,
+but have jined us because t'other couldn't come."
+
+"But he will take something?" persisted Yeobright. 
+"Try a glass of mead or elder-wine."
+
+"Yes, you had better try that," said the Saracen. 
+"It will keep the cold out going home-along."
+
+Though Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face
+she could drink easily enough beneath her disguise. 
+The elder-wine was accordingly accepted, and the glass
+vanished inside the ribbons. 
+
+At moments during this performance Eustacia was half
+in doubt about the security of her position; yet it
+had a fearful joy.  A series of attentions paid to her,
+and yet not to her but to some imaginary person,
+by the first man she had ever been inclined to adore,
+complicated her emotions indescribably.  She had loved
+him partly because he was exceptional in this scene,
+partly because she had determined to love him, chiefly
+because she was in desperate need of loving somebody
+after wearying of Wildeve.  Believing that she must love
+him in spite of herself, she had been influenced after
+the fashion of the second Lord Lyttleton and other persons,
+who have dreamed that they were to die on a certain day,
+and by stress of a morbid imagination have actually brought
+about that event.  Once let a maiden admit the possibility
+of her being stricken with love for someone at a certain
+hour and place, and the thing is as good as done. 
+
+Did anything at this moment suggest to Yeobright the sex
+of the creature whom that fantastic guise inclosed,
+how extended was her scope both in feeling and in making
+others feel, and how far her compass transcended that
+of her companions in the band?  When the disguised Queen
+of Love appeared before Aeneas a preternatural perfume
+accompanied her presence and betrayed her quality.
+If such a mysterious emanation ever was projected by the
+emotions of an earthly woman upon their object, it must
+have signified Eustacia's presence to Yeobright now. 
+He looked at her wistfully, then seemed to fall into
+a reverie, as if he were forgetting what he observed.
+The momentary situation ended, he passed on, and Eustacia
+sipped her wine without knowing what she drank. 
+The man for whom she had pre-determined to nourish
+a passion went into the small room, and across it to the
+further extremity. 
+
+The mummers, as has been stated, were seated on a bench,
+one end of which extended into the small apartment,
+or pantry, for want of space in the outer room. 
+Eustacia, partly from shyness, had chosen the midmost seat,
+which thus commanded a view of the interior of the pantry
+as well as the room containing the guests.  When Clym
+passed down the pantry her eyes followed him in the gloom
+which prevailed there.  At the remote end was a door which,
+just as he was about to open it for himself, was opened
+by somebody within; and light streamed forth.
+
+The person was Thomasin, with a candle, looking anxious,
+pale, and interesting.  Yeobright appeared glad to see her,
+and pressed her hand.  "That's right, Tamsie," he said
+heartily, as though recalled to himself by the sight
+of her, "you have decided to come down.  I am glad of it."
+
+"Hush--no, no," she said quickly.  "I only came to speak
+to you."
+
+"But why not join us?"
+
+"I cannot.  At least I would rather not.  I am not
+well enough, and we shall have plenty of time together
+now you are going to be home a good long holiday."
+
+"It isn't nearly so pleasant without you.  Are you
+really ill?"
+
+"Just a little, my old cousin--here," she said,
+playfully sweeping her hand across her heart.
+
+"Ah, Mother should have asked somebody else to be
+present tonight, perhaps?"
+
+"O no, indeed.  I merely stepped down, Clym, to ask you--"
+Here he followed her through the doorway into the private
+room beyond, and, the door closing, Eustacia and the
+mummer who sat next to her, the only other witness
+of the performance, saw and heard no more. 
+
+The heat flew to Eustacia's head and cheeks.  She instantly
+guessed that Clym, having been home only these two or
+three days, had not as yet been made acquainted with
+Thomasin's painful situation with regard to Wildeve;
+and seeing her living there just as she had been living
+before he left home, he naturally suspected nothing. 
+Eustacia felt a wild jealousy of Thomasin on the instant.
+Though Thomasin might possibly have tender sentiments
+towards another man as yet, how long could they be expected
+to last when she was shut up here with this interesting and
+travelled cousin of hers?  There was no knowing what affection
+might not soon break out between the two, so constantly
+in each other's society, and not a distracting object near. 
+Clym's boyish love for her might have languished,
+but it might easily be revived again. 
+
+Eustacia was nettled by her own contrivances.  What a
+sheer waste of herself to be dressed thus while another
+was shining to advantage! Had she known the full effect
+of the encounter she would have moved heaven and earth
+to get here in a natural manner.  The power of her face
+all lost, the charm of her emotions all disguised,
+the fascinations of her coquetry denied existence,
+nothing but a voice left to her; she had a sense of the
+doom of Echo.  "Nobody here respects me," she said. 
+She had overlooked the fact that, in coming as a boy among
+other boys, she would be treated as a boy.  The slight,
+though of her own causing, and self-explanatory, she
+was unable to dismiss as unwittingly shown, so sensitive
+had the situation made her. 
+
+Women have done much for themselves in histrionic dress.
+To look far below those who, like a certain fair
+personator of Polly Peachum early in the last century,
+and another of Lydia Languish early in this, [1] have
+won not only love but ducal coronets into the bargain,
+whole shoals of them have reached to the initial
+satisfaction of getting love almost whence they would. 
+But the Turkish Knight was denied even the chance of
+achieving this by the fluttering ribbons which she dared
+not brush aside. 
+
+[1] Written in 1877.
+
+Yeobright returned to the room without his cousin. 
+When within two or three feet of Eustacia he stopped,
+as if again arrested by a thought.  He was gazing at her. 
+She looked another way, disconcerted, and wondered how long
+this purgatory was to last.  After lingering a few seconds he
+passed on again. 
+
+To court their own discomfiture by love is a common instinct
+with certain perfervid women.  Conflicting sensations
+of love, fear, and shame reduced Eustacia to a state
+of the utmost uneasiness.  To escape was her great and
+immediate desire.  The other mummers appeared to be in no
+hurry to leave; and murmuring to the lad who sat next to
+her that she preferred waiting for them outside the house,
+she moved to the door as imperceptibly as possible,
+opened it, and slipped out. 
+
+The calm, lone scene reassured her.  She went forward
+to the palings and leant over them, looking at the moon. 
+She had stood thus but a little time when the door again opened.
+Expecting to see the remainder of the band Eustacia turned;
+but no--Clym Yeobright came out as softly as she had done,
+and closed the door behind him. 
+
+He advanced and stood beside her.  "I have an odd opinion,"
+he said, "and should like to ask you a question.  Are you
+a woman--or am I wrong?"
+
+"I am a woman."
+
+His eyes lingered on her with great interest.  "Do girls
+often play as mummers now?  They never used to."
+
+"They don't now."
+
+"Why did you?"
+
+"To get excitement and shake off depression," she said
+in low tones. 
+
+"What depressed you?"
+
+"Life."
+
+"That's a cause of depression a good many have to put
+up with."
+
+"Yes."
+
+A long silence.  "And do you find excitement?" asked Clym
+at last.
+
+"At this moment, perhaps."
+
+"Then you are vexed at being discovered?"
+
+"Yes; though I thought I might be."
+
+"I would gladly have asked you to our party had I known
+you wished to come.  Have I ever been acquainted with you
+in my youth?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Won't you come in again, and stay as long as you like?"
+
+"No. I wish not to be further recognized."
+
+"Well, you are safe with me."  After remaining in thought a
+minute he added gently, "I will not intrude upon you longer. 
+It is a strange way of meeting, and I will not ask why
+I find a cultivated woman playing such a part as this."
+She did not volunteer the reason which he seemed to hope for,
+and he wished her good night, going thence round to the
+back of the house, where he walked up and down by himself
+for some time before re-entering. 
+
+Eustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for
+her companions after this.  She flung back the ribbons
+from her face, opened the gate, and at once struck into
+the heath.  She did not hasten along.  Her grandfather
+was in bed at this hour, for she so frequently walked
+upon the hills on moonlight nights that he took no notice
+of her comings and goings, and, enjoying himself in his
+own way, left her to do likewise.  A more important
+subject than that of getting indoors now engrossed her. 
+Yeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would infallibly
+discover her name.  What then?  She first felt a sort of
+exultation at the way in which the adventure had terminated,
+even though at moments between her exultations she was
+abashed and blushful.  Then this consideration recurred
+to chill her: What was the use of her exploit?  She was
+at present a total stranger to the Yeobright family.
+The unreasonable nimbus of romance with which she had
+encircled that man might be her misery.  How could she
+allow herself to become so infatuated with a stranger?  And
+to fill the cup of her sorrow there would be Thomasin,
+living day after day in inflammable proximity to him;
+for she had just learnt that, contrary to her first belief,
+he was going to stay at home some considerable time. 
+
+She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before
+opening it she turned and faced the heath once more. 
+The form of Rainbarrow stood above the hills, and the moon
+stood above Rainbarrow.  The air was charged with silence
+and frost.  The scene reminded Eustacia of a circumstance
+which till that moment she had totally forgotten. 
+She had promised to meet Wildeve by the Barrow this very
+night at eight, to give a final answer to his pleading
+for an elopement.
+
+She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. 
+He had probably come to the spot, waited there in the cold,
+and been greatly disappointed.
+
+"Well, so much the better--it did not hurt him,"
+she said serenely.  Wildeve had at present the rayless
+outline of the sun through smoked glass, and she could
+say such things as that with the greatest facility.
+
+She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin's winning
+manner towards her cousin arose again upon Eustacia's mind. 
+
+"O that she had been married to Damon before this!"
+she said.  "And she would if it hadn't been for me! If I
+had only known--if I had only known!"
+
+Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to
+the moonlight, and, sighing that tragic sigh of hers
+which was so much like a shudder, entered the shadow
+of the roof.  She threw off her trappings in the outhouse,
+rolled them up, and went indoors to her chamber. 
+
+
+
+7 - A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
+
+
+The old captain's prevailing indifference to his
+granddaughter's movements left her free as a bird to follow
+her own courses; but it so happened that he did take upon
+himself the next morning to ask her why she had walked out so late. 
+
+"Only in search of events, Grandfather," she said,
+looking out of the window with that drowsy latency of
+manner which discovered so much force behind it whenever
+the trigger was pressed. 
+
+"Search of events--one would think you were one of the
+bucks I knew at one-and-twenty."
+
+"It is lonely here."
+
+"So much the better.  If I were living in a town my
+whole time would be taken up in looking after you. 
+I fully expected you would have been home when I returned
+from the Woman."
+
+"I won't conceal what I did.  I wanted an adventure,
+and I went with the mummers.  I played the part of the
+Turkish Knight."
+
+"No, never?  Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn't expect it
+of you, Eustacia."
+
+"It was my first performance, and it certainly will be
+my last.  Now I have told you--and remember it is a secret."
+
+"Of course.  But, Eustacia, you never did--ha! ha! Dammy,
+how 'twould have pleased me forty years ago! But remember,
+no more of it, my girl.  You may walk on the heath night
+or day, as you choose, so that you don't bother me;
+but no figuring in breeches again."
+
+"You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa."
+
+Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia's moral training
+never exceeding in severity a dialogue of this sort,
+which, if it ever became profitable to good works,
+would be a result not dear at the price.  But her thoughts
+soon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a
+passionate and indescribable solicitude for one to whom
+she was not even a name, she went forth into the amplitude
+of tanned wild around her, restless as Ahasuerus the Jew. 
+She was about half a mile from her residence when she
+beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a little
+way in advance--dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight
+and she guessed it to signify Diggory Venn.
+
+When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock
+of reddle during the last month had inquired where Venn
+was to be found, people replied, "On Egdon Heath."
+Day after day the answer was the same.  Now, since Egdon
+was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather
+than with sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most
+of the latter were to be found lay some to the north,
+some to the west of Egdon, his reason for camping
+about there like Israel in Zin was not apparent.
+The position was central and occasionally desirable. 
+But the sale of reddle was not Diggory's primary object
+in remaining on the heath, particularly at so late a period
+of the year, when most travellers of his class had gone
+into winter quarters.
+
+Eustacia looked at the lonely man.  Wildeve had told her
+at their last meeting that Venn had been thrust forward
+by Mrs. Yeobright as one ready and anxious to take his
+place as Thomasin's betrothed.  His figure was perfect,
+his face young and well outlined, his eye bright,
+his intelligence keen, and his position one which he could
+readily better if he chose.  But in spite of possibilities it
+was not likely that Thomasin would accept this Ishmaelitish
+creature while she had a cousin like Yeobright at her elbow,
+and Wildeve at the same time not absolutely indifferent. 
+Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor Mrs. Yeobright,
+in her anxiety for her niece's future, had mentioned
+this lover to stimulate the zeal of the other. 
+Eustacia was on the side of the Yeobrights now,
+and entered into the spirit of the aunt's desire.
+
+"Good morning, miss," said the reddleman, taking off
+his cap of hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-
+will from recollection of their last meeting. 
+
+"Good morning, reddleman," she said, hardly troubling
+to lift her heavily shaded eyes to his.  "I did not know
+you were so near.  Is your van here too?"
+
+Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense
+brake of purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast
+dimensions as almost to form a dell.  Brambles, though
+churlish when handled, are kindly shelter in early winter,
+being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their leaves. 
+
+The roof and chimney of Venn's caravan showed behind
+the tracery and tangles of the brake.
+
+"You remain near this part?" she asked with more interest. 
+
+"Yes, I have business here."
+
+"Not altogether the selling of reddle?"
+
+"It has nothing to do with that."
+
+"It has to do with Miss Yeobright?"
+
+Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore
+said frankly, "Yes, miss; it is on account of her."
+
+"On account of your approaching marriage with her?"
+
+Venn flushed through his stain.  "Don't make sport of me,
+Miss Vye," he said. 
+
+"It isn't true?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere
+pis aller in Mrs. Yeobright's mind; one, moreover,
+who had not even been informed of his promotion to
+that lowly standing.  "It was a mere notion of mine,"
+she said quietly; and was about to pass by without
+further speech, when, looking round to the right, she saw
+a painfully well-known figure serpentining upwards by one
+of the little paths which led to the top where she stood. 
+Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back
+was at present towards them.  She glanced quickly round;
+to escape that man there was only one way.  Turning to Venn,
+she said, "Would you allow me to rest a few minutes
+in your van?  The banks are damp for sitting on."
+
+"Certainly, miss; I'll make a place for you."
+
+She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled
+dwelling into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged
+stool just within the door.
+
+"That is the best I can do for you," he said, stepping down
+and retiring to the path, where he resumed the smoking
+of his pipe as he walked up and down.
+
+Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool,
+ensconced from view on the side towards the trackway. 
+Soon she heard the brushing of other feet than the
+reddleman's, a not very friendly "Good day" uttered by
+two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling
+of the foot-fall of one of them in a direction onwards. 
+Eustacia stretched her neck forward till she caught
+a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders; and she
+felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why. 
+It was the sickening feeling which, if the changed
+heart has any generosity at all in its composition,
+accompanies the sudden sight of a once-loved one who is
+beloved no more. 
+
+When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way
+the reddleman came near.  "That was Mr. Wildeve
+who passed, miss," he said slowly, and expressed by
+his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having
+been sitting unseen.
+
+"Yes, I saw him coming up the hill," replied Eustacia.
+"Why should you tell me that?" It was a bold question,
+considering the reddleman's knowledge of her past love;
+but her undemonstrative manner had power to repress the
+opinions of those she treated as remote from her.
+
+"I am glad to hear that you can ask it," said the
+reddleman bluntly.  "And, now I think of it, it agrees
+with what I saw last night."
+
+"Ah--what was that?" Eustacia wished to leave him,
+but wished to know.
+
+"Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting
+for a lady who didn't come."
+
+"You waited too, it seems?"
+
+"Yes, I always do.  I was glad to see him disappointed. 
+He will be there again tonight."
+
+"To be again disappointed.  The truth is, reddleman, that that lady,
+so far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin's
+marriage with Mr. Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it."
+
+Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did
+not show it clearly; that exhibition may greet remarks
+which are one remove from expectation, but it is usually
+withheld in complicated cases of two removes and upwards. 
+"Indeed, miss," he replied. 
+
+"How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow
+again tonight?" she asked.
+
+"I heard him say to himself that he would.  He's in
+a regular temper."
+
+Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured,
+lifting her deep dark eyes anxiously to his, "I wish I
+knew what to do.  I don't want to be uncivil to him;
+but I don't wish to see him again; and I have some few
+little things to return to him."
+
+"If you choose to send 'em by me, miss, and a note
+to tell him that you wish to say no more to him,
+I'll take it for you quite privately.  That would
+be the most straightforward way of letting him know your mind."
+
+"Very well," said Eustacia.  "Come towards my house,
+and I will bring it out to you."
+
+She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small
+parting in the shaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman
+followed exactly in her trail.  She saw from a distance
+that the captain was on the bank sweeping the horizon
+with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he
+stood she entered the house alone. 
+
+In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note,
+and said, in placing them in his hand, "Why are you so
+ready to take these for me?"
+
+"Can you ask that?"
+
+"I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. 
+Are you as anxious as ever to help on her marriage?"
+
+Venn was a little moved.  "I would sooner have married
+her myself," he said in a low voice.  "But what I feel
+is that if she cannot be happy without him I will do
+my duty in helping her to get him, as a man ought."
+
+Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. 
+What a strange sort of love, to be entirely free
+from that quality of selfishness which is frequently
+the chief constituent of the passion, and sometimes
+its only one! The reddleman's disinterestedness was
+so well deserving of respect that it overshot respect
+by being barely comprehended; and she almost thought it absurd. 
+
+"Then we are both of one mind at last," she said. 
+
+"Yes," replied Venn gloomily.  "But if you would
+tell me, miss, why you take such an interest in her,
+I should be easier.  It is so sudden and strange."
+
+Eustacia appeared at a loss.  "I cannot tell you that,
+reddleman," she said coldly. 
+
+Venn said no more.  He pocketed the letter, and,
+bowing to Eustacia, went away. 
+
+Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when
+Wildeve ascended the long acclivity at its base. 
+On his reaching the top a shape grew up from the earth
+immediately behind him.  It was that of Eustacia's emissary.
+He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder.  The feverish young
+inn-keeper and ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch
+of Ithuriel's spear. 
+
+"The meeting is always at eight o'clock, at this place,"
+said Venn, "and here we are--we three."
+
+"We three?" said Wildeve, looking quickly round.
+
+"Yes; you, and I, and she.  This is she."  He held up
+the letter and parcel. 
+
+Wildeve took them wonderingly.  "I don't quite see
+what this means," he said.  "How do you come here?
+There must be some mistake."
+
+"It will be cleared from your mind when you have read
+the letter.  Lanterns for one."  The reddleman struck a light,
+kindled an inch of tallow-candle which he had brought,
+and sheltered it with his cap. 
+
+"Who are you?" said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-
+light an obscure rubicundity of person in his companion. 
+"You are the reddleman I saw on the hill this morning--why,
+you are the man who----"
+
+"Please read the letter."
+
+"If you had come from the other one I shouldn't have
+been surprised," murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter
+and read.  His face grew serious. 
+
+
+
+TO MR.  WILDEVE. 
+
+After some thought I have decided once and for all that we
+must hold no further communication.  The more I consider
+the matter the more I am convinced that there must
+be an end to our acquaintance.  Had you been uniformly
+faithful to me throughout these two years you might
+now have some ground for accusing me of heartlessness;
+but if you calmly consider what I bore during the period
+of your desertion, and how I passively put up with your
+courtship of another without once interfering, you will,
+I think, own that I have a right to consult my own
+feelings when you come back to me again.  That these are
+not what they were towards you may, perhaps, be a fault
+in me, but it is one which you can scarcely reproach
+me for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin.
+
+The little articles you gave me in the early part of our
+friendship are returned by the bearer of this letter. 
+They should rightly have been sent back when I first heard
+of your engagement to her. 
+
+EUSTACIA.
+
+
+
+By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness
+with which he had read the first half of the letter
+intensified to mortification.  "I am made a great fool of,
+one way and another," he said pettishly.  "Do you know
+what is in this letter?"
+
+The reddleman hummed a tune. 
+
+"Can't you answer me?" asked Wildeve warmly. 
+
+"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang the reddleman.
+
+Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn's feet,
+till he allowed his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory's form,
+as illuminated by the candle, to his head and face. 
+"Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I deserve it, considering how I have
+played with them both," he said at last, as much to himself
+as to Venn.  "But of all the odd things that ever I knew,
+the oddest is that you should so run counter to your own
+interests as to bring this to me."
+
+"My interests?"
+
+"Certainly. 'Twas your interest not to do anything
+which would send me courting Thomasin again, now she
+has accepted you--or something like it.  Mrs. Yeobright
+says you are to marry her.  'Tisn't true, then?"
+
+"Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn't believe it.
+When did she say so?"
+
+Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.
+
+"I don't believe it now," cried Venn. 
+
+"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang Wildeve. 
+
+"O Lord--how we can imitate!" said Venn contemptuously. 
+"I'll have this out.  I'll go straight to her."
+
+Diggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve's eye
+passing over his form in withering derision, as if he
+were no more than a heath-cropper. When the reddleman's
+figure could no longer be seen, Wildeve himself descended
+and plunged into the rayless hollow of the vale.
+
+To lose the two women--he who had been the well-beloved
+of both--was too ironical an issue to be endured. 
+He could only decently save himself by Thomasin;
+and once he became her husband, Eustacia's repentance,
+he thought, would set in for a long and bitter term. 
+It was no wonder that Wildeve, ignorant of the new man
+at the back of the scene, should have supposed Eustacia
+to be playing a part.  To believe that the letter was not
+the result of some momentary pique, to infer that she really
+gave him up to Thomasin, would have required previous
+knowledge of her transfiguration by that man's influence. 
+Who was to know that she had grown generous in the greediness
+of a new passion, that in coveting one cousin she was
+dealing liberally with another, that in her eagerness to
+appropriate she gave way?
+
+Full of this resolve to marry in haste, and wring
+the heart of the proud girl, Wildeve went his way. 
+
+Meanwhile Diggory Venn had returned to his van,
+where he stood looking thoughtfully into the stove. 
+A new vista was opened up to him.  But, however promising
+Mrs. Yeobright's views of him might be as a candidate for her
+niece's hand, one condition was indispensable to the favour
+of Thomasin herself, and that was a renunciation of his
+present wild mode of life.  In this he saw little difficulty. 
+
+He could not afford to wait till the next day before seeing
+Thomasin and detailing his plan.  He speedily plunged
+himself into toilet operations, pulled a suit of cloth
+clothes from a box, and in about twenty minutes stood before
+the van-lantern as a reddleman in nothing but his face,
+the vermilion shades of which were not to be removed in
+a day.  Closing the door and fastening it with a padlock,
+Venn set off towards Blooms-End.
+
+He had reached the white palings and laid his hand
+upon the gate when the door of the house opened,
+and quickly closed again.  A female form had glided in. 
+At the same time a man, who had seemingly been standing
+with the woman in the porch, came forward from the house
+till he was face to face with Venn.  It was Wildeve again. 
+
+"Man alive, you've been quick at it," said Diggory sarcastically. 
+
+"And you slow, as you will find," said Wildeve.
+"And," lowering his voice, "you may as well go
+back again now.  I've claimed her, and got her. 
+Good night, reddleman!" Thereupon Wildeve walked away.
+
+Venn's heart sank within him, though it had not risen
+unduly high.  He stood leaning over the palings in
+an indecisive mood for nearly a quarter of an hour. 
+Then he went up the garden path, knocked, and asked
+for Mrs. Yeobright. 
+
+Instead of requesting him to enter she came to the porch. 
+A discourse was carried on between them in low measured
+tones for the space of ten minutes or more.  At the end
+of the time Mrs. Yeobright went in, and Venn sadly retraced
+his steps into the heath.  When he had again regained
+his van he lit the lantern, and with an apathetic face
+at once began to pull off his best clothes, till in the
+course of a few minutes he reappeared as the confirmed
+and irretrievable reddleman that he had seemed before. 
+
+
+
+8 - Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart
+
+
+On that evening the interior of Blooms-End, though cosy
+and comfortable, had been rather silent.  Clym Yeobright
+was not at home.  Since the Christmas party he had gone
+on a few days' visit to a friend about ten miles off. 
+
+The shadowy form seen by Venn to part from Wildeve
+in the porch, and quickly withdraw into the house,
+was Thomasin's. On entering she threw down a cloak which
+had been carelessly wrapped round her, and came forward
+to the light, where Mrs. Yeobright sat at her work-table,
+drawn up within the settle, so that part of it projected
+into the chimney-corner.
+
+"I don't like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin,"
+said her aunt quietly, without looking up from her work. 
+"I have only been just outside the door."
+
+"Well?" inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change
+in the tone of Thomasin's voice, and observing her. 
+Thomasin's cheek was flushed to a pitch far beyond
+that which it had reached before her troubles, and her
+eyes glittered. 
+
+"It was HE who knocked," she said. 
+
+"I thought as much."
+
+"He wishes the marriage to be at once."
+
+"Indeed! What--is he anxious?" Mrs. Yeobright directed
+a searching look upon her niece.  "Why did not Mr. Wildeve
+come in?"
+
+"He did not wish to.  You are not friends with him, he says. 
+He would like the wedding to be the day after tomorrow,
+quite privately; at the church of his parish--not
+at ours."
+
+"Oh! And what did you say?"
+
+"I agreed to it," Thomasin answered firmly.  "I am a
+practical woman now.  I don't believe in hearts at all.
+I would marry him under any circumstances since--since
+Clym's letter."
+
+A letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright's work-basket, and
+at Thomasin's words her aunt reopened it, and silently
+read for the tenth time that day:--
+
+
+
+What is the meaning of this silly story that people are
+circulating about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?  I should call
+such a scandal humiliating if there was the least chance
+of its being true.  How could such a gross falsehood
+have arisen?  It is said that one should go abroad
+to hear news of home, and I appear to have done it. 
+Of course I contradict the tale everywhere; but it is
+very vexing, and I wonder how it could have originated.
+It is too ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could
+so mortify us as to get jilted on the wedding day. 
+What has she done?
+
+
+
+"Yes," Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter. 
+"If you think you can marry him, do so.  And since Mr. Wildeve
+wishes it to be unceremonious, let it be that too. 
+I can do nothing.  It is all in your own hands now.
+My power over your welfare came to an end when you left
+this house to go with him to Anglebury."  She continued,
+half in bitterness, "I may almost ask, why do you consult
+me in the matter at all?  If you had gone and married
+him without saying a word to me, I could hardly have
+been angry--simply because, poor girl, you can't do a
+better thing."
+
+"Don't say that and dishearten me."
+
+"You are right--I will not."
+
+"I do not plead for him, Aunt.  Human nature is weak,
+and I am not a blind woman to insist that he is perfect.
+I did think so, but I don't now.  But I know my course,
+and you know that I know it.  I hope for the best."
+
+"And so do I, and we will both continue to," said Mrs. Yeobright,
+rising and kissing her.  "Then the wedding, if it comes off,
+will be on the morning of the very day Clym comes home?"
+
+"Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. 
+After that you can look him in the face, and so can I. Our
+concealments will matter nothing."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent,
+and presently said, "Do you wish me to give you away?
+I am willing to undertake that, you know, if you wish,
+as I was last time.  After once forbidding the banns I
+think I can do no less."
+
+"I don't think I will ask you to come," said Thomasin
+reluctantly, but with decision.  "It would be unpleasant,
+I am almost sure.  Better let there be only strangers present,
+and none of my relations at all.  I would rather have it so.
+I do not wish to do anything which may touch your credit,
+and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were there,
+after what has passed.  I am only your niece, and there
+is no necessity why you should concern yourself more about me."
+
+"Well, he has beaten us," her aunt said.  "It really
+seems as if he had been playing with you in this way
+in revenge for my humbling him as I did by standing
+up against him at first."
+
+"O no, Aunt," murmured Thomasin. 
+
+They said no more on the subject then.  Diggory Venn's knock
+came soon after; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from
+her interview with him in the porch, carelessly observed,
+"Another lover has come to ask for you."
+
+"No?"
+
+"Yes, that queer young man Venn."
+
+"Asks to pay his addresses to me?"
+
+"Yes; and I told him he was too late."
+
+Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. "Poor Diggory!"
+she said, and then aroused herself to other things. 
+
+The next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation,
+both the women being anxious to immerse themselves in
+these to escape the emotional aspect of the situation. 
+Some wearing apparel and other articles were collected
+anew for Thomasin, and remarks on domestic details were
+frequently made, so as to obscure any inner misgivings
+about her future as Wildeve's wife. 
+
+The appointed morning came.  The arrangement with Wildeve
+was that he should meet her at the church to guard against
+any unpleasant curiosity which might have affected them
+had they been seen walking off together in the usual
+country way. 
+
+Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride
+was dressing.  The sun, where it could catch it, made a
+mirror of Thomasin's hair, which she always wore braided. 
+It was braided according to a calendar system--the more
+important the day the more numerous the strands in the braid. 
+On ordinary working-days she braided it in threes;
+on ordinary Sundays in fours; at Maypolings, gipsyings,
+and the like, she braided it in fives.  Years ago she had
+said that when she married she would braid it in sevens. 
+She had braided it in sevens today. 
+
+"I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all,"
+she said.  "It is my wedding day, even though there may
+be something sad about the time.  I mean," she added,
+anxious to correct any wrong impression, "not sad in itself,
+but in its having had great disappointment and trouble
+before it."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called
+a sigh.  "I almost wish Clym had been at home," she said. 
+"Of course you chose the time because of his absence."
+
+"Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not
+telling him all; but, as it was done not to grieve him,
+I thought I would carry out the plan to its end, and tell
+the whole story when the sky was clear."
+
+"You are a practical little woman," said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling.
+"I wish you and he--no, I don't wish anything.  There, it is
+nine o'clock," she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging
+downstairs.
+
+"I told Damon I would leave at nine," said Thomasin,
+hastening out of the room.
+
+Her aunt followed.  When Thomasin was going up the little
+walk from the door to the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright
+looked reluctantly at her, and said, "It is a shame
+to let you go alone."
+
+"It is necessary," said Thomasin.
+
+"At any rate," added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, "I shall
+call upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. 
+If Clym has returned by that time he will perhaps come too. 
+I wish to show Mr. Wildeve that I bear him no ill-will.
+Let the past be forgotten.  Well, God bless you! There,
+I don't believe in old superstitions, but I'll do it."
+She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl,
+who turned, smiled, and went on again.
+
+A few steps further, and she looked back.  "Did you
+call me, Aunt?" she tremulously inquired.  "Good-bye!"
+
+Moved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon
+Mrs. Yeobright's worn, wet face, she ran back, when her
+aunt came forward, and they met again.  "O--Tamsie," said
+the elder, weeping, "I don't like to let you go."
+
+"I--I am--" Thomasin began, giving way likewise.
+But, quelling her grief, she said "Good-bye!" again and went on. 
+
+Then Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way
+between the scratching furze-bushes, and diminishing far up
+the valley--a pale-blue spot in a vast field of neutral brown,
+solitary and undefended except by the power of her own hope. 
+
+But the worst feature in the case was one which did
+not appear in the landscape; it was the man. 
+
+The hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had
+been so timed as to enable her to escape the awkwardness of
+meeting her cousin Clym, who was returning the same morning.
+To own to the partial truth of what he had heard would be
+distressing as long as the humiliating position resulting
+from the event was unimproved.  It was only after a second
+and successful journey to the altar that she could lift
+up her head and prove the failure of the first attempt
+a pure accident.
+
+She had not been gone from Blooms-End more than half
+an hour when Yeobright came by the meads from the other
+direction and entered the house. 
+
+"I had an early breakfast," he said to his mother after
+greeting her.  "Now I could eat a little more."
+
+They sat down to the repeated meal, and he went on in
+a low, anxious voice, apparently imagining that Thomasin
+had not yet come downstairs, "What's this I have heard
+about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?"
+
+"It is true in many points," said Mrs. Yeobright quietly;
+"but it is all right now, I hope."  She looked at the clock. 
+
+"True?"
+
+"Thomasin is gone to him today."
+
+Clym pushed away his breakfast.  "Then there is a scandal
+of some sort, and that's what's the matter with Thomasin. 
+Was it this that made her ill?"
+
+"Yes. Not a scandal--a misfortune.  I will tell you all
+about it, Clym.  You must not be angry, but you must listen,
+and you'll find that what we have done has been done
+for the best."
+
+She then told him the circumstances.  All that he had known
+of the affair before he returned from Paris was that there
+had existed an attachment between Thomasin and Wildeve,
+which his mother had at first discountenanced, but had since,
+owing to the arguments of Thomasin, looked upon in a little
+more favourable light.  When she, therefore, proceeded
+to explain all he was greatly surprised and troubled. 
+
+"And she determined that the wedding should be over
+before you came back," said Mrs. Yeobright, "that there
+might be no chance of her meeting you, and having a very
+painful time of it.  That's why she has gone to him;
+they have arranged to be married this morning."
+
+"But I can't understand it," said Yeobright, rising. 
+"'Tis so unlike her.  I can see why you did not write
+to me after her unfortunate return home.  But why didn't
+you let me know when the wedding was going to be--the
+first time?"
+
+"Well, I felt vexed with her just then.  She seemed to me
+to be obstinate; and when I found that you were nothing
+in her mind I vowed that she should be nothing in yours. 
+I felt that she was only my niece after all; I told her she
+might marry, but that I should take no interest in it,
+and should not bother you about it either."
+
+"It wouldn't have been bothering me.  Mother, you did wrong."
+
+"I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that
+you might throw up your situation, or injure your prospects
+in some way because of it, so I said nothing.  Of course,
+if they had married at that time in a proper manner,
+I should have told you at once."
+
+"Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!"
+
+"Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did
+the first time.  It may, considering he's the same man."
+
+"Yes, and I believe it will.  Was it right to let her go?
+Suppose Wildeve is really a bad fellow?"
+
+"Then he won't come, and she'll come home again."
+
+"You should have looked more into it."
+
+"It is useless to say that," his mother answered with an
+impatient look of sorrow.  "You don't know how bad it has
+been here with us all these weeks, Clym.  You don't know
+what a mortification anything of that sort is to a woman. 
+You don't know the sleepless nights we've had in this house,
+and the almost bitter words that have passed between us
+since that Fifth of November.  I hope never to pass seven
+such weeks again.  Tamsin has not gone outside the door,
+and I have been ashamed to look anybody in the face;
+and now you blame me for letting her do the only thing that
+can be done to set that trouble straight."
+
+"No," he said slowly.  "Upon the whole I don't blame you. 
+But just consider how sudden it seems to me.  Here was I,
+knowing nothing; and then I am told all at once that Tamsie
+is gone to be married.  Well, I suppose there was nothing
+better to do.  Do you know, Mother," he continued after
+a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his own
+past history, "I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart?  Yes,
+I did.  How odd boys are! And when I came home and saw
+her this time she seemed so much more affectionate
+than usual, that I was quite reminded of those days,
+particularly on the night of the party, when she was unwell. 
+We had the party just the same--was not that rather cruel
+to her?"
+
+"It made no difference.  I had arranged to give one, and it
+was not worth while to make more gloom than necessary.
+To begin by shutting ourselves up and telling you of Tamsin's
+misfortunes would have been a poor sort of welcome."
+
+Clym remained thinking.  "I almost wish you had not had
+that party," he said; "and for other reasons.  But I will
+tell you in a day or two.  We must think of Tamsin now."
+
+They lapsed into silence.  "I'll tell you what,"
+said Yeobright again, in a tone which showed some slumbering
+feeling still.  "I don't think it kind to Tamsin to let
+her be married like this, and neither of us there to keep
+up her spirits or care a bit about her.  She hasn't
+disgraced herself, or done anything to deserve that. 
+It is bad enough that the wedding should be so hurried
+and unceremonious, without our keeping away from it
+in addition.  Upon my soul, 'tis almost a shame. 
+I'll go."
+
+"It is over by this time," said his mother with a sigh;
+"unless they were late, or he--"
+
+"Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out.
+I don't quite like your keeping me in ignorance, Mother,
+after all.  Really, I half hope he has failed to meet her!"
+
+"And ruined her character?"
+
+"Nonsense--that wouldn't ruin Thomasin."
+
+He took up his hat and hastily left the house. 
+Mrs. Yeobright looked rather unhappy, and sat still,
+deep in thought.  But she was not long left alone. 
+A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his company
+came Diggory Venn. 
+
+"I find there isn't time for me to get there," said Clym.
+
+"Is she married?" Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the
+reddleman a face in which a strange strife of wishes,
+for and against, was apparent. 
+
+Venn bowed.  "She is, ma'am."
+
+"How strange it sounds," murmured Clym. 
+
+"And he didn't disappoint her this time?" said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"He did not.  And there is now no slight on her name. 
+I was hastening ath'art to tell you at once, as I saw you
+were not there."
+
+"How came you to be there?  How did you know it?"
+she asked. 
+
+"I have been in that neighbourhood for some time, and I
+saw them go in," said the reddleman.  "Wildeve came up
+to the door, punctual as the clock.  I didn't expect
+it of him."  He did not add, as he might have added,
+that how he came to be in that neighbourhood was not
+by accident; that, since Wildeve's resumption of his right
+to Thomasin, Venn, with the thoroughness which was part
+of his character, had determined to see the end of the episode. 
+
+"Who was there?" said Mrs. Yeobright.
+
+"Nobody hardly.  I stood right out of the way, and she
+did not see me."  The reddleman spoke huskily, and looked
+into the garden. 
+
+"Who gave her away?"
+
+"Miss Vye."
+
+"How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered
+an honour, I suppose?"
+
+"Who's Miss Vye?" said Clym. 
+
+"Captain Vye's granddaughter, of Mistover Knap."
+
+"A proud girl from Budmouth," said Mrs. Yeobright. 
+"One not much to my liking.  People say she's a witch,
+but of course that's absurd."
+
+The reddleman kept to himself his acquaintance with that
+fair personage, and also that Eustacia was there because he
+went to fetch her, in accordance with a promise he had given
+as soon as he learnt that the marriage was to take place.
+He merely said, in continuation of the story----
+
+"I was sitting on the churchyard wall when they came up,
+one from one way, the other from the other; and Miss Vye
+was walking thereabouts, looking at the headstones. 
+As soon as they had gone in I went to the door, feeling I
+should like to see it, as I knew her so well.  I pulled
+off my boots because they were so noisy, and went up into
+the gallery.  I saw then that the parson and clerk were
+already there."
+
+"How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it,
+if she was only on a walk that way?"
+
+"Because there was nobody else.  She had gone into the church
+just before me, not into the gallery.  The parson looked
+round before beginning, and as she was the only one near he
+beckoned to her, and she went up to the rails.  After that,
+when it came to signing the book, she pushed up her veil
+and signed; and Tamsin seemed to thank her for her kindness."
+The reddleman told the tale thoughtfully for there
+lingered upon his vision the changing colour of Wildeve,
+when Eustacia lifted the thick veil which had concealed
+her from recognition and looked calmly into his face. 
+"And then," said Diggory sadly, "I came away, for her
+history as Tamsin Yeobright was over."
+
+"I offered to go," said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. 
+"But she said it was not necessary."
+
+"Well, it is no matter," said the reddleman.  "The thing
+is done at last as it was meant to be at first, and God
+send her happiness.  Now I'll wish you good morning."
+
+He placed his cap on his head and went out. 
+
+From that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright's door,
+the reddleman was seen no more in or about Egdon Heath
+for a space of many months.  He vanished entirely.
+The nook among the brambles where his van had been
+standing was as vacant as ever the next morning,
+and scarcely a sign remained to show that he had been there,
+excepting a few straws, and a little redness on the turf,
+which was washed away by the next storm of rain. 
+
+The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding,
+correct as far as it went, was deficient in one
+significant particular, which had escaped him through his
+being at some distance back in the church.  When Thomasin
+was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve
+had flung towards Eustacia a glance that said plainly,
+"I have punished you now."  She had replied in a low
+tone--and he little thought how truly--"You mistake;
+it gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today."
+
+
+
+book three
+
+THE FASCINATION
+
+
+
+1 - "My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"
+
+
+In Clym Yeobright's face could be dimly seen the typical
+countenance of the future.  Should there be a classic period
+to art hereafter, its Pheidias may produce such faces. 
+The view of life as a thing to be put up with, replacing that
+zest for existence which was so intense in early civilizations,
+must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the constitution
+of the advanced races that its facial expression will become
+accepted as a new artistic departure.  People already feel
+that a man who lives without disturbing a curve of feature,
+or setting a mark of mental concern anywhere upon himself,
+is too far removed from modern perceptiveness to be a
+modern type.  Physically beautiful men--the glory of the
+race when it was young--are almost an anachronism now;
+and we may wonder whether, at some time or other,
+physically beautiful women may not be an anachronism likewise.
+
+The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive
+centuries has permanently displaced the Hellenic idea
+of life, or whatever it may be called.  What the Greeks
+only suspected we know well; what their Aeschylus
+imagined our nursery children feel.  That old-fashioned
+revelling in the general situation grows less and less
+possible as we uncover the defects of natural laws,
+and see the quandary that man is in by their operation. 
+
+The lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based
+upon this new recognition will probably be akin to
+those of Yeobright.  The observer's eye was arrested,
+not by his face as a picture, but by his face as a page;
+not by what it was, but by what it recorded.  His features
+were attractive in the light of symbols, as sounds
+intrinsically common become attractive in language,
+and as shapes intrinsically simple become interesting
+in writing. 
+
+He had been a lad of whom something was expected.
+Beyond this all had been chaos.  That he would be
+successful in an original way, or that he would go to
+the dogs in an original way, seemed equally probable.
+The only absolute certainty about him was that he would
+not stand still in the circumstances amid which he was born. 
+
+Hence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighbouring
+yeomen, the listener said, "Ah, Clym Yeobright--what is he
+doing now?" When the instinctive question about a person is,
+What is he doing?  it is felt that he will be found to be,
+like most of us, doing nothing in particular.  There is
+an indefinite sense that he must be invading some region
+of singularity, good or bad.  The devout hope is that he
+is doing well.  The secret faith is that he is making
+a mess of it.  Half a dozen comfortable market-men, who
+were habitual callers at the Quiet Woman as they passed
+by in their carts, were partial to the topic.  In fact,
+though they were not Egdon men, they could hardly avoid
+it while they sucked their long clay tubes and regarded
+the heath through the window.  Clym had been so inwoven
+with the heath in his boyhood that hardly anybody could
+look upon it without thinking of him.  So the subject
+recurred: if he were making a fortune and a name,
+so much the better for him; if he were making a tragical
+figure in the world, so much the better for a narrative. 
+
+The fact was that Yeobright's fame had spread to an awkward
+extent before he left home.  "It is bad when your fame
+outruns your means," said the Spanish Jesuit Gracian. 
+At the age of six he had asked a Scripture riddle: "Who
+was the first man known to wear breeches?" and applause
+had resounded from the very verge of the heath.  At seven
+he painted the Battle of Waterloo with tiger-lily pollen
+and black-currant juice, in the absence of water-colours. By
+the time he reached twelve he had in this manner been heard
+of as artist and scholar for at least two miles round. 
+An individual whose fame spreads three or four thousand
+yards in the time taken by the fame of others similarly
+situated to travel six or eight hundred, must of necessity
+have something in him.  Possibly Clym's fame, like Homer's,
+owed something to the accidents of his situation;
+nevertheless famous he was.
+
+He grew up and was helped out in life.  That waggery
+of fate which started Clive as a writing clerk,
+Gay as a linen-draper, Keats as a surgeon, and a thousand
+others in a thousand other odd ways, banished the wild
+and ascetic heath lad to a trade whose sole concern was
+with the especial symbols of self-indulgence and vainglory. 
+
+The details of this choice of a business for him it is not
+necessary to give.  At the death of his father a neighbouring
+gentleman had kindly undertaken to give the boy a start,
+and this assumed the form of sending him to Budmouth. 
+Yeobright did not wish to go there, but it was the only
+feasible opening.  Thence he went to London; and thence,
+shortly after, to Paris, where he had remained till now. 
+
+Something being expected of him, he had not been at home
+many days before a great curiosity as to why he stayed
+on so long began to arise in the heath.  The natural
+term of a holiday had passed, yet he still remained.
+On the Sunday morning following the week of Thomasin's
+marriage a discussion on this subject was in progress
+at a hair-cutting before Fairway's house.  Here the local
+barbering was always done at this hour on this day,
+to be followed by the great Sunday wash of the inhabitants
+at noon, which in its turn was followed by the great
+Sunday dressing an hour later.  On Egdon Heath Sunday
+proper did not begin till dinner-time, and even then it
+was a somewhat battered specimen of the day. 
+
+These Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway;
+the victim sitting on a chopping-block in front of the house,
+without a coat, and the neighbours gossiping around,
+idly observing the locks of hair as they rose upon the wind
+after the snip, and flew away out of sight to the four
+quarters of the heavens.  Summer and winter the scene was
+the same, unless the wind were more than usually blusterous,
+when the stool was shifted a few feet round the corner. 
+To complain of cold in sitting out of doors, hatless
+and coatless, while Fairway told true stories between
+the cuts of the scissors, would have been to pronounce
+yourself no man at once.  To flinch, exclaim, or move
+a muscle of the face at the small stabs under the ear
+received from those instruments, or at scarifications
+of the neck by the comb, would have been thought a gross
+breach of good manners, considering that Fairway did it
+all for nothing.  A bleeding about the poll on Sunday
+afternoons was amply accounted for by the explanation. 
+"I have had my hair cut, you know."
+
+The conversation on Yeobright had been started by a
+distant view of the young man rambling leisurely across
+the heath before them. 
+
+"A man who is doing well elsewhere wouldn't bide
+here two or three weeks for nothing," said Fairway.
+"He's got some project in 's head--depend upon that."
+
+"Well, 'a can't keep a diment shop here," said Sam. 
+
+"I don't see why he should have had them two heavy boxes
+home if he had not been going to bide; and what there
+is for him to do here the Lord in heaven knows."
+
+Before many more surmises could be indulged in Yeobright
+had come near; and seeing the hair-cutting group he turned
+aside to join them.  Marching up, and looking critically
+at their faces for a moment, he said, without introduction,
+"Now, folks, let me guess what you have been talking about."
+
+"Ay, sure, if you will," said Sam. 
+
+"About me."
+
+"Now, it is a thing I shouldn't have dreamed of doing,
+otherwise," said Fairway in a tone of integrity; "but since
+you have named it, Master Yeobright, I'll own that we was
+talking about 'ee. We were wondering what could keep you home
+here mollyhorning about when you have made such a world-wide
+name for yourself in the nick-nack trade--now, that's the truth o't."
+
+"I'll tell you," said Yeobright.  with unexpected earnestness. 
+"I am not sorry to have the opportunity.  I've come
+home because, all things considered, I can be a trifle less
+useless here than anywhere else.  But I have only lately
+found this out.  When I first got away from home I thought
+this place was not worth troubling about.  I thought our
+life here was contemptible.  To oil your boots instead
+of blacking them, to dust your coat with a switch instead
+of a brush--was there ever anything more ridiculous?  I said."
+
+"So 'tis; so 'tis!"
+
+"No, no--you are wrong; it isn't."
+
+"Beg your pardon, we thought that was your maning?"
+
+"Well, as my views changed my course became very depressing.
+I found that I was trying to be like people who had hardly
+anything in common with myself.  I was endeavouring
+to put off one sort of life for another sort of life,
+which was not better than the life I had known before. 
+It was simply different."
+
+"True; a sight different," said Fairway.
+
+"Yes, Paris must be a taking place," said Humphrey. 
+"Grand shop-winders, trumpets, and drums; and here be we
+out of doors in all winds and weathers--"
+
+"But you mistake me," pleaded Clym.  "All this was
+very depressing.  But not so depressing as something I
+next perceived--that my business was the idlest, vainest,
+most effeminate business that ever a man could be put to. 
+That decided me--I would give it up and try to follow
+some rational occupation among the people I knew best,
+and to whom I could be of most use.  I have come home;
+and this is how I mean to carry out my plan.  I shall
+keep a school as near to Egdon as possible, so as to be
+able to walk over here and have a night-school in my
+mother's house.  But I must study a little at first,
+to get properly qualified.  Now, neighbours, I must go."
+
+And Clym resumed his walk across the heath. 
+
+"He'll never carry it out in the world," said Fairway.
+"In a few weeks he'll learn to see things otherwise."
+
+"'Tis good-hearted of the young man," said another. 
+"But, for my part, I think he had better mind his business."
+
+
+
+2 - The New Course Causes Disappointment
+
+
+Yeobright loved his kind.  He had a conviction that the
+want of most men was knowledge of a sort which brings
+wisdom rather than affluence.  He wished to raise
+the class at the expense of individuals rather than
+individuals at the expense of the class.  What was more,
+he was ready at once to be the first unit sacrificed.
+
+In passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life
+the intermediate stages are usually two at least,
+frequently many more; and one of those stages is almost
+sure to be worldly advanced.  We can hardly imagine
+bucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims without
+imagining social aims as the transitional phase. 
+Yeobright's local peculiarity was that in striving at high
+thinking he still cleaved to plain living--nay, wild and
+meagre living in many respects, and brotherliness with clowns. 
+
+He was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than
+repentance for his text.  Mentally he was in a provincial future,
+that is, he was in many points abreast with the central
+town thinkers of his date.  Much of this development he
+may have owed to his studious life in Paris, where he
+had become acquainted with ethical systems popular at the time. 
+
+In consequence of this relatively advanced position,
+Yeobright might have been called unfortunate. 
+The rural world was not ripe for him.  A man should
+be only partially before his time--to be completely
+to the vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. 
+Had Philip's warlike son been intellectually so far ahead
+as to have attempted civilization without bloodshed,
+he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed,
+but nobody would have heard of an Alexander. 
+
+In the interests of renown the forwardness should lie chiefly
+in the capacity to handle things.  Successful propagandists
+have succeeded because the doctrine they bring into form
+is that which their listeners have for some time felt
+without being able to shape.  A man who advocates aesthetic
+effort and deprecates social effort is only likely to be
+understood by a class to which social effort has become
+a stale matter.  To argue upon the possibility of culture
+before luxury to the bucolic world may be to argue truly,
+but it is an attempt to disturb a sequence to which
+humanity has been long accustomed.  Yeobright preaching
+to the Egdon eremites that they might rise to a serene
+comprehensiveness without going through the process
+of enriching themselves was not unlike arguing to ancient
+Chaldeans that in ascending from earth to the pure empyrean
+it was not necessary to pass first into the intervening heaven
+of ether.
+
+Was Yeobright's mind well-proportioned?  No. A well
+proportioned mind is one which shows no particular bias;
+one of which we may safely say that it will never cause
+its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a heretic,
+or crucified as a blasphemer.  Also, on the other hand,
+that it will never cause him to be applauded as
+a prophet, revered as a priest, or exalted as a king. 
+Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity. 
+It produces the poetry of Rogers, the paintings of West,
+the statecraft of North, the spiritual guidance of Tomline;
+enabling its possessors to find their way to wealth,
+to wind up well, to step with dignity off the stage,
+to die comfortably in their beds, and to get the decent
+monument which, in many cases, they deserve.  It never
+would have allowed Yeobright to do such a ridiculous thing
+as throw up his business to benefit his fellow-creatures.
+
+He walked along towards home without attending to paths.
+If anyone knew the heath well it was Clym.  He was permeated
+with its scenes, with its substance, and with its odours.
+He might be said to be its product.  His eyes had first
+opened thereon; with its appearance all the first images ,
+of his memory were mingled, his estimate of life had
+been coloured by it: his toys had been the flint knives
+and arrow-heads which he found there, wondering why
+stones should "grow" to such odd shapes; his flowers,
+the purple bells and yellow furze: his animal kingdom,
+the snakes and croppers; his society, its human haunters. 
+Take all the varying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards
+the heath, and translate them into loves, and you have the
+heart of Clym.  He gazed upon the wide prospect as he walked,
+and was glad. 
+
+To many persons this Egdon was a place which had slipped
+out of its century generations ago, to intrude as an
+uncouth object into this.  It was an obsolete thing,
+and few cared to study it.  How could this be otherwise
+in the days of square fields, plashed hedges,
+and meadows watered on a plan so rectangular that on a
+fine day they looked like silver gridirons?  The farmer,
+in his ride, who could smile at artificial grasses,
+look with solicitude at the coming corn, and sigh
+with sadness at the fly-eaten turnips, bestowed upon
+the distant upland of heath nothing better than a frown. 
+But as for Yeobright, when he looked from the heights
+on his way he could not help indulging in a barbarous
+satisfaction at observing that, in some of the attempts
+at reclamation from the waste, tillage, after holding
+on for a year or two, had receded again in despair,
+the ferns and furze-tufts stubbornly reasserting themselves. 
+
+He descended into the valley, and soon reached his home
+at Blooms-End. His mother was snipping dead leaves from
+the window-plants. She looked up at him as if she did
+not understand the meaning of his long stay with her;
+her face had worn that look for several days.  He could
+perceive that the curiosity which had been shown by the
+hair-cutting group amounted in his mother to concern.
+But she had asked no question with her lips, even when
+the arrival of his trunk suggested that he was not going
+to leave her soon.  Her silence besought an explanation
+of him more loudly than words.
+
+"I am not going back to Paris again, Mother," he said.
+"At least, in my old capacity.  I have given up the business."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned in pained surprise.  "I thought
+something was amiss, because of the boxes.  I wonder you
+did not tell me sooner."
+
+"I ought to have done it.  But I have been in doubt
+whether you would be pleased with my plan.  I was not
+quite clear on a few points myself.  I am going to take
+an entirely new course."
+
+"I am astonished, Clym.  How can you want to do better
+than you've been doing?"
+
+"Very easily.  But I shall not do better in the way
+you mean; I suppose it will be called doing worse. 
+But I hate that business of mine, and I want to do some
+worthy thing before I die.  As a schoolmaster I think
+to do it--a school-master to the poor and ignorant,
+to teach them what nobody else will."
+
+"After all the trouble that has been taken to give you
+a start, and when there is nothing to do but to keep
+straight on towards affluence, you say you will be a poor
+man's schoolmaster.  Your fancies will be your ruin, Clym."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke calmly, but the force of feeling
+behind the words was but too apparent to one who knew
+her as well as her son did.  He did not answer. 
+There was in his face that hopelessness of being understood
+which comes when the objector is constitutionally beyond
+the reach of a logic that, even under favouring conditions,
+is almost too coarse a vehicle for the subtlety of the argument. 
+
+No more was said on the subject till the end of dinner. 
+His mother then began, as if there had been no interval
+since the morning.  "It disturbs me, Clym, to find
+that you have come home with such thoughts as those. 
+I hadn't the least idea that you meant to go backward
+in the world by your own free choice.  Of course,
+I have always supposed you were going to push straight on,
+as other men do--all who deserve the name--when they have
+been put in a good way of doing well."
+
+"I cannot help it," said Clym, in a troubled tone. 
+"Mother, I hate the flashy business.  Talk about men
+who deserve the name, can any man deserving the name
+waste his time in that effeminate way, when he sees half
+the world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle
+to and teach them how to breast the misery they are born
+to?  I get up every morning and see the whole creation
+groaning and travailing in pain, as St. Paul says,
+and yet there am I, trafficking in glittering splendours
+with wealthy women and titled libertines, and pandering
+to the meanest vanities--I, who have health and strength
+enough for anything.  I have been troubled in my mind
+about it all the year, and the end is that I cannot do it
+any more."
+
+"Why can't you do it as well as others?"
+
+"I don't know, except that there are many things other
+people care for which I don't; and that's partly why I
+think I ought to do this.  For one thing, my body does
+not require much of me.  I cannot enjoy delicacies;
+good things are wasted upon me.  Well, I ought to turn
+that defect to advantage, and by being able to do without
+what other people require I can spend what such things
+cost upon anybody else."
+
+Now, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very
+instincts from the woman before him, could not fail
+to awaken a reciprocity in her through her feelings,
+if not by arguments, disguise it as she might for his good. 
+She spoke with less assurance.  "And yet you might
+have been a wealthy man if you had only persevered. 
+Manager to that large diamond establishment--what better
+can a man wish for?  What a post of trust and respect!
+I suppose you will be like your father; like him,
+you are getting weary of doing well."
+
+"No," said her son, "I am not weary of that, though I am
+weary of what you mean by it.  Mother, what is doing well?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be
+content with ready definitions, and, like the "What
+is wisdom?" of Plato's Socrates, and the "What is truth?"
+of Pontius Pilate, Yeobright's burning question received
+no answer. 
+
+The silence was broken by the clash of the garden gate,
+a tap at the door, and its opening.  Christian Cantle
+appeared in the room in his Sunday clothes. 
+
+It was the custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story
+before absolutely entering the house, so as to be well
+in for the body of the narrative by the time visitor
+and visited stood face to face.  Christian had been
+saying to them while the door was leaving its latch,
+"To think that I, who go from home but once in a while,
+and hardly then, should have been there this morning!"
+
+"'Tis news you have brought us, then, Christian?"
+said Mrs. Yeobright. 
+
+"Ay, sure, about a witch, and ye must overlook my time o'
+day; for, says I, 'I must go and tell 'em, though they
+won't have half done dinner.' I assure ye it made me shake
+like a driven leaf.  Do ye think any harm will come o't?"
+
+"Well--what?"
+
+"This morning at church we was all standing up,
+and the pa'son said, 'Let us pray.' 'Well,' thinks I,
+'one may as well kneel as stand'; so down I went; and,
+more than that, all the rest were as willing to oblige
+the man as I. We hadn't been hard at it for more than a
+minute when a most terrible screech sounded through church,
+as if somebody had just gied up their heart's blood. 
+All the folk jumped up and then we found that Susan
+Nunsuch had pricked Miss Vye with a long stocking-needle,
+as she had threatened to do as soon as ever she could
+get the young lady to church, where she don't come
+very often.  She've waited for this chance for weeks,
+so as to draw her blood and put an end to the bewitching
+of Susan's children that has been carried on so long.
+Sue followed her into church, sat next to her, and as soon
+as she could find a chance in went the stocking-needle
+into my lady's arm."
+
+"Good heaven, how horrid!" said Mrs. Yeobright. 
+
+"Sue pricked her that deep that the maid fainted away;
+and as I was afeard there might be some tumult among us,
+I got behind the bass viol and didn't see no more. 
+But they carried her out into the air, 'tis said;
+but when they looked round for Sue she was gone. 
+What a scream that girl gied, poor thing! There were the
+pa'son in his surplice holding up his hand and saying,
+'Sit down, my good people, sit down!' But the deuce a bit
+would they sit down.  O, and what d'ye think I found out,
+Mrs. Yeobright?  The pa'son wears a suit of clothes under his
+surplice!--I could see his black sleeves when he held up
+his arm."
+
+"'Tis a cruel thing," said Yeobright. 
+
+"Yes," said his mother. 
+
+"The nation ought to look into it," said Christian. 
+"Here's Humphrey coming, I think."
+
+In came Humphrey.  "Well, have ye heard the news?
+But I see you have.  'Tis a very strange thing that
+whenever one of Egdon folk goes to church some rum job
+or other is sure to be doing.  The last time one of us
+was there was when neighbour Fairway went in the fall;
+and that was the day you forbad the banns, Mrs. Yeobright."
+
+"Has this cruelly treated girl been able to walk home?"
+said Clym. 
+
+"They say she got better, and went home very well. 
+And now I've told it I must be moving homeward myself."
+
+"And I," said Humphrey.  "Truly now we shall see if there's
+anything in what folks say about her."
+
+When they were gone into the heath again Yeobright said
+quietly to his mother, "Do you think I have turned teacher
+too soon?"
+
+"It is right that there should be schoolmasters,
+and missionaries, and all such men," she replied. 
+"But it is right, too, that I should try to lift you out
+of this life into something richer, and that you should
+not come back again, and be as if I had not tried at all."
+
+
+Later in the day Sam, the turf-cutter, entered. 
+"I've come a-borrowing, Mrs. Yeobright.  I suppose you
+have heard what's been happening to the beauty on the hill?"
+
+"Yes, Sam: half a dozen have been telling us."
+
+"Beauty?" said Clym. 
+
+"Yes, tolerably well-favoured," Sam replied.  "Lord! all
+the country owns that 'tis one of the strangest things
+in the world that such a woman should have come to live
+up there."
+
+"Dark or fair?"
+
+"Now, though I've seen her twenty times, that's a thing
+I cannot call to mind."
+
+"Darker than Tamsin," murmured Mrs. Yeobright. 
+
+"A woman who seems to care for nothing at all, as you
+may say."
+
+"She is melancholy, then?" inquired Clym. 
+
+"She mopes about by herself, and don't mix in with the people."
+
+"Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?"
+
+"Not to my knowledge."
+
+"Doesn't join in with the lads in their games, to get
+some sort of excitement in this lonely place?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Mumming, for instance?"
+
+"No. Her notions be different.  I should rather say her
+thoughts were far away from here, with lords and ladies
+she'll never know, and mansions she'll never see again."
+
+Observing that Clym appeared singularly interested
+Mrs. Yeobright said rather uneasily to Sam, "You see
+more in her than most of us do.  Miss Vye is to my
+mind too idle to be charming.  I have never heard
+that she is of any use to herself or to other people. 
+Good girls don't get treated as witches even on Egdon."
+
+"Nonsense--that proves nothing either way," said Yeobright.
+
+"Well, of course I don't understand such niceties,"
+said Sam, withdrawing from a possibly unpleasant argument;
+"and what she is we must wait for time to tell us. 
+The business that I have really called about is this,
+to borrow the longest and strongest rope you have. 
+The captain's bucket has dropped into the well,
+and they are in want of water; and as all the chaps
+are at home today we think we can get it out for him. 
+We have three cart-ropes already, but they won't reach to
+the bottom."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright told him that he might have whatever ropes
+he could find in the outhouse, and Sam went out to search. 
+When he passed by the door Clym joined him, and accompanied
+him to the gate. 
+
+"Is this young witch-lady going to stay long at Mistover?"
+he asked. 
+
+"I should say so."
+
+"What a cruel shame to ill-use her, She must have suffered
+greatly--more in mind than in body."
+
+"'Twas a graceless trick--such a handsome girl, too. 
+You ought to see her, Mr. Yeobright, being a young man
+come from far, and with a little more to show for your
+years than most of us."
+
+"Do you think she would like to teach children?"
+said Clym. 
+
+Sam shook his head.  "Quite a different sort of body
+from that, I reckon."
+
+"O, it was merely something which occurred to me. 
+It would of course be necessary to see her and talk it
+over--not an easy thing, by the way, for my family and hers
+are not very friendly."
+
+"I'll tell you how you mid see her, Mr. Yeobright,"
+said Sam.  "We are going to grapple for the bucket at six
+o'clock tonight at her house, and you could lend a hand.
+There's five or six coming, but the well is deep, and another
+might be useful, if you don't mind appearing in that shape. 
+She's sure to be walking round."
+
+"I'll think of it," said Yeobright; and they parted. 
+
+He thought of it a good deal; but nothing more was
+said about Eustacia inside the house at that time. 
+Whether this romantic martyr to superstition and the
+melancholy mummer he had conversed with under the full
+moon were one and the same person remained as yet a problem. 
+
+
+
+3 - The First Act in a Timeworn Drama
+
+
+The afternoon was fine, and Yeobright walked on the heath
+for an hour with his mother.  When they reached the lofty
+ridge which divided the valley of Blooms-End from the
+adjoining valley they stood still and looked round.
+The Quiet Woman Inn was visible on the low margin of
+the heath in one direction, and afar on the other hand
+rose Mistover Knap. 
+
+"You mean to call on Thomasin?" he inquired. 
+
+"Yes. But you need not come this time," said his mother. 
+
+"In that case I'll branch off here, Mother.  I am going
+to Mistover."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned to him inquiringly. 
+
+"I am going to help them get the bucket out of the
+captain's well," he continued.  "As it is so very deep
+I may be useful.  And I should like to see this Miss
+Vye--not so much for her good looks as for another reason."
+
+"Must you go?" his mother asked.
+
+"I thought to."
+
+And they parted.  "There is no help for it," murmured Clym's
+mother gloomily as he withdrew.  "They are sure to see
+each other.  I wish Sam would carry his news to other
+houses than mine."
+
+Clym's retreating figure got smaller and smaller
+as it rose and fell over the hillocks on his way. 
+"He is tender-hearted," said Mrs. Yeobright to herself
+while she watched him; "otherwise it would matter little. 
+How he's going on!"
+
+He was, indeed, walking with a will over the furze,
+as straight as a line, as if his life depended upon it. 
+His mother drew a long breath, and, abandoning the visit
+to Thomasin, turned back.  The evening films began to make
+nebulous pictures of the valleys, but the high lands
+still were raked by the declining rays of the winter sun,
+which glanced on Clym as he walked forward, eyed by every
+rabbit and field-fare around, a long shadow advancing in
+front of him.
+
+On drawing near to the furze-covered bank and ditch which
+fortified the captain's dwelling he could hear voices within,
+signifying that operations had been already begun. 
+At the side-entrance gate he stopped and looked over. 
+
+Half a dozen able-bodied men were standing in a line from the
+well-mouth, holding a rope which passed over the well-roller
+into the depths below.  Fairway, with a piece of smaller
+rope round his body, made fast to one of the standards,
+to guard against accidents, was leaning over the opening,
+his right hand clasping the vertical rope that descended
+into the well. 
+
+"Now, silence, folks," said Fairway.
+
+The talking ceased, and Fairway gave a circular motion
+to the rope, as if he were stirring batter.  At the end
+of a minute a dull splashing reverberated from the bottom
+of the well; the helical twist he had imparted to the rope
+had reached the grapnel below.
+
+"Haul!" said Fairway; and the men who held the rope began
+to gather it over the wheel. 
+
+"I think we've got sommat," said one of the haulers-in.
+
+"Then pull steady," said Fairway. 
+
+They gathered up more and more, till a regular dripping
+into the well could be heard below.  It grew smarter
+with the increasing height of the bucket, and presently
+a hundred and fifty feet of rope had been pulled in. 
+
+Fairway then lit a lantern, tied it to another cord,
+and began lowering it into the well beside the first:
+Clym came forward and looked down.  Strange humid leaves,
+which knew nothing of the seasons of the year,
+and quaint-natured mosses were revealed on the wellside
+as the lantern descended; till its rays fell upon a
+confused mass of rope and bucket dangling in the dank,
+dark air.
+
+"We've only got en by the edge of the hoop--steady,
+for God's sake!" said Fairway. 
+
+They pulled with the greatest gentleness, till the wet
+bucket appeared about two yards below them, like a dead
+friend come to earth again.  Three or four hands were
+stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz went the wheel,
+the two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating
+of a falling body was heard, receding down the sides
+of the well, and a thunderous uproar arose at the bottom. 
+The bucket was gone again. 
+
+"Damn the bucket!" said Fairway. 
+
+"Lower again," said Sam. 
+
+"I'm as stiff as a ram's horn stooping so long,"
+said Fairway, standing up and stretching himself till
+his joints creaked. 
+
+"Rest a few minutes, Timothy," said Yeobright. 
+"I'll take your place."
+
+The grapnel was again lowered.  Its smart impact upon
+the distant water reached their ears like a kiss,
+whereupon Yeobright knelt down, and leaning over the well
+began dragging the grapnel round and round as Fairway
+had done. 
+
+"Tie a rope round him--it is dangerous!" cried a soft
+and anxious voice somewhere above them. 
+
+Everybody turned.  The speaker was a woman, gazing down
+upon the group from an upper window, whose panes blazed
+in the ruddy glare from the west.  Her lips were parted
+and she appeared for the moment to forget where she was. 
+
+The rope was accordingly tied round his waist, and the
+work proceeded.  At the next haul the weight was not heavy,
+and it was discovered that they had only secured a coil
+of the rope detached from the bucket.  The tangled
+mass was thrown into the background.  Humphrey took
+Yeobright's place, and the grapnel was lowered again. 
+
+Yeobright retired to the heap of recovered rope in a
+meditative mood.  Of the identity between the lady's voice
+and that of the melancholy mummer he had not a moment's doubt. 
+"How thoughtful of her!" he said to himself. 
+
+Eustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect
+of her exclamation upon the group below, was no longer
+to be seen at the window, though Yeobright scanned
+it wistfully.  While he stood there the men at the well
+succeeded in getting up the bucket without a mishap. 
+One of them went to inquire for the captain, to learn
+what orders he wished to give for mending the well-tackle.
+The captain proved to be away from home, and Eustacia
+appeared at the door and came out.  She had lapsed into
+an easy and dignified calm, far removed from the intensity
+of life in her words of solicitude for Clym's safety.
+
+"Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?"
+she inquired. 
+
+"No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. 
+And as we can do no more now we'll leave off, and come
+again tomorrow morning."
+
+"No water," she murmured, turning away. 
+
+"I can send you up some from Blooms-End," said Clym,
+coming forward and raising his hat as the men retired. 
+
+Yeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant,
+as if each had in mind those few moments during
+which a certain moonlight scene was common to both. 
+With the glance the calm fixity of her features sublimed
+itself to an expression of refinement and warmth;
+it was like garish noon rising to the dignity of sunset
+in a couple of seconds. 
+
+"Thank you; it will hardly be necessary," she replied. 
+
+"But if you have no water?"
+
+"Well, it is what I call no water," she said, blushing,
+and lifting her long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them
+were a work requiring consideration.  "But my grandfather
+calls it water enough.  I'll show you what I mean."
+
+She moved away a few yards, and Clym followed.  When she
+reached the corner of the enclosure, where the steps
+were formed for mounting the boundary bank, she sprang up
+with a lightness which seemed strange after her listless
+movement towards the well.  It incidentally showed
+that her apparent languor did not arise from lack of force. 
+
+Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt
+patch at the top of the bank.  "Ashes?" he said. 
+
+"Yes," said Eustacia.  "We had a little bonfire here
+last Fifth of November, and those are the marks of it."
+
+On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled
+to attract Wildeve. 
+
+"That's the only kind of water we have," she continued,
+tossing a stone into the pool, which lay on the outside
+of the bank like the white of an eye without its pupil. 
+The stone fell with a flounce, but no Wildeve appeared
+on the other side, as on a previous occasion there. 
+"My grandfather says he lived for more than twenty years
+at sea on water twice as bad as that," she went on,
+"and considers it quite good enough for us here on
+an emergency."
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities
+in the water of these pools at this time of the year. 
+It has only just rained into them."
+
+She shook her head.  "I am managing to exist in a wilderness,
+but I cannot drink from a pond," she said. 
+
+Clym looked towards the well, which was now deserted,
+the men having gone home.  "It is a long way to send
+for spring-water," he said, after a silence. 
+"But since you don't like this in the pond, I'll try
+to get you some myself."  He went back to the well. 
+"Yes, I think I could do it by tying on this pail."
+
+"But, since I would not trouble the men to get it,
+I cannot in conscience let you."
+
+"I don't mind the trouble at all."
+
+He made fast the pail to the long coil of rope, put it over
+the wheel, and allowed it to descend by letting the rope slip
+through his hands.  Before it had gone far, however, he checked it. 
+
+"I must make fast the end first, or we may lose the whole,"
+he said to Eustacia, who had drawn near.  "Could you hold
+this a moment, while I do it--or shall I call your servant?"
+
+"I can hold it," said Eustacia; and he placed the rope
+in her hands, going then to search for the end. 
+
+"I suppose I may let it slip down?" she inquired. 
+
+"I would advise you not to let it go far," said Clym. 
+"It will get much heavier, you will find."
+
+However, Eustacia had begun to pay out.  While he was
+tying she cried, "I cannot stop it!"
+
+Clym ran to her side, and found he could only check the
+rope by twisting the loose part round the upright post,
+when it stopped with a jerk.  "Has it hurt you?"
+
+"Yes," she replied. 
+
+"Very much?"
+
+"No; I think not."  She opened her hands.  One of them
+was bleeding; the rope had dragged off the skin. 
+Eustacia wrapped it in her handkerchief.
+
+"You should have let go," said Yeobright.  "Why didn't you?"
+
+"You said I was to hold on....This is the second time
+I have been wounded today."
+
+"Ah, yes; I have heard of it.  I blush for my native Egdon. 
+Was it a serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?"
+
+There was such an abundance of sympathy in Clym's tone
+that Eustacia slowly drew up her sleeve and disclosed
+her round white arm.  A bright red spot appeared on its
+smooth surface, like a ruby on Parian marble. 
+
+"There it is," she said, putting her finger against the spot. 
+
+"It was dastardly of the woman," said Clym.  "Will not
+Captain Vye get her punished?"
+
+"He is gone from home on that very business.  I did
+not know that I had such a magic reputation."
+
+"And you fainted?" said Clym, looking at the scarlet
+little puncture as if he would like to kiss it and make
+it well. 
+
+"Yes, it frightened me.  I had not been to church for
+a long time.  And now I shall not go again for ever so
+long--perhaps never.  I cannot face their eyes after this. 
+Don't you think it dreadfully humiliating?  I wished
+I was dead for hours after, but I don't mind now."
+
+"I have come to clean away these cobwebs," said Yeobright. 
+"Would you like to help me--by high-class teaching?  We
+might benefit them much."
+
+"I don't quite feel anxious to.  I have not much love
+for my fellow-creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them."
+
+"Still I think that if you were to hear my scheme you might
+take an interest in it.  There is no use in hating people--if
+you hate anything, you should hate what produced them."
+
+"Do you mean Nature?  I hate her already.  But I shall
+be glad to hear your scheme at any time."
+
+The situation had now worked itself out, and the next
+natural thing was for them to part.  Clym knew this
+well enough, and Eustacia made a move of conclusion;
+yet he looked at her as if he had one word more to say. 
+Perhaps if he had not lived in Paris it would never have
+been uttered. 
+
+"We have met before," he said, regarding her with rather
+more interest than was necessary. 
+
+"I do not own it," said Eustacia, with a repressed,
+still look. 
+
+"But I may think what I like."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are lonely here."
+
+"I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season. 
+The heath is a cruel taskmaster to me."
+
+"Can you say so?" he asked.  "To my mind it is most
+exhilarating, and strengthening, and soothing.  I would
+rather live on these hills than anywhere else in the world."
+
+"It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn
+to draw."
+
+"And there is a very curious druidical stone just out there."
+He threw a pebble in the direction signified.  "Do you
+often go to see it?"
+
+"I was not even aware there existed any such curious
+druidical stone.  I am aware that there are boulevards
+in Paris."
+
+Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground.
+"That means much," he said. 
+
+"It does indeed," said Eustacia. 
+
+"I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle. 
+Five years of a great city would be a perfect cure
+for that."
+
+"Heaven send me such a cure! Now, Mr. Yeobright,
+I will go indoors and plaster my wounded hand."
+
+They separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade. 
+She seemed full of many things.  Her past was a blank,
+her life had begun.  The effect upon Clym of this
+meeting he did not fully discover till some time after. 
+During his walk home his most intelligible sensation
+was that his scheme had somehow become glorified.
+A beautiful woman had been intertwined with it. 
+
+On reaching the house he went up to the room which was to
+be made his study, and occupied himself during the evening
+in unpacking his books from the boxes and arranging them
+on shelves.  From another box he drew a lamp and a can
+of oil.  He trimmed the lamp, arranged his table,
+and said, "Now, I am ready to begin."
+
+He rose early the next morning, read two hours before
+breakfast by the light of his lamp--read all the morning,
+all the afternoon.  Just when the sun was going down his
+eyes felt weary, and he leant back in his chair. 
+
+His room overlooked the front of the premises and the valley
+of the heath beyond.  The lowest beams of the winter
+sun threw the shadow of the house over the palings,
+across the grass margin of the heath, and far up the vale,
+where the chimney outlines and those of the surrounding
+tree-tops stretched forth in long dark prongs.  Having been
+seated at work all day, he decided to take a turn upon
+the hills before it got dark; and, going out forthwith,
+he struck across the heath towards Mistover. 
+
+It was an hour and a half later when he again appeared at
+the garden gate.  The shutters of the house were closed,
+and Christian Cantle, who had been wheeling manure about
+the garden all day, had gone home.  On entering he found
+that his mother, after waiting a long time for him,
+had finished her meal. 
+
+"Where have you been, Clym?" she immediately said. 
+"Why didn't you tell me that you were going away at
+this time?"
+
+"I have been on the heath."
+
+"You'll meet Eustacia Vye if you go up there."
+
+Clym paused a minute.  "Yes, I met her this evening,"
+he said, as though it were spoken under the sheer necessity
+of preserving honesty.
+
+"I wondered if you had."
+
+"It was no appointment."
+
+"No; such meetings never are."
+
+"But you are not angry, Mother?"
+
+"I can hardly say that I am not.  Angry?  No. But when I
+consider the usual nature of the drag which causes men
+of promise to disappoint the world I feel uneasy."
+
+"You deserve credit for the feeling, Mother.  But I can
+assure you that you need not be disturbed by it on my account."
+
+"When I think of you and your new crotchets," said Mrs. Yeobright,
+with some emphasis, "I naturally don't feel so comfortable
+as I did a twelvemonth ago.  It is incredible to me
+that a man accustomed to the attractive women of Paris
+and elsewhere should be so easily worked upon by a girl
+in a heath.  You could just as well have walked another way."
+
+"I had been studying all day."
+
+"Well, yes," she added more hopefully, "I have been thinking
+that you might get on as a schoolmaster, and rise that way,
+since you really are determined to hate the course you
+were pursuing."
+
+Yeobright was unwilling to disturb this idea, though his
+scheme was far enough removed from one wherein the education
+of youth should be made a mere channel of social ascent. 
+He had no desires of that sort.  He had reached the stage
+in a young man's life when the grimness of the general
+human situation first becomes clear; and the realization
+of this causes ambition to halt awhile.  In France it
+is not uncustomary to commit suicide at this stage;
+in England we do much better, or much worse, as the case
+may be. 
+
+The love between the young man and his mother was
+strangely invisible now.  Of love it may be said,
+the less earthly the less demonstrative.  In its absolutely
+indestructible form it reaches a profundity in which all
+exhibition of itself is painful.  It was so with these.
+Had conversations between them been overheard,
+people would have said, "How cold they are to each other!"
+
+His theory and his wishes about devoting his future
+to teaching had made an impression on Mrs. Yeobright. 
+Indeed, how could it be otherwise when he was a part
+of her--when their discourses were as if carried on
+between the right and the left hands of the same body?
+He had despaired of reaching her by argument; and it
+was almost as a discovery to him that he could reach her
+by a magnetism which was as superior to words as words are to yells. 
+
+Strangely enough he began to feel now that it would
+not be so hard to persuade her who was his best friend
+that comparative poverty was essentially the higher
+course for him, as to reconcile to his feelings the act
+of persuading her.  From every provident point of view
+his mother was so undoubtedly right, that he was not
+without a sickness of heart in finding he could shake her. 
+
+She had a singular insight into life, considering that she
+had never mixed with it.  There are instances of persons who,
+without clear ideas of the things they criticize have
+yet had clear ideas of the relations of those things. 
+Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe
+visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson,
+who was also blind, gave excellent lectures on colour,
+and taught others the theory of ideas which they had and
+he had not.  In the social sphere these gifted ones are
+mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw,
+and estimate forces of which they have only heard. 
+We call it intuition. 
+
+What was the great world to Mrs. Yeobright?  A multitude whose
+tendencies could be perceived, though not its essences. 
+Communities were seen by her as from a distance;
+she saw them as we see the throngs which cover the
+canvases of Sallaert, Van Alsloot, and others of that
+school--vast masses of beings, jostling, zigzagging,
+and processioning in definite directions, but whose features
+are indistinguishable by the very comprehensiveness of the view. 
+
+One could see that, as far as it had gone, her life was
+very complete on its reflective side.  The philosophy of
+her nature, and its limitation by circumstances, was almost
+written in her movements.  They had a majestic foundation,
+though they were far from being majestic; and they had
+a ground-work of assurance, but they were not assured. 
+As her once elastic walk had become deadened by time,
+so had her natural pride of life been hindered in its
+blooming by her necessities. 
+
+The next slight touch in the shaping of Clym's destiny
+occurred a few days after.  A barrow was opened on the heath,
+and Yeobright attended the operation, remaining away
+from his study during several hours.  In the afternoon
+Christian returned from a journey in the same direction,
+and Mrs. Yeobright questioned him. 
+
+"They have dug a hole, and they have found things like flowerpots
+upside down, Mis'ess Yeobright; and inside these be real
+charnel bones.  They have carried 'em off to men's houses;
+but I shouldn't like to sleep where they will bide.
+Dead folks have been known to come and claim their own. 
+Mr. Yeobright had got one pot of the bones, and was going
+to bring 'em home--real skellington bones--but 'twas
+ordered otherwise.  You'll be relieved to hear that he gave
+away his pot and all, on second thoughts; and a blessed thing
+for ye, Mis'ess Yeobright, considering the wind o' nights."
+
+"Gave it away?"
+
+"Yes. To Miss Vye.  She has a cannibal taste for such
+churchyard furniture seemingly."
+
+"Miss Vye was there too?"
+
+"Ay, 'a b'lieve she was."
+
+When Clym came home, which was shortly after, his mother said,
+in a curious tone, "The urn you had meant for me you
+gave away."
+
+Yeobright made no reply; the current of her feeling
+was too pronounced to admit it. 
+
+The early weeks of the year passed on.  Yeobright certainly
+studied at home, but he also walked much abroad,
+and the direction of his walk was always towards
+some point of a line between Mistover and Rainbarrow. 
+
+The month of March arrived, and the heath showed its first
+signs of awakening from winter trance.  The awakening
+was almost feline in its stealthiness.  The pool outside
+the bank by Eustacia's dwelling, which seemed as dead
+and desolate as ever to an observer who moved and made
+noises in his observation, would gradually disclose
+a state of great animation when silently watched awhile. 
+A timid animal world had come to life for the season. 
+Little tadpoles and efts began to bubble up through
+the water, and to race along beneath it; toads made noises
+like very young ducks, and advanced to the margin in twos
+and threes; overhead, bumblebees flew hither and thither
+in the thickening light, their drone coming and going
+like the sound of a gong.
+
+On an evening such as this Yeobright descended into
+the Blooms-End valley from beside that very pool,
+where he had been standing with another person quite
+silently and quite long enough to hear all this puny stir
+of resurrection in nature; yet he had not heard it. 
+His walk was rapid as he came down, and he went with a
+springy trend.  Before entering upon his mother's premises
+he stopped and breathed.  The light which shone forth
+on him from the window revealed that his face was flushed
+and his eye bright.  What it did not show was something
+which lingered upon his lips like a seal set there. 
+The abiding presence of this impress was so real that he
+hardly dared to enter the house, for it seemed as if his
+mother might say, "What red spot is that glowing upon
+your mouth so vividly?"
+
+But he entered soon after.  The tea was ready, and he sat
+down opposite his mother.  She did not speak many words;
+and as for him, something had been just done and some
+words had been just said on the hill which prevented him
+from beginning a desultory chat.  His mother's taciturnity
+was not without ominousness, but he appeared not to care.
+He knew why she said so little, but he could not remove
+the cause of her bearing towards him.  These half-silent
+sittings were far from uncommon with them now.  At last
+Yeobright made a beginning of what was intended to strike
+at the whole root of the matter. 
+
+"Five days have we sat like this at meals with scarcely
+a word.  What's the use of it, Mother?"
+
+"None," said she, in a heart-swollen tone.  "But there
+is only too good a reason."
+
+"Not when you know all.  I have been wanting to speak
+about this, and I am glad the subject is begun.  The reason,
+of course, is Eustacia Vye.  Well, I confess I have seen
+her lately, and have seen her a good many times."
+
+"Yes, yes; and I know what that amounts to.  It troubles
+me, Clym.  You are wasting your life here; and it is solely
+on account of her.  If it had not been for that woman
+you would never have entertained this teaching scheme at all."
+
+Clym looked hard at his mother.  "You know that is not it,"
+he said. 
+
+"Well, I know you had decided to attempt it before you
+saw her; but that would have ended in intentions.  It was
+very well to talk of, but ridiculous to put in practice. 
+I fully expected that in the course of a month or two
+you would have seen the folly of such self-sacrifice,
+and would have been by this time back again to Paris
+in some business or other.  I can understand objections
+to the diamond trade--I really was thinking that it
+might be inadequate to the life of a man like you
+even though it might have made you a millionaire. 
+But now I see how mistaken you are about this girl
+I doubt if you could be correct about other things."
+
+"How am I mistaken in her?"
+
+"She is lazy and dissatisfied.  But that is not all of it. 
+Supposing her to be as good a woman as any you can find,
+which she certainly is not, why do you wish to connect
+yourself with anybody at present?"
+
+"Well, there are practical reasons," Clym began, and then
+almost broke off under an overpowering sense of the weight
+of argument which could be brought against his statement. 
+
+"If I take a school an educated woman would be invaluable
+as a help to me."
+
+"What! you really mean to marry her?"
+
+"It would be premature to state that plainly.  But consider
+what obvious advantages there would be in doing it.  She----"
+
+"Don't suppose she has any money.  She hasn't a farthing."
+
+"She is excellently educated, and would make a good
+matron in a boarding-school. I candidly own that I
+have modified my views a little, in deference to you;
+and it should satisfy you.  I no longer adhere to my
+intention of giving with my own mouth rudimentary education
+to the lowest class.  I can do better.  I can establish
+a good private school for farmers' sons, and without
+stopping the school I can manage to pass examinations. 
+By this means, and by the assistance of a wife like her----"
+
+"Oh, Clym!"
+
+"I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one
+of the best schools in the county."
+
+Yeobright had enunciated the word "her" with a fervour which,
+in conversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. 
+Hardly a maternal heart within the four seas could
+in such circumstances, have helped being irritated at
+that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new woman. 
+
+"You are blinded, Clym," she said warmly.  "It was
+a bad day for you when you first set eyes on her.
+And your scheme is merely a castle in the air built
+on purpose to justify this folly which has seized you,
+and to salve your conscience on the irrational situation
+you are in."
+
+"Mother, that's not true," he firmly answered. 
+
+"Can you maintain that I sit and tell untruths, when all
+I wish to do is to save you from sorrow?  For shame,
+Clym! But it is all through that woman--a hussy!"
+
+Clym reddened like fire and rose.  He placed his hand
+upon his mother's shoulder and said, in a tone which hung
+strangely between entreaty and command, "I won't hear it. 
+I may be led to answer you in a way which we shall
+both regret."
+
+His mother parted her lips to begin some other vehement truth,
+but on looking at him she saw that in his face which led her
+to leave the words unsaid.  Yeobright walked once or twice
+across the room, and then suddenly went out of the house.
+It was eleven o'clock when he came in, though he had
+not been further than the precincts of the garden.
+His mother was gone to bed.  A light was left burning
+on the table, and supper was spread.  Without stopping
+for any food he secured the doors and went upstairs. 
+
+
+
+4 - An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness
+
+
+The next day was gloomy enough at Blooms-End. Yeobright
+remained in his study, sitting over the open books;
+but the work of those hours was miserably scant. 
+Determined that there should be nothing in his conduct
+towards his mother resembling sullenness, he had occasionally
+spoken to her on passing matters, and would take no notice
+of the brevity of her replies.  With the same resolve to keep
+up a show of conversation he said, about seven o'clock
+in the evening, "There's an eclipse of the moon tonight. 
+I am going out to see it."  And, putting on his overcoat,
+he left her. 
+
+The low moon was not as yet visible from the front of the house,
+and Yeobright climbed out of the valley until he stood
+in the full flood of her light.  But even now he walked on,
+and his steps were in the direction of Rainbarrow. 
+
+In half an hour he stood at the top.  The sky was clear from
+verge to verge, and the moon flung her rays over the whole heath,
+but without sensibly lighting it, except where paths and
+water-courses had laid bare the white flints and glistening
+quartz sand, which made streaks upon the general shade. 
+After standing awhile he stooped and felt the heather. 
+It was dry, and he flung himself down upon the barrow,
+his face towards the moon, which depicted a small image
+of herself in each of his eyes. 
+
+He had often come up here without stating his purpose
+to his mother; but this was the first time that he had been
+ostensibly frank as to his purpose while really concealing it. 
+It was a moral situation which, three months earlier,
+he could hardly have credited of himself.  In returning
+to labour in this sequestered spot he had anticipated
+an escape from the chafing of social necessities;
+yet behold they were here also.  More than ever he
+longed to be in some world where personal ambition was
+not the only recognized form of progress--such, perhaps,
+as might have been the case at some time or other in the
+silvery globe then shining upon him.  His eye travelled
+over the length and breadth of that distant country--over
+the Bay of Rainbows, the sombre Sea of Crises, the Ocean
+of Storms, the Lake of Dreams, the vast Walled Plains,
+and the wondrous Ring Mountains--till he almost felt
+himself to be voyaging bodily through its wild scenes,
+standing on its hollow hills, traversing its deserts,
+descending its vales and old sea bottoms, or mounting
+to the edges of its craters. 
+
+While he watched the far-removed landscape a tawny stain
+grew into being on the lower verge--the eclipse had begun. 
+This marked a preconcerted moment--for the remote celestial
+phenomenon had been pressed into sublunary service as
+a lover's signal.  Yeobright's mind flew back to earth
+at the sight; he arose, shook himself and listened.
+Minute after minute passed by, perhaps ten minutes passed,
+and the shadow on the moon perceptibly widened. 
+He heard a rustling on his left hand, a cloaked figure
+with an upturned face appeared at the base of the Barrow,
+and Clym descended.  In a moment the figure was in his arms,
+and his lips upon hers. 
+
+"My Eustacia!"
+
+"Clym, dearest!"
+
+Such a situation had less than three months brought forth. 
+
+They remained long without a single utterance, for no
+language could reach the level of their condition--words
+were as the rusty implements of a by-gone barbarous epoch,
+and only to be occasionally tolerated. 
+
+"I began to wonder why you did not come," said Yeobright,
+when she had withdrawn a little from his embrace. 
+
+"You said ten minutes after the first mark of shade
+on the edge of the moon, and that's what it is now."
+
+"Well, let us only think that here we are."
+
+Then, holding each other's hand, they were again silent,
+and the shadow on the moon's disc grew a little larger. 
+
+"Has it seemed long since you last saw me?" she asked. 
+
+"It has seemed sad."
+
+"And not long?  That's because you occupy yourself, and so
+blind yourself to my absence.  To me, who can do nothing,
+it has been like living under stagnant water."
+
+"I would rather bear tediousness, dear, than have time
+made short by such means as have shortened mine."
+
+"In what way is that?  You have been thinking you wished
+you did not love me."
+
+"How can a man wish that, and yet love on?  No, Eustacia."
+
+"Men can, women cannot."
+
+"Well, whatever I may have thought, one thing is certain--I
+do love you--past all compass and description.  I love you
+to oppressiveness--I, who have never before felt more than
+a pleasant passing fancy for any woman I have ever seen. 
+Let me look right into your moonlit face and dwell on
+every line and curve in it! Only a few hairbreadths make
+the difference between this face and faces I have seen
+many times before I knew you; yet what a difference--the
+difference between everything and nothing at all. 
+One touch on that mouth again! there, and there, and there.
+Your eyes seem heavy, Eustacia."
+
+"No, it is my general way of looking.  I think it arises
+from my feeling sometimes an agonizing pity for myself
+that I ever was born."
+
+"You don't feel it now?"
+
+"No. Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. 
+Nothing can ensure the continuance of love.  It will
+evaporate like a spirit, and so I feel full of fears."
+
+"You need not."
+
+"Ah, you don't know.  You have seen more than I,
+and have been into cities and among people that I have
+only heard of, and have lived more years than I; but yet
+I am older at this than you.  I loved another man once,
+and now I love you."
+
+"In God's mercy don't talk so, Eustacia!"
+
+"But I do not think I shall be the one who wearies first. 
+It will, I fear, end in this way: your mother will find out
+that you meet me, and she will influence you against me!"
+
+"That can never be.  She knows of these meetings already."
+
+"And she speaks against me?"
+
+"I will not say."
+
+"There, go away! Obey her.  I shall ruin you.  It is foolish
+of you to meet me like this.  Kiss me, and go away forever. 
+Forever--do you hear?--forever!"
+
+"Not I."
+
+"It is your only chance.  Many a man's love has been
+a curse to him."
+
+"You are desperate, full of fancies, and wilful;
+and you misunderstand.  I have an additional reason
+for seeing you tonight besides love of you.  For though,
+unlike you, I feel our affection may be eternal. 
+I feel with you in this, that our present mode of existence
+cannot last."
+
+"Oh! 'tis your mother.  Yes, that's it! I knew it."
+
+"Never mind what it is.  Believe this, I cannot let
+myself lose you.  I must have you always with me. 
+This very evening I do not like to let you go. 
+There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest--you must
+be my wife."
+
+She started--then endeavoured to say calmly, "Cynics say
+that cures the anxiety by curing the love."
+
+"But you must answer me.  Shall I claim you some day--I
+don't mean at once?"
+
+"I must think," Eustacia murmured.  "At present speak
+of Paris to me.  Is there any place like it on earth?"
+
+"It is very beautiful.  But will you be mine?"
+
+"I will be nobody else's in the world--does that satisfy you?"
+
+"Yes, for the present."
+
+"Now tell me of the Tuileries, and the Louvre,"
+she continued evasively. 
+
+"I hate talking of Paris! Well, I remember one sunny room
+in the Louvre which would make a fitting place for you to live
+in--the Galerie d'Apollon. Its windows are mainly east;
+and in the early morning, when the sun is bright,
+the whole apartment is in a perfect blaze of splendour. 
+The rays bristle and dart from the encrustations of gilding
+to the magnificent inlaid coffers, from the coffers to
+the gold and silver plate, from the plate to the jewels
+and precious stones, from these to the enamels, till there
+is a perfect network of light which quite dazzles the eye.
+But now, about our marriage----"
+
+"And Versailles--the King's Gallery is some such
+gorgeous room, is it not?"
+
+"Yes. But what's the use of talking of gorgeous rooms?
+By the way, the Little Trianon would suit us beautifully
+to live in, and you might walk in the gardens in the
+moonlight and think you were in some English shrubbery;
+It is laid out in English fashion."
+
+"I should hate to think that!"
+
+"Then you could keep to the lawn in front of the Grand Palace. 
+All about there you would doubtless feel in a world
+of historical romance."
+
+He went on, since it was all new to her, and described
+Fontainebleau, St. Cloud, the Bois, and many other
+familiar haunts of the Parisians; till she said--
+
+"When used you to go to these places?"
+
+"On Sundays."
+
+"Ah, yes.  I dislike English Sundays.  How I should chime
+in with their manners over there! Dear Clym, you'll go
+back again?"
+
+Clym shook his head, and looked at the eclipse. 
+
+"If you'll go back again I'll--be something,"
+she said tenderly, putting her head near his breast. 
+"If you'll agree I'll give my promise, without making
+you wait a minute longer."
+
+"How extraordinary that you and my mother should be
+of one mind about this!" said Yeobright.  "I have vowed
+not to go back, Eustacia.  It is not the place I dislike;
+it is the occupation."
+
+"But you can go in some other capacity."
+
+"No. Besides, it would interfere with my scheme. 
+Don't press that, Eustacia.  Will you marry me?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+"Now--never mind Paris; it is no better than other spots. 
+Promise, sweet!"
+
+"You will never adhere to your education plan, I am
+quite sure; and then it will be all right for me;
+and so I promise to be yours for ever and ever."
+
+Clym brought her face towards his by a gentle pressure
+of the hand, and kissed her. 
+
+"Ah! but you don't know what you have got in me," she said. 
+"Sometimes I think there is not that in Eustacia Vye
+which will make a good homespun wife.  Well, let it go--see
+how our time is slipping, slipping, slipping!" She pointed
+towards the half-eclipsed moon.
+
+"You are too mournful."
+
+"No. Only I dread to think of anything beyond the present.
+What is, we know.  We are together now, and it is unknown
+how long we shall be so; the unknown always fills my mind
+with terrible possibilities, even when I may reasonably
+expect it to be cheerful....Clym, the eclipsed moonlight
+shines upon your face with a strange foreign colour,
+and shows its shape as if it were cut out in gold. 
+That means that you should be doing better things
+than this."
+
+"You are ambitious, Eustacia--no, not exactly ambitious,
+luxurious.  I ought to be of the same vein, to make
+you happy, I suppose.  And yet, far from that, I could
+live and die in a hermitage here, with proper work to do."
+
+There was that in his tone which implied distrust of his
+position as a solicitous lover, a doubt if he were acting
+fairly towards one whose tastes touched his own only
+at rare and infrequent points.  She saw his meaning,
+and whispered, in a low, full accent of eager assurance
+"Don't mistake me, Clym--though I should like Paris,
+I love you for yourself alone.  To be your wife and live
+in Paris would be heaven to me; but I would rather live
+with you in a hermitage here than not be yours at all.
+It is gain to me either way, and very great gain. 
+There's my too candid confession."
+
+"Spoken like a woman.  And now I must soon leave you. 
+I'll walk with you towards your house."
+
+"But must you go home yet?" she asked.  "Yes, the sand has
+nearly slipped away, I see, and the eclipse is creeping
+on more and more.  Don't go yet! Stop till the hour has
+run itself out; then I will not press you any more. 
+You will go home and sleep well; I keep sighing in my
+sleep! Do you ever dream of me?"
+
+"I cannot recollect a clear dream of you."
+
+"I see your face in every scene of my dreams, and hear
+your voice in every sound.  I wish I did not.  It is
+too much what I feel.  They say such love never lasts. 
+But it must! And yet once, I remember, I saw an officer
+of the Hussars ride down the street at Budmouth,
+and though he was a total stranger and never spoke to me,
+I loved him till I thought I should really die of love--
+but I didn't die, and at last I left off caring for him. 
+How terrible it would be if a time should come when I could
+not love you, my Clym!"
+
+"Please don't say such reckless things.  When we see such
+a time at hand we will say, 'I have outlived my faith
+and purpose,' and die.  There, the hour has expired--now
+let us walk on."
+
+Hand in hand they went along the path towards Mistover. 
+When they were near the house he said, "It is too late
+for me to see your grandfather tonight.  Do you think he
+will object to it?"
+
+"I will speak to him.  I am so accustomed to be my own
+mistress that it did not occur to me that we should have
+to ask him."
+
+Then they lingeringly separated, and Clym descended
+towards Blooms-End.
+
+And as he walked further and further from the charmed
+atmosphere of his Olympian girl his face grew sad with
+a new sort of sadness.  A perception of the dilemma in
+which his love had placed him came back in full force. 
+In spite of Eustacia's apparent willingness to wait
+through the period of an unpromising engagement, till he
+should be established in his new pursuit, he could not
+but perceive at moments that she loved him rather as a
+visitant from a gay world to which she rightly belonged
+than as a man with a purpose opposed to that recent past
+of his which so interested her.  It meant that, though she
+made no conditions as to his return to the French capital,
+this was what she secretly longed for in the event of marriage;
+and it robbed him of many an otherwise pleasant hour.
+Along with that came the widening breach between himself
+and his mother.  Whenever any little occurrence had brought
+into more prominence than usual the disappointment that he
+was causing her it had sent him on lone and moody walks;
+or he was kept awake a great part of the night by the
+turmoil of spirit which such a recognition created.
+If Mrs. Yeobright could only have been led to see what a
+sound and worthy purpose this purpose of his was and how
+little it was being affected by his devotions to Eustacia,
+how differently would she regard him!
+
+Thus as his sight grew accustomed to the first
+blinding halo kindled about him by love and beauty,
+Yeobright began to perceive what a strait he was in. 
+Sometimes he wished that he had never known Eustacia,
+immediately to retract the wish as brutal.  Three antagonistic
+growths had to be kept alive: his mother's trust in him,
+his plan for becoming a teacher, and Eustacia's happiness. 
+His fervid nature could not afford to relinquish one
+of these, though two of the three were as many as he
+could hope to preserve.  Though his love was as chaste
+as that of Petrarch for his Laura, it had made fetters
+of what previously was only a difficulty.  A position which
+was not too simple when he stood whole-hearted had become
+indescribably complicated by the addition of Eustacia.
+Just when his mother was beginning to tolerate one scheme
+he had introduced another still bitterer than the first,
+and the combination was more than she could bear. 
+
+
+
+5 - Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
+
+
+When Yeobright was not with Eustacia he was sitting slavishly
+over his books; when he was not reading he was meeting her. 
+These meetings were carried on with the greatest secrecy. 
+
+One afternoon his mother came home from a morning visit
+to Thomasin.  He could see from a disturbance in the lines
+of her face that something had happened. 
+
+"I have been told an incomprehensible thing,"
+she said mournfully.  "The captain has let out
+at the Woman that you and Eustacia Vye are engaged to be married."
+
+"We are," said Yeobright.  "But it may not be yet
+for a very long time."
+
+"I should hardly think it WOULD be yet for a very
+long time! You will take her to Paris, I suppose?"
+She spoke with weary hopelessness. 
+
+"I am not going back to Paris."
+
+"What will you do with a wife, then?"
+
+"Keep a school in Budmouth, as I have told you."
+
+"That's incredible! The place is overrun with schoolmasters. 
+You have no special qualifications.  What possible chance
+is there for such as you?"
+
+"There is no chance of getting rich.  But with my system
+of education, which is as new as it is true, I shall
+do a great deal of good to my fellow-creatures."
+
+"Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be
+invented they would have found it out at the universities
+long before this time."
+
+"Never, Mother.  They cannot find it out, because their
+teachers don't come in contact with the class which
+demands such a system--that is, those who have had no
+preliminary training.  My plan is one for instilling high
+knowledge into empty minds without first cramming them
+with what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins."
+
+"I might have believed you if you had kept yourself free
+from entanglements; but this woman--if she had been
+a good girl it would have been bad enough; but being----"
+
+"She is a good girl."
+
+"So you think.  A Corfu bandmaster's daughter! What has
+her life been?  Her surname even is not her true one."
+
+"She is Captain Vye's granddaughter, and her father merely
+took her mother's name.  And she is a lady by instinct."
+
+"They call him 'captain,' but anybody is captain."
+
+"He was in the Royal Navy!"
+
+"No doubt he has been to sea in some tub or other. 
+Why doesn't he look after her?  No lady would rove about
+the heath at all hours of the day and night as she does. 
+But that's not all of it.  There was something queer between
+her and Thomasin's husband at one time--I am as sure of it
+as that I stand here."
+
+"Eustacia has told me.  He did pay her a little
+attention a year ago; but there's no harm in that. 
+I like her all the better."
+
+"Clym," said his mother with firmness, "I have no
+proofs against her, unfortunately.  But if she makes
+you a good wife, there has never been a bad one."
+
+"Believe me, you are almost exasperating,"
+said Yeobright vehemently.  "And this very day I had
+intended to arrange a meeting between you.  But you
+give me no peace; you try to thwart my wishes in everything."
+
+"I hate the thought of any son of mine marrying badly! I
+wish I had never lived to see this; it is too much for
+me--it is more than I dreamt!" She turned to the window. 
+Her breath was coming quickly, and her lips were pale,
+parted, and trembling. 
+
+"Mother," said Clym, "whatever you do, you will always
+be dear to me--that you know.  But one thing I have a
+right to say, which is, that at my age I am old enough
+to know what is best for me."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright remained for some time silent and shaken,
+as if she could say no more.  Then she replied, "Best?  Is it
+best for you to injure your prospects for such a voluptuous,
+idle woman as that?  Don't you see that by the very fact
+of your choosing her you prove that you do not know
+what is best for you?  You give up your whole thought--you
+set your whole soul--to please a woman."
+
+"I do.  And that woman is you."
+
+"How can you treat me so flippantly!" said his mother,
+turning again to him with a tearful look. 
+"You are unnatural, Clym, and I did not expect it."
+
+"Very likely," said he cheerlessly.  "You did not know
+the measure you were going to mete me, and therefore did
+not know the measure that would be returned to you again."
+
+"You answer me; you think only of her.  You stick to her
+in all things."
+
+"That proves her to be worthy.  I have never yet supported
+what is bad.  And I do not care only for her.  I care
+for you and for myself, and for anything that is good. 
+When a woman once dislikes another she is merciless!"
+
+"O Clym! please don't go setting down as my fault what is
+your obstinate wrongheadedness.  If you wished to connect
+yourself with an unworthy person why did you come home
+here to do it?  Why didn't you do it in Paris?--it is more
+the fashion there.  You have come only to distress me,
+a lonely woman, and shorten my days! I wish that you
+would bestow your presence where you bestow your love!"
+
+Clym said huskily, "You are my mother.  I will say no
+more--beyond this, that I beg your pardon for having thought
+this my home.  I will no longer inflict myself upon you;
+I'll go."  And he went out with tears in his eyes. 
+
+It was a sunny afternoon at the beginning of summer,
+and the moist hollows of the heath had passed from their
+brown to their green stage.  Yeobright walked to the edge
+of the basin which extended down from Mistover and Rainbarrow.
+
+By this time he was calm, and he looked over the landscape. 
+In the minor valleys, between the hillocks which
+diversified the contour of the vale, the fresh young
+ferns were luxuriantly growing up, ultimately to reach
+a height of five or six feet.  He descended a little way,
+flung himself down in a spot where a path emerged from one
+of the small hollows, and waited.  Hither it was that he
+had promised Eustacia to bring his mother this afternoon,
+that they might meet and be friends.  His attempt had utterly failed. 
+
+He was in a nest of vivid green.  The ferny vegetation
+round him, though so abundant, was quite uniform--it
+was a grove of machine-made foliage, a world of green
+triangles with saw-edges, and not a single flower. 
+The air was warm with a vaporous warmth, and the stillness
+was unbroken.  Lizards, grasshoppers, and ants were
+the only living things to be beheld.  The scene seemed
+to belong to the ancient world of the carboniferous period,
+when the forms of plants were few, and of the fern kind;
+when there was neither bud nor blossom, nothing but a
+monotonous extent of leafage, amid which no bird sang. 
+
+When he had reclined for some considerable time,
+gloomily pondering, he discerned above the ferns a
+drawn bonnet of white silk approaching from the left,
+and Yeobright knew directly that it covered the head
+of her he loved.  His heart awoke from its apathy to a
+warm excitement, and, jumping to his feet, he said aloud,
+"I knew she was sure to come."
+
+She vanished in a hollow for a few moments, and then
+her whole form unfolded itself from the brake. 
+
+"Only you here?" she exclaimed, with a disappointed air,
+whose hollowness was proved by her rising redness and her
+half-guilty low laugh.  "Where is Mrs. Yeobright?"
+
+"She has not come," he replied in a subdued tone. 
+
+"I wish I had known that you would be here alone,"
+she said seriously, "and that we were going to have such
+an idle, pleasant time as this.  Pleasure not known
+beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to double it. 
+I have not thought once today of having you all to myself
+this afternoon, and the actual moment of a thing is so soon gone."
+
+"It is indeed."
+
+"Poor Clym!" she continued, looking tenderly into his face. 
+"You are sad.  Something has happened at your home. 
+Never mind what is--let us only look at what seems."
+
+"But, darling, what shall we do?" said he. 
+
+"Still go on as we do now--just live on from meeting
+to meeting, never minding about another day.  You, I know,
+are always thinking of that--I can see you are.  But you
+must not--will you, dear Clym?"
+
+"You are just like all women.  They are ever content to build
+their lives on any incidental position that offers itself;
+whilst men would fain make a globe to suit them.
+Listen to this, Eustacia.  There is a subject I have
+determined to put off no longer.  Your sentiment on
+the wisdom of Carpe diem does not impress me today. 
+Our present mode of life must shortly be brought to an end."
+
+"It is your mother!"
+
+"It is.  I love you none the less in telling you;
+it is only right you should know."
+
+"I have feared my bliss," she said, with the merest motion
+of her lips.  "It has been too intense and consuming."
+
+"There is hope yet.  There are forty years of work in me yet,
+and why should you despair?  I am only at an awkward turning. 
+I wish people wouldn't be so ready to think that there
+is no progress without uniformity."
+
+"Ah--your mind runs off to the philosophical side of it. 
+Well, these sad and hopeless obstacles are welcome in
+one sense, for they enable us to look with indifference
+upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to indulge in. 
+I have heard of people, who, upon coming suddenly
+into happiness, have died from anxiety lest they should
+not live to enjoy it.  I felt myself in that whimsical
+state of uneasiness lately; but I shall be spared it now. 
+Let us walk on."
+
+Clym took the hand which was already bared for him--it
+was a favourite way with them to walk bare hand in bare
+hand--and led her through the ferns.  They formed a very
+comely picture of love at full flush, as they walked along
+the valley that late afternoon, the sun sloping down on
+their right, and throwing their thin spectral shadows,
+tall as poplar trees, far out across the furze and fern. 
+Eustacia went with her head thrown back fancifully,
+a certain glad and voluptuous air of triumph pervading her
+eyes at having won by her own unaided self a man who was
+her perfect complement in attainment, appearance, and age. 
+On the young man's part, the paleness of face which he had
+brought with him from Paris, and the incipient marks of time
+and thought, were less perceptible than when he returned,
+the healthful and energetic sturdiness which was his by
+nature having partially recovered its original proportions. 
+They wandered onward till they reached the nether
+margin of the heath, where it became marshy and merged
+in moorland. 
+
+"I must part from you here, Clym," said Eustacia. 
+
+They stood still and prepared to bid each other farewell. 
+Everything before them was on a perfect level. 
+The sun, resting on the horizon line, streamed across
+the ground from between copper-coloured and lilac clouds,
+stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green. 
+All dark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun
+were overspread by a purple haze, against which groups
+of wailing gnats shone out, rising upwards and dancing about
+like sparks of fire. 
+
+"O! this leaving you is too hard to bear!"
+exclaimed Eustacia in a sudden whisper of anguish. 
+"Your mother will influence you too much; I shall not be
+judged fairly, it will get afloat that I am not a good girl,
+and the witch story will be added to make me blacker!"
+
+"They cannot.  Nobody dares to speak disrespectfully
+of you or of me."
+
+"Oh how I wish I was sure of never losing you--that you
+could not be able to desert me anyhow!"
+
+Clym stood silent a moment.  His feelings were high,
+the moment was passionate, and he cut the knot. 
+
+"You shall be sure of me, darling," he said, folding her
+in his arms.  "We will be married at once."
+
+"O Clym!"
+
+"Do you agree to it?"
+
+"If--if we can."
+
+"We certainly can, both being of full age.  And I have
+not followed my occupation all these years without having
+accumulated money; and if you will agree to live in a tiny
+cottage somewhere on the heath, until I take a house in
+Budmouth for the school, we can do it at a very little expense."
+
+"How long shall we have to live in the tiny cottage, Clym?"
+
+"About six months.  At the end of that time I shall
+have finished my reading--yes, we will do it, and this
+heart-aching will be over.  We shall, of course, live in
+absolute seclusion, and our married life will only begin
+to outward view when we take the house in Budmouth,
+where I have already addressed a letter on the matter. 
+Would your grandfather allow you?"
+
+"I think he would--on the understanding that it should
+not last longer than six months."
+
+"I will guarantee that, if no misfortune happens."
+
+"If no misfortune happens," she repeated slowly. 
+
+"Which is not likely.  Dearest, fix the exact day."
+
+And then they consulted on the question, and the day
+was chosen.  It was to be a fortnight from that time.
+
+This was the end of their talk, and Eustacia left him. 
+Clym watched her as she retired towards the sun. 
+The luminous rays wrapped her up with her increasing distance,
+and the rustle of her dress over the sprouting sedge
+and grass died away.  As he watched, the dead flat of
+the scenery overpowered him, though he was fully alive
+to the beauty of that untarnished early summer green
+which was worn for the nonce by the poorest blade. 
+There was something in its oppressive horizontality
+which too much reminded him of the arena of life; it gave
+him a sense of bare equality with, and no superiority to,
+a single living thing under the sun. 
+
+Eustacia was now no longer the goddess but the woman to him,
+a being to fight for, support, help, be maligned for. 
+Now that he had reached a cooler moment he would have
+preferred a less hasty marriage; but the card was laid,
+and he determined to abide by the game.  Whether Eustacia
+was to add one other to the list of those who love too hotly
+to love long and well, the forthcoming event was certainly
+a ready way of proving. 
+
+
+
+6 - Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete
+
+
+All that evening smart sounds denoting an active packing up
+came from Yeobright's room to the ears of his mother downstairs. 
+
+Next morning he departed from the house and again proceeded
+across the heath.  A long day's march was before him,
+his object being to secure a dwelling to which he might
+take Eustacia when she became his wife.  Such a house,
+small, secluded, and with its windows boarded up, he had
+casually observed a month earlier, about two miles beyond
+the village of East Egdon, and six miles distant altogether;
+and thither he directed his steps today. 
+
+The weather was far different from that of the evening before. 
+The yellow and vapoury sunset which had wrapped up
+Eustacia from his parting gaze had presaged change. 
+It was one of those not infrequent days of an English June
+which are as wet and boisterous as November.  The cold clouds
+hastened on in a body, as if painted on a moving slide. 
+Vapours from other continents arrived upon the wind,
+which curled and parted round him as he walked on. 
+
+At length Clym reached the margin of a fir and beech
+plantation that had been enclosed from heath land in
+the year of his birth.  Here the trees, laden heavily
+with their new and humid leaves, were now suffering
+more damage than during the highest winds of winter,
+when the boughs are especially disencumbered to do battle
+with the storm.  The wet young beeches were undergoing
+amputations, bruises, cripplings, and harsh lacerations,
+from which the wasting sap would bleed for many a day
+to come, and which would leave scars visible till the day
+of their burning.  Each stem was wrenched at the root,
+where it moved like a bone in its socket, and at every
+onset of the gale convulsive sounds came from the branches,
+as if pain were felt.  In a neighbouring brake a finch
+was trying to sing; but the wind blew under his feathers
+till they stood on end, twisted round his little tail,
+and made him give up his song. 
+
+Yet a few yards to Yeobright's left, on the open heath,
+how ineffectively gnashed the storm! Those gusts which
+tore the trees merely waved the furze and heather in a
+light caress.  Egdon was made for such times as these. 
+
+Yeobright reached the empty house about midday. 
+It was almost as lonely as that of Eustacia's grandfather,
+but the fact that it stood near a heath was disguised
+by a belt of firs which almost enclosed the premises. 
+He journeyed on about a mile further to the village in which
+the owner lived, and, returning with him to the house,
+arrangements were completed, and the man undertook that one
+room at least should be ready for occupation the next day. 
+Clym's intention was to live there alone until Eustacia
+should join him on their wedding-day.
+
+Then he turned to pursue his way homeward through the
+drizzle that had so greatly transformed the scene. 
+The ferns, among which he had lain in comfort yesterday,
+were dripping moisture from every frond, wetting his legs
+through as he brushed past; and the fur of the rabbits
+leaping before him was clotted into dark locks by the same
+watery surrounding. 
+
+He reached home damp and weary enough after his ten-
+mile walk.  It had hardly been a propitious beginning,
+but he had chosen his course, and would show no swerving. 
+The evening and the following morning were spent in
+concluding arrangements for his departure.  To stay at
+home a minute longer than necessary after having once
+come to his determination would be, he felt, only to give
+new pain to his mother by some word, look, or deed.
+
+He had hired a conveyance and sent off his goods
+by two o'clock that day.  The next step was to get
+some furniture, which, after serving for temporary use
+in the cottage, would be available for the house at
+Budmouth when increased by goods of a better description.
+A mart extensive enough for the purpose existed at Anglebury,
+some miles beyond the spot chosen for his residence,
+and there he resolved to pass the coming night. 
+
+It now only remained to wish his mother good-bye. She was
+sitting by the window as usual when he came downstairs. 
+
+"Mother, I am going to leave you," he said, holding out
+his hand. 
+
+"I thought you were, by your packing," replied Mrs. Yeobright
+in a voice from which every particle of emotion was painfully
+excluded.
+
+"And you will part friends with me?"
+
+"Certainly, Clym."
+
+"I am going to be married on the twenty-fifth."
+
+"I thought you were going to be married."
+
+"And then--and then you must come and see us.  You will
+understand me better after that, and our situation
+will not be so wretched as it is now."
+
+"I do not think it likely I shall come to see you."
+
+"Then it will not be my fault or Eustacia's, Mother. 
+Good-bye!"
+
+He kissed her cheek, and departed in great misery, which was
+several hours in lessening itself to a controllable level. 
+The position had been such that nothing more could be
+said without, in the first place, breaking down a barrier;
+and that was not to be done. 
+
+No sooner had Yeobright gone from his mother's house than
+her face changed its rigid aspect for one of blank despair. 
+After a while she wept, and her tears brought some relief. 
+During the rest of the day she did nothing but walk up and
+down the garden path in a state bordering on stupefaction.
+Night came, and with it but little rest.  The next day,
+with an instinct to do something which should reduce
+prostration to mournfulness, she went to her son's room,
+and with her own hands arranged it in order, for an imaginary
+time when he should return again.  She gave some attention
+to her flowers, but it was perfunctorily bestowed, for they
+no longer charmed her. 
+
+It was a great relief when, early in the afternoon,
+Thomasin paid her an unexpected visit.  This was not the first
+meeting between the relatives since Thomasin's marriage;
+and past blunders having been in a rough way rectified,
+they could always greet each other with pleasure and ease.
+
+The oblique band of sunlight which followed her through
+the door became the young wife well.  It illuminated her
+as her presence illuminated the heath.  In her movements,
+in her gaze, she reminded the beholder of the feathered
+creatures who lived around her home.  All similes and
+allegories concerning her began and ended with birds.
+There was as much variety in her motions as in their flight.
+When she was musing she was a kestrel, which hangs
+in the air by an invisible motion of its wings. 
+When she was in a high wind her light body was blown
+against trees and banks like a heron's. When she was
+frightened she darted noiselessly like a kingfisher. 
+When she was serene she skimmed like a swallow, and that is
+how she was moving now. 
+
+"You are looking very blithe, upon my word, Tamsie,"
+said Mrs. Yeobright, with a sad smile.  "How is Damon?"
+
+"He is very well."
+
+"Is he kind to you, Thomasin?" And Mrs. Yeobright observed
+her narrowly. 
+
+"Pretty fairly."
+
+"Is that honestly said?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt.  I would tell you if he were unkind."
+She added, blushing, and with hesitation, "He--I don't
+know if I ought to complain to you about this, but I am
+not quite sure what to do.  I want some money, you know,
+Aunt--some to buy little things for myself--and he
+doesn't give me any.  I don't like to ask him; and yet,
+perhaps, he doesn't give it me because he doesn't know. 
+Ought I to mention it to him, Aunt?"
+
+"Of course you ought.  Have you never said a word
+on the matter?"
+
+"You see, I had some of my own," said Thomasin evasively,
+"and I have not wanted any of his until lately.  I did
+just say something about it last week; but he seems--not
+to remember."
+
+"He must be made to remember.  You are aware that I have
+a little box full of spade-guineas, which your uncle put
+into my hands to divide between yourself and Clym whenever
+I chose.  Perhaps the time has come when it should be done. 
+They can be turned into sovereigns at any moment."
+
+"I think I should like to have my share--that is, if you
+don't mind."
+
+"You shall, if necessary.  But it is only proper that
+you should first tell your husband distinctly that you
+are without any, and see what he will do."
+
+"Very well, I will....Aunt, I have heard about Clym. 
+I know you are in trouble about him, and that's why I
+have come."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright turned away, and her features worked
+in her attempt to conceal her feelings.  Then she ceased
+to make any attempt, and said, weeping, "O Thomasin,
+do you think he hates me?  How can he bear to grieve me so,
+when I have lived only for him through all these years?"
+
+"Hate you--no," said Thomasin soothingly.  "It is only
+that he loves her too well.  Look at it quietly--do.
+It is not so very bad of him.  Do you know, I thought
+it not the worst match he could have made.  Miss Vye's
+family is a good one on her mother's side; and her father
+was a romantic wanderer--a sort of Greek Ulysses."
+
+"It is no use, Thomasin; it is no use.  Your intention
+is good; but I will not trouble you to argue.  I have gone
+through the whole that can be said on either side times,
+and many times.  Clym and I have not parted in anger;
+we have parted in a worse way.  It is not a passionate
+quarrel that would have broken my heart; it is the steady
+opposition and persistence in going wrong that he has shown. 
+O Thomasin, he was so good as a little boy--so tender
+and kind!"
+
+"He was, I know."
+
+"I did not think one whom I called mine would grow up
+to treat me like this.  He spoke to me as if I opposed
+him to injure him.  As though I could wish him ill!"
+
+"There are worse women in the world than Eustacia Vye."
+
+"There are too many better that's the agony of it. 
+It was she, Thomasin, and she only, who led your husband
+to act as he did--I would swear it!"
+
+"No," said Thomasin eagerly.  "It was before he knew me
+that he thought of her, and it was nothing but a mere flirtation."
+
+"Very well; we will let it be so.  There is little use
+in unravelling that now.  Sons must be blind if they will. 
+Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man
+cannot see close?  Clym must do as he will--he is nothing
+more to me.  And this is maternity--to give one's best
+years and best love to ensure the fate of being despised!"
+
+"You are too unyielding.  Think how many mothers there
+are whose sons have brought them to public shame by real
+crimes before you feel so deeply a case like this."
+
+"Thomasin, don't lecture me--I can't have it.  It is
+the excess above what we expect that makes the force
+of the blow, and that may not be greater in their case
+than in mine--they may have foreseen the worst....I am
+wrongly made, Thomasin," she added, with a mournful smile. 
+"Some widows can guard against the wounds their children
+give them by turning their hearts to another husband
+and beginning life again.  But I always was a poor, weak,
+one-idea'd creature--I had not the compass of heart nor
+the enterprise for that.  Just as forlorn and stupefied
+as I was when my husband's spirit flew away I have sat
+ever since--never attempting to mend matters at all. 
+I was comparatively a young woman then, and I might have
+had another family by this time, and have been comforted
+by them for the failure of this one son."
+
+"It is more noble in you that you did not."
+
+"The more noble, the less wise."
+
+"Forget it, and be soothed, dear Aunt.  And I shall
+not leave you alone for long.  I shall come and see you
+every day."
+
+And for one week Thomasin literally fulfilled her word. 
+She endeavoured to make light of the wedding; and brought
+news of the preparations, and that she was invited
+to be present.  The next week she was rather unwell,
+and did not appear.  Nothing had as yet been done about
+the guineas, for Thomasin feared to address her husband
+again on the subject, and Mrs. Yeobright had insisted
+upon this. 
+
+
+One day just before this time Wildeve was standing at
+the door of the Quiet Woman.  In addition to the upward
+path through the heath to Rainbarrow and Mistover,
+there was a road which branched from the highway a short
+distance below the inn, and ascended to Mistover by a
+circuitous and easy incline.  This was the only route
+on that side for vehicles to the captain's retreat. 
+A light cart from the nearest town descended the road,
+and the lad who was driving pulled up in front of the inn
+for something to drink.
+
+"You come from Mistover?" said Wildeve. 
+
+"Yes. They are taking in good things up there.  Going to
+be a wedding."  And the driver buried his face in his mug. 
+
+Wildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before,
+and a sudden expression of pain overspread his face. 
+He turned for a moment into the passage to hide it. 
+Then he came back again. 
+
+"Do you mean Miss Vye?" he said.  "How is it--that she
+can be married so soon?"
+
+"By the will of God and a ready young man, I suppose."
+
+"You don't mean Mr. Yeobright?"
+
+"Yes. He has been creeping about with her all the spring."
+
+"I suppose--she was immensely taken with him?"
+
+"She is crazy about him, so their general servant
+of all work tells me.  And that lad Charley that looks
+after the horse is all in a daze about it.  The stun-
+poll has got fond-like of her."
+
+"Is she lively--is she glad?  Going to be married so soon--well!"
+
+"It isn't so very soon."
+
+"No; not so very soon."
+
+Wildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious heartache
+within him.  He rested his elbow upon the mantelpiece
+and his face upon his hand.  When Thomasin entered
+the room he did not tell her of what he had heard.
+The old longing for Eustacia had reappeared in his
+soul--and it was mainly because he had discovered
+that it was another man's intention to possess her. 
+
+To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered;
+to care for the remote, to dislike the near; it was Wildeve's
+nature always.  This is the true mark of the man of sentiment. 
+Though Wildeve's fevered feeling had not been elaborated
+to real poetical compass, it was of the standard sort. 
+His might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon. 
+
+
+
+7 - The Morning and the Evening of a Day
+
+
+The wedding morning came.  Nobody would have imagined from
+appearances that Blooms-End had any interest in Mistover
+that day.  A solemn stillness prevailed around the house
+of Clym's mother, and there was no more animation indoors. 
+Mrs. Yeobright, who had declined to attend the ceremony,
+sat by the breakfast table in the old room which communicated
+immediately with the porch, her eyes listlessly directed
+towards the open door.  It was the room in which,
+six months earlier, the merry Christmas party had met,
+to which Eustacia came secretly and as a stranger.
+The only living thing that entered now was a sparrow;
+and seeing no movements to cause alarm, he hopped boldly round
+the room, endeavoured to go out by the window, and fluttered
+among the pot-flowers. This roused the lonely sitter,
+who got up, released the bird, and went to the door. 
+She was expecting Thomasin, who had written the night
+before to state that the time had come when she would wish
+to have the money and that she would if possible call
+this day. 
+
+Yet Thomasin occupied Mrs. Yeobright's thoughts but
+slightly as she looked up the valley of the heath,
+alive with butterflies, and with grasshoppers whose
+husky noises on every side formed a whispered chorus. 
+A domestic drama, for which the preparations were now
+being made a mile or two off, was but little less vividly
+present to her eyes than if enacted before her.  She tried
+to dismiss the vision, and walked about the garden plot;
+but her eyes ever and anon sought out the direction of the
+parish church to which Mistover belonged, and her excited fancy
+clove the hills which divided the building from her eyes.
+The morning wore away.  Eleven o'clock struck--could
+it be that the wedding was then in progress?  It must
+be so.  She went on imagining the scene at the church,
+which he had by this time approached with his bride. 
+She pictured the little group of children by the gate
+as the pony carriage drove up in which, as Thomasin
+had learnt, they were going to perform the short journey. 
+Then she saw them enter and proceed to the chancel and kneel;
+and the service seemed to go on. 
+
+She covered her face with her hands.  "O, it is a mistake!"
+she groaned.  "And he will rue it some day, and think
+of me!"
+
+While she remained thus, overcome by her forebodings,
+the old clock indoors whizzed forth twelve strokes.
+Soon after, faint sounds floated to her ear from afar
+over the hills.  The breeze came from that quarter,
+and it had brought with it the notes of distant bells,
+gaily starting off in a peal: one, two, three, four, five. 
+The ringers at East Egdon were announcing the nuptials of
+Eustacia and her son.
+
+"Then it is over," she murmured.  "Well, well! and life
+too will be over soon.  And why should I go on scalding my
+face like this?  Cry about one thing in life, cry about all;
+one thread runs through the whole piece.  And yet we say,
+'a time to laugh!'"
+
+Towards evening Wildeve came.  Since Thomasin's marriage
+Mrs. Yeobright had shown him that grim friendliness which
+at last arises in all such cases of undesired affinity. 
+The vision of what ought to have been is thrown aside in
+sheer weariness, and browbeaten human endeavour listlessly
+makes the best of the fact that is.  Wildeve, to do
+him justice, had behaved very courteously to his wife's aunt;
+and it was with no surprise that she saw him enter now.
+
+"Thomasin has not been able to come, as she promised to do,"
+he replied to her inquiry, which had been anxious,
+for she knew that her niece was badly in want of money. 
+
+"The captain came down last night and personally pressed
+her to join them today.  So, not to be unpleasant,
+she determined to go.  They fetched her in the pony-chaise,
+and are going to bring her back."
+
+"Then it is done," said Mrs. Yeobright.  "Have they gone
+to their new home?"
+
+"I don't know.  I have had no news from Mistover since
+Thomasin left to go."
+
+"You did not go with her?" said she, as if there might
+be good reasons why.
+
+"I could not," said Wildeve, reddening slightly. 
+"We could not both leave the house; it was rather
+a busy morning, on account of Anglebury Great Market. 
+I believe you have something to give to Thomasin?  If
+you like, I will take it."
+
+Mrs. Yeobright hesitated, and wondered if Wildeve knew
+what the something was.  "Did she tell you of this?"
+she inquired. 
+
+"Not particularly.  She casually dropped a remark about
+having arranged to fetch some article or other."
+
+"It is hardly necessary to send it.  She can have it
+whenever she chooses to come."
+
+"That won't be yet.  In the present state of her health
+she must not go on walking so much as she has done."
+He added, with a faint twang of sarcasm, "What wonderful
+thing is it that I cannot be trusted to take?"
+
+"Nothing worth troubling you with."
+
+"One would think you doubted my honesty," he said,
+with a laugh, though his colour rose in a quick
+resentfulness frequent with him. 
+
+"You need think no such thing," said she drily.
+"It is simply that I, in common with the rest of the world,
+feel that there are certain things which had better be
+done by certain people than by others."
+
+"As you like, as you like," said Wildeve laconically. 
+"It is not worth arguing about.  Well, I think I must turn
+homeward again, as the inn must not be left long in charge
+of the lad and the maid only."
+
+He went his way, his farewell being scarcely so courteous
+as his greeting.  But Mrs. Yeobright knew him thoroughly
+by this time, and took little notice of his manner,
+good or bad.
+
+When Wildeve was gone Mrs. Yeobright stood and considered
+what would be the best course to adopt with regard to
+the guineas, which she had not liked to entrust to Wildeve. 
+It was hardly credible that Thomasin had told him
+to ask for them, when the necessity for them had arisen
+from the difficulty of obtaining money at his hands. 
+At the same time Thomasin really wanted them, and might be
+unable to come to Blooms-End for another week at least.
+To take or send the money to her at the inn would be impolite,
+since Wildeve would pretty surely be present, or would
+discover the transaction; and if, as her aunt suspected,
+he treated her less kindly than she deserved to be treated,
+he might then get the whole sum out of her gentle hands. 
+But on this particular evening Thomasin was at Mistover,
+and anything might be conveyed to her there without the
+knowledge of her husband.  Upon the whole the opportunity was
+worth taking advantage of. 
+
+Her son, too, was there, and was now married. 
+There could be no more proper moment to render him his
+share of the money than the present.  And the chance
+that would be afforded her, by sending him this gift,
+of showing how far she was from bearing him ill-will,
+cheered the sad mother's heart. 
+
+She went upstairs and took from a locked drawer a little box,
+out of which she poured a hoard of broad unworn guineas
+that had lain there many a year.  There were a hundred
+in all, and she divided them into two heaps, fifty in each.
+Tying up these in small canvas bags, she went down to the
+garden and called to Christian Cantle, who was loitering
+about in hope of a supper which was not really owed him. 
+Mrs. Yeobright gave him the moneybags, charged him to go
+to Mistover, and on no account to deliver them into any one's
+hands save her son's and Thomasin's. On further thought
+she deemed it advisable to tell Christian precisely what
+the two bags contained, that he might be fully impressed
+with their importance.  Christian pocketed the moneybags,
+promised the greatest carefulness, and set out on his way. 
+
+"You need not hurry," said Mrs. Yeobright.  "It will
+be better not to get there till after dusk, and then
+nobody will notice you.  Come back here to supper,
+if it is not too late."
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock when he began to ascend the vale
+towards Mistover; but the long days of summer being at
+their climax, the first obscurity of evening had only just
+begun to tan the landscape.  At this point of his journey
+Christian heard voices, and found that they proceeded from
+a company of men and women who were traversing a hollow
+ahead of him, the tops only of their heads being visible. 
+
+He paused and thought of the money he carried.  It was almost
+too early even for Christian seriously to fear robbery;
+nevertheless he took a precaution which ever since his
+boyhood he had adopted whenever he carried more than
+two or three shillings upon his person--a precaution
+somewhat like that of the owner of the Pitt Diamond when
+filled with similar misgivings.  He took off his boots,
+untied the guineas, and emptied the contents of one little
+bag into the right boot, and of the other into the left,
+spreading them as flatly as possible over the bottom
+of each, which was really a spacious coffer by no means
+limited to the size of the foot.  Pulling them on again
+and lacing them to the very top, he proceeded on his way,
+more easy in his head than under his soles. 
+
+His path converged towards that of the noisy company,
+and on coming nearer he found to his relief that they
+were several Egdon people whom he knew very well,
+while with them walked Fairway, of Blooms-End.
+
+"What! Christian going too?" said Fairway as soon as he
+recognized the newcomer.  "You've got no young woman nor
+wife to your name to gie a gown-piece to, I'm sure."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" said Christian. 
+
+"Why, the raffle.  The one we go to every year. 
+Going to the raffle as well as ourselves?"
+
+"Never knew a word o't. Is it like cudgel playing or
+other sportful forms of bloodshed?  I don't want to go,
+thank you, Mister Fairway, and no offence."
+
+"Christian don't know the fun o't, and 'twould be a fine
+sight for him," said a buxom woman.  "There's no danger
+at all, Christian.  Every man puts in a shilling apiece,
+and one wins a gown-piece for his wife or sweetheart
+if he's got one."
+
+"Well, as that's not my fortune there's no meaning in it
+to me.  But I should like to see the fun, if there's
+nothing of the black art in it, and if a man may look
+on without cost or getting into any dangerous wrangle?"
+
+"There will be no uproar at all," said Timothy. 
+"Sure, Christian, if you'd like to come we'll see there's
+no harm done."
+
+"And no ba'dy gaieties, I suppose?  You see, neighbours,
+if so, it would be setting father a bad example, as he
+is so light moral'd. But a gown-piece for a shilling,
+and no black art--'tis worth looking in to see, and it
+wouldn't hinder me half an hour.  Yes, I'll come, if you'll
+step a little way towards Mistover with me afterwards,
+supposing night should have closed in, and nobody else
+is going that way?"
+
+One or two promised; and Christian, diverging from his
+direct path, turned round to the right with his companions
+towards the Quiet Woman.
+
+When they entered the large common room of the inn
+they found assembled there about ten men from among
+the neighbouring population, and the group was
+increased by the new contingent to double that number. 
+Most of them were sitting round the room in seats divided
+by wooden elbows like those of crude cathedral stalls,
+which were carved with the initials of many an illustrious
+drunkard of former times who had passed his days and his
+nights between them, and now lay as an alcoholic cinder
+in the nearest churchyard.  Among the cups on the long
+table before the sitters lay an open parcel of light
+drapery--the gown-piece, as it was called--which was
+to be raffled for.  Wildeve was standing with his back
+to the fireplace smoking a cigar; and the promoter of
+the raffle, a packman from a distant town, was expatiating
+upon the value of the fabric as material for a summer dress. 
+
+"Now, gentlemen," he continued, as the newcomers drew up
+to the table, "there's five have entered, and we want
+four more to make up the number.  I think, by the faces
+of those gentlemen who have just come in, that they are
+shrewd enough to take advantage of this rare opportunity
+of beautifying their ladies at a very trifling expense."
+
+Fairway, Sam, and another placed their shillings
+on the table, and the man turned to Christian. 
+
+"No, sir," said Christian, drawing back, with a quick gaze
+of misgiving.  "I am only a poor chap come to look on,
+an it please ye, sir.  I don't so much as know how you
+do it.  If so be I was sure of getting it I would put
+down the shilling; but I couldn't otherwise."
+
+"I think you might almost be sure," said the pedlar. 
+"In fact, now I look into your face, even if I can't say
+you are sure to win, I can say that I never saw anything
+look more like winning in my life."
+
+"You'll anyhow have the same chance as the rest of us,"
+said Sam.
+
+"And the extra luck of being the last comer," said another. 
+
+"And I was born wi' a caul, and perhaps can be no more
+ruined than drowned?" Christian added, beginning to give way. 
+
+Ultimately Christian laid down his shilling, the raffle began,
+and the dice went round.  When it came to Christian's turn
+he took the box with a trembling hand, shook it fearfully,
+and threw a pair-royal. Three of the others had thrown
+common low pairs, and all the rest mere points. 
+
+"The gentleman looked like winning, as I said," observed the
+chapman blandly.  "Take it, sir; the article is yours."
+
+"Haw-haw-haw!" said Fairway.  "I'm damned if this isn't
+the quarest start that ever I knowed!"
+
+"Mine?" asked Christian, with a vacant stare from his
+target eyes.  "I--I haven't got neither maid, wife,
+nor widder belonging to me at all, and I'm afeard it
+will make me laughed at to ha'e it, Master Traveller.
+What with being curious to join in I never thought of that!
+What shall I do wi' a woman's clothes in MY bedroom,
+and not lose my decency!"
+
+"Keep 'em, to be sure," said Fairway, "if it is only
+for luck.  Perhaps 'twill tempt some woman that thy poor
+carcase had no power over when standing empty-handed."
+
+"Keep it, certainly," said Wildeve, who had idly watched
+the scene from a distance. 
+
+The table was then cleared of the articles, and the men
+began to drink. 
+
+"Well, to be sure!" said Christian, half to himself.
+"To think I should have been born so lucky as this,
+and not have found it out until now! What curious creatures
+these dice be--powerful rulers of us all, and yet at my
+command! I am sure I never need be afeared of anything
+after this."  He handled the dice fondly one by one.
+"Why, sir," he said in a confidential whisper to Wildeve,
+who was near his left hand, "if I could only use this power
+that's in me of multiplying money I might do some good
+to a near relation of yours, seeing what I've got about me
+of hers--eh?" He tapped one of his money-laden boots upon
+the floor. 
+
+"What do you mean?" said Wildeve. 
+
+"That's a secret.  Well, I must be going now."  He looked
+anxiously towards Fairway. 
+
+"Where are you going?" Wildeve asked.
+
+"To Mistover Knap.  I have to see Mrs. Thomasin there--
+that's all."
+
+"I am going there, too, to fetch Mrs. Wildeve.  We can
+walk together."
+
+Wildeve became lost in thought, and a look of inward
+illumination came into his eyes.  It was money for his
+wife that Mrs. Yeobright could not trust him with. 
+"Yet she could trust this fellow," he said to himself. 
+"Why doesn't that which belongs to the wife belong to the
+husband too?"
+
+He called to the pot-boy to bring him his hat, and said,
+"Now, Christian, I am ready."
+
+"Mr. Wildeve," said Christian timidly, as he turned to
+leave the room, "would you mind lending me them wonderful
+little things that carry my luck inside 'em, that I
+might practise a bit by myself, you know?" He looked
+wistfully at the dice and box lying on the mantlepiece. 
+
+"Certainly," said Wildeve carelessly.  "They were only cut
+out by some lad with his knife, and are worth nothing."
+And Christian went back and privately pocketed them. 
+
+Wildeve opened the door and looked out.  The night was
+warm and cloudy.  "By Gad! 'tis dark," he continued.
+"But I suppose we shall find our way."
+
+"If we should lose the path it might be awkward,"
+said Christian.  "A lantern is the only shield that will
+make it safe for us."
+
+"Let's have a lantern by all means."  The stable lantern
+was fetched and lighted.  Christian took up his gownpiece,
+and the two set out to ascend the hill. 
+
+Within the room the men fell into chat till their
+attention was for a moment drawn to the chimney-corner.
+This was large, and, in addition to its proper recess,
+contained within its jambs, like many on Egdon,
+a receding seat, so that a person might sit there
+absolutely unobserved, provided there was no fire to light
+him up, as was the case now and throughout the summer. 
+From the niche a single object protruded into the light
+from the candles on the table.  It was a clay pipe,
+and its colour was reddish.  The men had been attracted
+to this object by a voice behind the pipe asking for a light.
+
+"Upon my life, it fairly startled me when the man spoke!"
+said Fairway, handing a candle.  "Oh--'tis the reddleman!
+You've kept a quiet tongue, young man."
+
+"Yes, I had nothing to say," observed Venn.  In a few
+minutes he arose and wished the company good night. 
+
+Meanwhile Wildeve and Christian had plunged into the heath. 
+
+It was a stagnant, warm, and misty night, full of all the
+heavy perfumes of new vegetation not yet dried by hot sun,
+and among these particularly the scent of the fern.
+The lantern, dangling from Christian's hand, brushed the
+feathery fronds in passing by, disturbing moths and
+other winged insects, which flew out and alighted upon
+its horny panes. 
+
+"So you have money to carry to Mrs. Wildeve?"
+said Christian's companion, after a silence.  "Don't you
+think it very odd that it shouldn't be given to me?"
+
+"As man and wife be one flesh, 'twould have been all
+the same, I should think," said Christian.  "But my strict
+documents was, to give the money into Mrs. Wildeve's
+hand--and 'tis well to do things right."
+
+"No doubt," said Wildeve.  Any person who had known the
+circumstances might have perceived that Wildeve was mortified
+by the discovery that the matter in transit was money,
+and not, as he had supposed when at Blooms-End, some fancy
+nick-nack which only interested the two women themselves. 
+Mrs. Yeobright's refusal implied that his honour was not
+considered to be of sufficiently good quality to make
+him a safer bearer of his wife's property. 
+
+"How very warm it is tonight, Christian!" he said,
+panting, when they were nearly under Rainbarrow. 
+"Let us sit down for a few minutes, for Heaven's sake."
+
+Wildeve flung himself down on the soft ferns;
+and Christian, placing the lantern and parcel on
+the ground, perched himself in a cramped position hard by,
+his knees almost touching his chin.  He presently thrust
+one hand into his coat-pocket and began shaking it about. 
+
+"What are you rattling in there?" said Wildeve. 
+
+"Only the dice, sir," said Christian, quickly withdrawing
+his hand.  "What magical machines these little things be,
+Mr. Wildeve! 'Tis a game I should never get tired of. 
+Would you mind my taking 'em out and looking at 'em for
+a minute, to see how they are made?  I didn't like to look
+close before the other men, for fear they should think it
+bad manners in me."  Christian took them out and examined
+them in the hollow of his hand by the lantern light. 
+"That these little things should carry such luck,
+and such charm, and such a spell, and such power in 'em,
+passes all I ever heard or zeed," he went on, with a
+fascinated gaze at the dice, which, as is frequently
+the case in country places, were made of wood, the points
+being burnt upon each face with the end of a wire. 
+
+"They are a great deal in a small compass, You think?"
+
+"Yes. Do ye suppose they really be the devil's playthings,
+Mr. Wildeve?  If so, 'tis no good sign that I be such
+a lucky man."
+
+"You ought to win some money, now that you've got them. 
+Any woman would marry you then.  Now is your time,
+Christian, and I would recommend you not to let it slip. 
+Some men are born to luck, some are not.  I belong to the
+latter class."
+
+"Did you ever know anybody who was born to it besides myself?"
+
+"O yes.  I once heard of an Italian, who sat down at a gaming
+table with only a louis, (that's a foreign sovereign),
+in his pocket.  He played on for twenty-four hours,
+and won ten thousand pounds, stripping the bank he had
+played against.  Then there was another man who had lost
+a thousand pounds, and went to the broker's next day
+to sell stock, that he might pay the debt.  The man to
+whom he owed the money went with him in a hackney-coach;
+and to pass the time they tossed who should pay the fare. 
+The ruined man won, and the other was tempted to continue
+the game, and they played all the way.  When the coachman
+stopped he was told to drive home again: the whole thousand
+pounds had been won back by the man who was going to sell."
+
+"Ha--ha--splendid!" exclaimed Christian.  "Go on--go on!"
+
+"Then there was a man of London, who was only a waiter at
+White's clubhouse.  He began playing first half-crown stakes,
+and then higher and higher, till he became very rich,
+got an appointment in India, and rose to be Governor
+of Madras.  His daughter married a member of Parliament,
+and the Bishop of Carlisle stood godfather to one of
+the children."
+
+"Wonderfull wonderfull"
+
+"And once there was a young man in America who gambled till
+he had lost his last dollar.  He staked his watch and chain,
+and lost as before; staked his umbrella, lost again;
+staked his hat, lost again; staked his coat and stood in his
+shirt-sleeves, lost again.  Began taking off his breeches,
+and then a looker-on gave him a trifle for his pluck. 
+With this he won.  Won back his coat, won back his hat,
+won back his umbrella, his watch, his money, and went
+out of the door a rich man."
+
+"Oh, 'tis too good--it takes away my breath! Mr. Wildeve,
+I think I will try another shilling with you, as I am one
+of that sort; no danger can come o't, and you can afford
+to lose."
+
+"Very well," said Wildeve, rising.  Searching about
+with the lantern, he found a large flat stone, which he
+placed between himself and Christian, and sat down again.
+The lantern was opened to give more light, and it's rays
+directed upon the stone.  Christian put down a shilling,
+Wildeve another, and each threw.  Christian won. 
+They played for two, Christian won again. 
+
+"Let us try four," said Wildeve.  They played for four.
+This time the stakes were won by Wildeve. 
+
+"Ah, those little accidents will, of course, sometimes happen,
+to the luckiest man," he observed. 
+
+"And now I have no more money!" explained Christian excitedly. 
+"And yet, if I could go on, I should get it back again,
+and more.  I wish this was mine."  He struck his boot upon
+the ground, so that the guineas chinked within. 
+
+"What! you have not put Mrs. Wildeve's money there?"
+
+"Yes. 'Tis for safety.  Is it any harm to raffle with a
+married lady's money when, if I win, I shall only keep
+my winnings, and give her her own all the same; and if
+t'other man wins, her money will go to the lawful owner?"
+
+"None at all."
+
+Wildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean
+estimation in which he was held by his wife's friends;
+and it cut his heart severely.  As the minutes passed he
+had gradually drifted into a revengeful intention without
+knowing the precise moment of forming it.  This was to
+teach Mrs. Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be;
+in other words, to show her if he could that her niece's
+husband was the proper guardian of her niece's money. 
+
+"Well, here goes!" said Christian, beginning to unlace
+one boot.  "I shall dream of it nights and nights,
+I suppose; but I shall always swear my flesh don't crawl
+when I think o't!"
+
+He thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one
+of poor Thomasin's precious guineas, piping hot. 
+Wildeve had already placed a sovereign on the stone.
+The game was then resumed.  Wildeve won first,
+and Christian ventured another, winning himself this time. 
+The game fluctuated, but the average was in Wildeve's favour. 
+Both men became so absorbed in the game that they took
+no heed of anything but the pigmy objects immediately
+beneath their eyes, the flat stone, the open lantern,
+the dice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves which lay
+under the light, were the whole world to them. 
+
+At length Christian lost rapidly; and presently,
+to his horror, the whole fifty guineas belonging
+to Thomasin had been handed over to his adversary. 
+
+"I don't care--I don't care!" he moaned, and desperately
+set about untying his left boot to get at the other fifty. 
+"The devil will toss me into the flames on his three-pronged
+fork for this night's work, I know! But perhaps I shall
+win yet, and then I'll get a wife to sit up with me o'
+nights and I won't be afeard, I won't! Here's another for'ee,
+my man!" He slapped another guinea down upon the stone,
+and the dice-box was rattled again.
+
+Time passed on.  Wildeve began to be as excited as
+Christian himself.  When commencing the game his intention
+had been nothing further than a bitter practical joke on
+Mrs. Yeobright.  To win the money, fairly or otherwise,
+and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her
+aunt's presence, had been the dim outline of his purpose. 
+But men are drawn from their intentions even in the course
+of carrying them out, and it was extremely doubtful,
+by the time the twentieth guinea had been reached,
+whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention
+than that of winning for his own personal benefit. 
+Moreover, he was now no longer gambling for his wife's money,
+but for Yeobright's; though of this fact Christian,
+in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards. 
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock, when, with almost a shriek,
+Christian placed Yeobright's last gleaming guinea upon
+the stone.  In thirty seconds it had gone the way of
+its companions. 
+
+Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns
+in a convulsion of remorse, "O, what shall I do
+with my wretched self?" he groaned.  "What shall
+I do?  Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?"
+
+"Do?  Live on just the same."
+
+"I won't live on just the same! I'll die! I say you
+are a--a----"
+
+"A man sharper than my neighbour."
+
+"Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!"
+
+"Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly."
+
+"I don't know about that! And I say you be unmannerly!
+You've got money that isn't your own.  Half the guineas
+are poor Mr. Clym's."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Because I had to gie fifty of 'em to him.  Mrs. Yeobright
+said so."
+
+"Oh?...Well, 'twould have been more graceful of her
+to have given them to his wife Eustacia.  But they
+are in my hands now."
+
+Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings,
+which could be heard to some distance, dragged his
+limbs together, arose, and tottered away out of sight. 
+Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to return to the house,
+for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to meet his wife,
+who was to be driven home in the captain's four-wheel.
+While he was closing the little horn door a figure rose
+from behind a neighbouring bush and came forward into
+the lantern light.  It was the reddleman approaching. 
+
+
+
+8 - A New Force Disturbs the Current
+
+
+Wildeve stared.  Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and,
+without a word being spoken, he deliberately sat himself
+down where Christian had been seated, thrust his hand into
+his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid it on the stone.
+
+"You have been watching us from behind that bush?"
+said Wildeve. 
+
+The reddleman nodded.  "Down with your stake," he said. 
+"Or haven't you pluck enough to go on?"
+
+Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more
+easily begun with full pockets than left off with the same;
+and though Wildeve in a cooler temper might have prudently
+declined this invitation, the excitement of his recent
+success carried him completely away.  He placed one of
+the guineas on a slab beside the reddleman's sovereign. 
+"Mine is a guinea," he said. 
+
+"A guinea that's not your own," said Venn sarcastically. 
+
+"It is my own," answered Wildeve haughtily.  "It is my
+wife's, and what is hers is mine."
+
+"Very well; let's make a beginning."  He shook the box,
+and threw eight, ten, and nine; the three casts amounted
+to twenty-seven.
+
+This encouraged Wildeve.  He took the box; and his
+three casts amounted to forty-five.
+
+Down went another of the reddleman's sovereigns against
+his first one which Wildeve laid.  This time Wildeve threw
+fifty-one points, but no pair.  The reddleman looked grim,
+threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed the stakes. 
+
+"Here you are again," said Wildeve contemptuously.
+"Double the stakes."  He laid two of Thomasin's guineas,
+and the reddleman his two pounds.  Venn won again. 
+New stakes were laid on the stone, and the gamblers proceeded
+as before. 
+
+Wildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game
+was beginning to tell upon his temper.  He writhed,
+fumed, shifted his seat, and the beating of his heart
+was almost audible.  Venn sat with lips impassively closed
+and eyes reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles;
+he scarcely appeared to breathe.  He might have been an Arab,
+or an automaton; he would have been like a red sandstone
+statue but for the motion of his arm with the dice-box.
+
+The game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour
+of the other, without any great advantage on the side
+of either.  Nearly twenty minutes were passed thus. 
+The light of the candle had by this time attracted
+heath-flies, moths, and other winged creatures of night,
+which floated round the lantern, flew into the flame,
+or beat about the faces of the two players.
+
+But neither of the men paid much attention to these things,
+their eyes being concentrated upon the little flat stone,
+which to them was an arena vast and important as a battlefield. 
+By this time a change had come over the game; the reddleman
+won continually.  At length sixty guineas--Thomasin's
+fifty, and ten of Clym's--had passed into his hands. 
+Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated.
+
+"'Won back his coat,'" said Venn slily. 
+
+Another throw, and the money went the same way. 
+
+"'Won back his hat,'" continued Venn. 
+
+"Oh, oh!" said Wildeve. 
+
+"'Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out
+of the door a rich man,'" added Venn sentence by sentence,
+as stake after stake passed over to him. 
+
+"Five more!" shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. 
+"And three casts be hanged--one shall decide."
+
+The red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded,
+and followed his example.  Wildeve rattled the box,
+and threw a pair of sixes and five points.  He clapped
+his hands; "I have done it this time--hurrah!"
+
+"There are two playing, and only one has thrown,"
+said the reddleman, quietly bringing down the box. 
+The eyes of each were then so intently converged upon
+the stone that one could fancy their beams were visible,
+like rays in a fog. 
+
+Venn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes
+was disclosed. 
+
+Wildeve was full of fury.  While the reddleman was grasping
+the stakes Wildeve seized the dice and hurled them, box and all,
+into the darkness, uttering a fearful imprecation. 
+Then he arose and began stamping up and down like a madman.
+
+"It is all over, then?" said Venn. 
+
+"No, no!" cried Wildeve.  "I mean to have another chance yet. 
+I must!"
+
+"But, my good man, what have you done with the dice?"
+
+"I threw them away--it was a momentary irritation.
+What a fool I am! Here--come and help me to look for
+them--we must find them again."
+
+Wildeve snatched up the lantern and began anxiously
+prowling among the furze and fern. 
+
+"You are not likely to find them there,"
+said Venn, following.  "What did you do such a crazy
+thing as that for?  Here's the box.  The dice can't be far off."
+
+Wildeve turned the light eagerly upon the spot where Venn
+had found the box, and mauled the herbage right and left.
+In the course of a few minutes one of the dice was found. 
+They searched on for some time, but no other was to
+be seen.
+
+"Never mind," said Wildeve; "let's play with one."
+
+"Agreed," said Venn. 
+
+Down they sat again, and recommenced with single guinea stakes;
+and the play went on smartly.  But Fortune had unmistakably
+fallen in love with the reddleman tonight.  He won steadily,
+till he was the owner of fourteen more of the gold pieces. 
+Seventy-nine of the hundred guineas were his, Wildeve
+possessing only twenty-one. The aspect of the two opponents
+was now singular.  Apart from motions, a complete diorama
+of the fluctuations of the game went on in their eyes. 
+A diminutive candle-flame was mirrored in each pupil,
+and it would have been possible to distinguish therein
+between the moods of hope and the moods of abandonment,
+even as regards the reddleman, though his facial muscles
+betrayed nothing at all.  Wildeve played on with the
+recklessness of despair. 
+
+"What's that?" he suddenly exclaimed, hearing a rustle;
+and they both looked up. 
+
+They were surrounded by dusky forms between four and
+five feet high, standing a few paces beyond the rays
+of the lantern.  A moment's inspection revealed that
+the encircling figures were heath-croppers, their heads
+being all towards the players, at whom they gazed intently. 
+
+"Hoosh!" said Wildeve, and the whole forty or fifty animals
+at once turned and galloped away.  Play was again resumed. 
+
+Ten minutes passed away.  Then a large death's head moth
+advanced from the obscure outer air, wheeled twice round
+the lantern, flew straight at the candle, and extinguished
+it by the force of the blow.  Wildeve had just thrown,
+but had not lifted the box to see what he had cast;
+and now it was impossible. 
+
+"What the infernal!" he shrieked.  "Now, what shall we
+do?  Perhaps I have thrown six--have you any matches?"
+
+"None," said Venn. 
+
+"Christian had some--I wonder where he is.  Christian!"
+
+But there was no reply to Wildeve's shout, save a mournful
+whining from the herons which were nesting lower down
+the vale.  Both men looked blankly round without rising. 
+As their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness they
+perceived faint greenish points of light among the grass
+and fern.  These lights dotted the hillside like stars
+of a low magnitude. 
+
+"Ah--glowworms," said Wildeve.  "Wait a minute. 
+We can continue the game."
+
+Venn sat still, and his companion went hither and thither
+till he had gathered thirteen glowworms--as many as he could
+find in a space of four or five minutes--upon a fox-glove
+leaf which he pulled for the purpose.  The reddleman vented
+a low humorous laugh when he saw his adversary return
+with these.  "Determined to go on, then?" he said drily.
+
+"I always am!" said Wildeve angrily.  And shaking the
+glowworms from the leaf he ranged them with a trembling hand
+in a circle on the stone, leaving a space in the middle
+for the descent of the dice-box, over which the thirteen
+tiny lamps threw a pale phosphoric shine.  The game was
+again renewed.  It happened to be that season of the year
+at which glowworms put forth their greatest brilliancy,
+and the light they yielded was more than ample for
+the purpose, since it is possible on such nights to read
+the handwriting of a letter by the light of two or three. 
+
+The incongruity between the men's deeds and their
+environment was great.  Amid the soft juicy vegetation
+of the hollow in which they sat, the motionless and the
+uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of guineas,
+the rattle of dice, the exclamations of the reckless players. 
+
+Wildeve had lifted the box as soon as the lights were obtained,
+and the solitary die proclaimed that the game was still
+against him.
+
+"I won't play any more--you've been tampering with the dice,"
+he shouted. 
+
+"How--when they were your own?" said the reddleman.
+
+"We'll change the game: the lowest point shall win
+the stake--it may cut off my ill luck.  Do you refuse?"
+
+"No--go on," said Venn. 
+
+"O, there they are again--damn them!" cried Wildeve,
+looking up.  The heath-croppers had returned noiselessly,
+and were looking on with erect heads just as before,
+their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as if they were
+wondering what mankind and candlelight could have to do in
+these haunts at this untoward hour. 
+
+"What a plague those creatures are--staring at me so!"
+he said, and flung a stone, which scattered them;
+when the game was continued as before.
+
+Wildeve had now ten guineas left; and each laid five. 
+Wildeve threw three points; Venn two, and raked in the coins. 
+The other seized the die, and clenched his teeth upon
+it in sheer rage, as if he would bite it in pieces.
+"Never give in--here are my last five!" he cried,
+throwing them down. 
+
+"Hang the glowworms--they are going out.  Why don't you burn,
+you little fools?  Stir them up with a thorn."
+
+He probed the glowworms with a bit of stick, and rolled
+them over, till the bright side of their tails was upwards. 
+
+"There's light enough.  Throw on," said Venn. 
+
+Wildeve brought down the box within the shining circle
+and looked eagerly.  He had thrown ace.  "Well done!--I
+said it would turn, and it has turned."  Venn said nothing;
+but his hand shook slightly. 
+
+He threw ace also. 
+
+"O!" said Wildeve.  "Curse me!"
+
+The die smacked the stone a second time.  It was ace again.
+Venn looked gloomy, threw--the die was seen to be lying
+in two pieces, the cleft sides uppermost. 
+
+"I've thrown nothing at all," he said. 
+
+"Serves me right--I split the die with my teeth. 
+Here--take your money.  Blank is less than one."
+
+"I don't wish it."
+
+"Take it, I say--you've won it!" And Wildeve threw the stakes
+against the reddleman's chest.  Venn gathered them up,
+arose, and withdrew from the hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.
+
+When he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the
+extinguished lantern in his hand, went towards the highroad.
+On reaching it he stood still.  The silence of night
+pervaded the whole heath except in one direction; and that
+was towards Mistover.  There he could hear the noise of
+light wheels, and presently saw two carriagelamps descending
+the hill.  Wildeve screened himself under a bush and waited.
+
+The vehicle came on and passed before him.  It was a
+hired carriage, and behind the coachman were two persons
+whom he knew well.  There sat Eustacia and Yeobright,
+the arm of the latter being round her waist. 
+They turned the sharp corner at the bottom towards
+the temporary home which Clym had hired and furnished,
+about five miles to the eastward. 
+
+Wildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight
+of his lost love, whose preciousness in his eyes was
+increasing in geometrical progression with each new
+incident that reminded him of their hopeless division.
+Brimming with the subtilized misery that he was capable
+of feeling, he followed the opposite way towards the inn. 
+
+About the same moment that Wildeve stepped into the
+highway Venn also had reached it at a point a hundred
+yards further on; and he, hearing the same wheels,
+likewise waited till the carriage should come up. 
+When he saw who sat therein he seemed to be disappointed.
+Reflecting a minute or two, during which interval the
+carriage rolled on, he crossed the road, and took a short
+cut through the furze and heath to a point where the
+turnpike road bent round in ascending a hill.  He was now
+again in front of the carriage, which presently came up
+at a walking pace.  Venn stepped forward and showed himself. 
+
+Eustacia started when the lamp shone upon him, and Clym's
+arm was involuntarily withdrawn from her waist.  He said,
+"What, Diggory?  You are having a lonely walk."
+
+"Yes--I beg your pardon for stopping you," said Venn. 
+"But I am waiting about for Mrs. Wildeve: I have something
+to give her from Mrs. Yeobright.  Can you tell me if she's
+gone home from the party yet?"
+
+"No. But she will be leaving soon.  You may possibly meet
+her at the corner."
+
+Venn made a farewell obeisance, and walked back to his
+former position, where the byroad from Mistover joined
+the highway.  Here he remained fixed for nearly half an hour,
+and then another pair of lights came down the hill. 
+It was the old-fashioned wheeled nondescript belonging to
+the captain, and Thomasin sat in it alone, driven by Charley. 
+
+The reddleman came up as they slowly turned the corner. 
+"I beg pardon for stopping you, Mrs. Wildeve," he said. 
+"But I have something to give you privately from Mrs. Yeobright."
+He handed a small parcel; it consisted of the hundred
+guineas he had just won, roughly twisted up in a piece
+of paper. 
+
+Thomasin recovered from her surprise, and took the packet.
+"That's all, ma'am--I wish you good night," he said,
+and vanished from her view. 
+
+Thus Venn, in his anxiety to rectify matters, had placed
+in Thomasin's hands not only the fifty guineas which
+rightly belonged to her, but also the fifty intended
+for her cousin Clym.  His mistake had been based upon
+Wildeve's words at the opening of the game, when he
+indignantly denied that the guinea was not his own.
+It had not been comprehended by the reddleman that at
+halfway through the performance the game was continued
+with the money of another person; and it was an error
+which afterwards helped to cause more misfortune
+than treble the loss in money value could have done. 
+
+The night was now somewhat advanced; and Venn plunged deeper
+into the heath, till he came to a ravine where his van was
+standing--a spot not more than two hundred yards from the site
+of the gambling bout.  He entered this movable home of his,
+lit his lantern, and, before closing his door for the night,
+stood reflecting on the circumstances of the preceding hours.
+While he stood the dawn grew visible in the northeast quarter
+of the heavens, which, the clouds having cleared off,
+was bright with a soft sheen at this midsummer time,
+though it was only between one and two o'clock. Venn,
+thoroughly weary, then shut his door and flung himself
+down to sleep. 
+
+
+
+book four
+
+THE CLOSED DOOR
+
+
+
+1 - The Rencounter by the Pool
+
+
+The July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson
+heather to scarlet.  It was the one season of the year,
+and the one weather of the season, in which the heath
+was gorgeous.  This flowering period represented the second
+or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial
+changes which alone were possible here; it followed
+the green or young-fern period, representing the morn,
+and preceded the brown period, when the heathbells
+and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be
+in turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period,
+representing night.
+
+Clym and Eustacia, in their little house at Alderworth,
+beyond East Egdon, were living on with a monotony which
+was delightful to them.  The heath and changes of weather
+were quite blotted out from their eyes for the present. 
+They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid
+from them surroundings of any inharmonious colour,
+and gave to all things the character of light.  When it
+rained they were charmed, because they could remain
+indoors together all day with such a show of reason;
+when it was fine they were charmed, because they could
+sit together on the hills.  They were like those double
+stars which revolve round and round each other, and from
+a distance appear to be one.  The absolute solitude in
+which they lived intensified their reciprocal thoughts;
+yet some might have said that it had the disadvantage
+of consuming their mutual affections at a fearfully
+prodigal rate.  Yeobright did not fear for his own part;
+but recollection of Eustacia's old speech about the
+evanescence of love, now apparently forgotten by her,
+sometimes caused him to ask himself a question; and he
+recoiled at the thought that the quality of finiteness was
+not foreign to Eden. 
+
+When three or four weeks had been passed thus,
+Yeobright resumed his reading in earnest.  To make up
+for lost time he studied indefatigably, for he wished
+to enter his new profession with the least possible delay. 
+
+Now, Eustacia's dream had always been that, once married
+to Clym, she would have the power of inducing him to return
+to Paris.  He had carefully withheld all promise to do so;
+but would he be proof against her coaxing and argument?
+She had calculated to such a degree on the probability
+of success that she had represented Paris, and not Budmouth,
+to her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home. 
+Her hopes were bound up in this dream.  In the quiet days
+since their marriage, when Yeobright had been poring
+over her lips, her eyes, and the lines of her face,
+she had mused and mused on the subject, even while in the
+act of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the books,
+indicating a future which was antagonistic to her dream,
+struck her with a positively painful jar.  She was hoping for
+the time when, as the mistress of some pretty establishment,
+however small, near a Parisian Boulevard, she would be
+passing her days on the skirts at least of the gay world,
+and catching stray wafts from those town pleasures she
+was so well fitted to enjoy.  Yet Yeobright was as firm
+in the contrary intention as if the tendency of marriage
+were rather to develop the fantasies of young philanthropy
+than to sweep them away. 
+
+Her anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something
+in Clym's undeviating manner which made her hesitate
+before sounding him on the subject.  At this point
+in their experience, however, an incident helped her. 
+It occurred one evening about six weeks after their union,
+and arose entirely out of the unconscious misapplication
+of Venn of the fifty guineas intended for Yeobright. 
+
+A day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin
+had sent a note to her aunt to thank her.  She had been
+surprised at the largeness of the amount; but as no sum
+had ever been mentioned she set that down to her late
+uncle's generosity.  She had been strictly charged
+by her aunt to say nothing to her husband of this gift;
+and Wildeve, as was natural enough, had not brought himself
+to mention to his wife a single particular of the midnight
+scene in the heath.  Christian's terror, in like manner,
+had tied his tongue on the share he took in that proceeding;
+and hoping that by some means or other the money had gone
+to its proper destination, he simply asserted as much,
+without giving details. 
+
+Therefore, when a week or two had passed away, Mrs. Yeobright
+began to wonder why she never heard from her son of the
+receipt of the present; and to add gloom to her perplexity
+came the possibility that resentment might be the cause
+of his silence.  She could hardly believe as much,
+but why did he not write?  She questioned Christian,
+and the confusion in his answers would at once have led
+her to believe that something was wrong, had not one-half
+of his story been corroborated by Thomasin's note. 
+
+Mrs. Yeobright was in this state of uncertainty when she
+was informed one morning that her son's wife was visiting her
+grandfather at Mistover.  She determined to walk up the hill,
+see Eustacia, and ascertain from her daughter-in-law's lips
+whether the family guineas, which were to Mrs. Yeobright
+what family jewels are to wealthier dowagers, had miscarried or not. 
+
+When Christian learnt where she was going his concern
+reached its height.  At the moment of her departure he could
+prevaricate no longer, and, confessing to the gambling,
+told her the truth as far as he knew it--that the guineas
+had been won by Wildeve. 
+
+"What, is he going to keep them?" Mrs. Yeobright cried. 
+
+"I hope and trust not!" moaned Christian.  "He's a good man,
+and perhaps will do right things.  He said you ought
+to have gied Mr. Clym's share to Eustacia, and that's
+perhaps what he'll do himself."
+
+To Mrs. Yeobright, as soon as she could calmly reflect,
+there was much likelihood in this, for she could hardly
+believe that Wildeve would really appropriate money
+belonging to her son.  The intermediate course of giving it
+to Eustacia was the sort of thing to please Wildeve's fancy. 
+But it filled the mother with anger none the less. 
+That Wildeve should have got command of the guineas
+after all, and should rearrange the disposal of them,
+placing Clym's share in Clym's wife's hands, because she
+had been his own sweetheart, and might be so still,
+was as irritating a pain as any that Mrs. Yeobright had
+ever borne. 
+
+She instantly dismissed the wretched Christian from her
+employ for his conduct in the affair; but, feeling quite
+helpless and unable to do without him, told him afterwards
+that he might stay a little longer if he chose.
+Then she hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less
+promising emotion towards her daughter-in-law than she
+had felt half an hour earlier, when planning her journey. 
+At that time it was to inquire in a friendly spirit if there
+had been any accidental loss; now it was to ask plainly
+if Wildeve had privately given her money which had been
+intended as a sacred gift to Clym. 
+
+She started at two o'clock, and her meeting with Eustacia
+was hastened by the appearance of the young lady beside
+the pool and bank which bordered her grandfather's premises,
+where she stood surveying the scene, and perhaps thinking
+of the romantic enactments it had witnessed in past days. 
+When Mrs. Yeobright approached, Eustacia surveyed her
+with the calm stare of a stranger. 
+
+The mother-in-law was the first to speak.  "I was coming
+to see you," she said.
+
+"Indeed!" said Eustacia with surprise, for Mrs. Yeobright,
+much to the girl's mortification, had refused to be present
+at the wedding.  "I did not at all expect you."
+
+"I was coming on business only," said the visitor,
+more coldly than at first.  "Will you excuse my asking
+this--Have you received a gift from Thomasin's husband?"
+
+"A gift?"
+
+"I mean money!"
+
+"What--I myself?"
+
+"Well, I meant yourself, privately--though I was not going
+to put it in that way."
+
+"Money from Mr. Wildeve?  No--never! Madam, what do you
+mean by that?" Eustacia fired up all too quickly,
+for her own consciousness of the old attachment between
+herself and Wildeve led her to jump to the conclusion
+that Mrs. Yeobright also knew of it, and might have come
+to accuse her of receiving dishonourable presents from him now.
+
+"I simply ask the question," said Mrs. Yeobright. 
+"I have been----"
+
+"You ought to have better opinions of me--I feared you
+were against me from the first!" exclaimed Eustacia
+
+"No. I was simply for Clym," replied Mrs. Yeobright,
+with too much emphasis in her earnestness.  "It is the
+instinct of everyone to look after their own."
+
+"How can you imply that he required guarding against me?"
+cried Eustacia, passionate tears in her eyes.  "I have
+not injured him by marrying him! What sin have I done
+that you should think so ill of me?  You had no right to
+speak against me to him when I have never wronged you."
+
+"I only did what was fair under the circumstances,"
+said Mrs. Yeobright more softly.  "I would rather not have
+gone into this question at present, but you compel me. 
+I am not ashamed to tell you the honest truth.  I was firmly
+convinced that he ought not to marry you--therefore I
+tried to dissuade him by all the means in my power.  But it
+is done now, and I have no idea of complaining any more. 
+I am ready to welcome you."
+
+"Ah, yes, it is very well to see things in that business
+point of view," murmured Eustacia with a smothered fire
+of feeling.  "But why should you think there is anything
+between me and Mr. Wildeve?  I have a spirit as well
+as you.  I am indignant; and so would any woman be. 
+It was a condescension in me to be Clym's wife, and not
+a manoeuvre, let me remind you; and therefore I will
+not be treated as a schemer whom it becomes necessary
+to bear with because she has crept into the family."
+
+"Oh!" said Mrs. Yeobright, vainly endeavouring to control
+her anger.  "I have never heard anything to show that my
+son's lineage is not as good as the Vyes'--perhaps better.
+It is amusing to hear you talk of condescension."
+
+"It was condescension, nevertheless," said Eustacia vehemently.
+"And if I had known then what I know now, that I should
+be living in this wild heath a month after my marriage,
+I--I should have thought twice before agreeing."
+
+"It would be better not to say that; it might not
+sound truthful.  I am not aware that any deception
+was used on his part--I know there was not--whatever
+might have been the case on the other side."
+
+"This is too exasperating!" answered the younger woman huskily,
+her face crimsoning, and her eyes darting light. 
+"How can you dare to speak to me like that?  I insist upon
+repeating to you that had I known that my life would
+from my marriage up to this time have been as it is,
+I should have said NO. I don't complain.  I have never
+uttered a sound of such a thing to him; but it is true. 
+I hope therefore that in the future you will be silent on
+my eagerness.  If you injure me now you injure yourself."
+
+"Injure you?  Do you think I am an evil-disposed person?"
+
+"You injured me before my marriage, and you have now
+suspected me of secretly favouring another man for money!"
+
+"I could not help what I thought.  But I have never spoken
+of you outside my house."
+
+"You spoke of me within it, to Clym, and you could not
+do worse."
+
+"I did my duty."
+
+"And I'll do mine."
+
+"A part of which will possibly be to set him against
+his mother.  It is always so.  But why should I not bear
+it as others have borne it before me!"
+
+"I understand you," said Eustacia, breathless with emotion.
+"You think me capable of every bad thing.  Who can be
+worse than a wife who encourages a lover, and poisons
+her husband's mind against his relative?  Yet that is now
+the character given to me.  Will you not come and drag
+him out of my hands?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright gave back heat for heat. 
+
+"Don't rage at me, madam! It ill becomes your beauty,
+and I am not worth the injury you may do it on my account,
+I assure you.  I am only a poor old woman who has lost
+a son."
+
+"If you had treated me honourably you would have had
+him still."  Eustacia said, while scalding tears trickled
+from her eyes.  "You have brought yourself to folly;
+you have caused a division which can never be healed!"
+
+"I have done nothing.  This audacity from a young woman
+is more than I can bear."
+
+"It was asked for; you have suspected me, and you have made
+me speak of my husband in a way I would not have done. 
+You will let him know that I have spoken thus, and it will
+cause misery between us.  Will you go away from me?  You
+are no friend!"
+
+"I will go when I have spoken a word.  If anyone says I
+have come here to question you without good grounds for it,
+that person speaks untruly.  If anyone says that I
+attempted to stop your marriage by any but honest means,
+that person, too, does not speak the truth.  I have fallen
+on an evil time; God has been unjust to me in letting
+you insult me! Probably my son's happiness does not lie
+on this side of the grave, for he is a foolish man
+who neglects the advice of his parent.  You, Eustacia,
+stand on the edge of a precipice without knowing it. 
+Only show my son one-half the temper you have shown
+me today--and you may before long--and you will find
+that though he is as gentle as a child with you now,
+he can be as hard as steel!"
+
+The excited mother then withdrew, and Eustacia, panting,
+stood looking into the pool. 
+
+
+
+2 - He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song
+
+
+The result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia,
+instead of passing the afternoon with her grandfather,
+hastily returned home to Clym, where she arrived three hours
+earlier than she had been expected. 
+
+She came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes
+still showing traces of her recent excitement. 
+Yeobright looked up astonished; he had never seen
+her in any way approaching to that state before. 
+She passed him by, and would have gone upstairs unnoticed,
+but Clym was so concerned that he immediately followed her. 
+
+"What is the matter, Eustacia?" he said.  She was standing
+on the hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor,
+her hands clasped in front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. 
+For a moment she did not answer; and then she replied
+in a low voice--
+
+"I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!"
+A weight fell like a stone upon Clym.  That same morning,
+when Eustacia had arranged to go and see her grandfather,
+Clym had expressed a wish that she would drive down to
+Blooms-End and inquire for her mother-in-law, or adopt
+any other means she might think fit to bring about
+a reconciliation.  She had set out gaily; and he had hoped
+for much. 
+
+"Why is this?" he asked. 
+
+"I cannot tell--I cannot remember.  I met your mother. 
+And I will never meet her again."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now?  I won't have
+wicked opinions passed on me by anybody.  O! it was too
+humiliating to be asked if I had received any money
+from him, or encouraged him, or something of the sort--
+I don't exactly know what!"
+
+"How could she have asked you that?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"Then there must have been some meaning in it.  What did
+my mother say besides?"
+
+"I don't know what she said, except in so far as this,
+that we both said words which can never be forgiven!"
+
+"Oh, there must be some misapprehension.  Whose fault
+was it that her meaning was not made clear?"
+
+"I would rather not say.  It may have been the fault of
+the circumstances, which were awkward at the very least.
+O Clym--I cannot help expressing it--this is an unpleasant
+position that you have placed me in.  But you must improve
+it--yes, say you will--for I hate it all now! Yes,
+take me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation,
+Clym! I don't mind how humbly we live there at first,
+if it can only be Paris, and not Egdon Heath."
+
+"But I have quite given up that idea," said Yeobright,
+with surprise.  "Surely I never led you to expect such
+a thing?"
+
+"I own it.  Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept
+out of mind, and that one was mine.  Must I not have
+a voice in the matter, now I am your wife and the sharer
+of your doom?"
+
+"Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale
+of discussion; and I thought this was specially so,
+and by mutual agreement."
+
+"Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear," she said in a low voice;
+and her eyes drooped, and she turned away. 
+
+This indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia's
+bosom disconcerted her husband.  It was the first time
+that he had confronted the fact of the indirectness
+of a woman's movement towards her desire.  But his
+intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia well. 
+All the effect that her remark had upon him was a resolve
+to chain himself more closely than ever to his books,
+so as to be the sooner enabled to appeal to substantial
+results from another course in arguing against her whim. 
+
+Next day the mystery of the guineas was explained. 
+Thomasin paid them a hurried visit, and Clym's share was
+delivered up to him by her own hands.  Eustacia was not
+present at the time. 
+
+"Then this is what my mother meant," exclaimed Clym. 
+"Thomasin, do you know that they have had a bitter quarrel?"
+
+There was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin's
+manner towards her cousin.  It is the effect of marriage
+to engender in several directions some of the reserve it
+annihilates in one.  "Your mother told me," she said quietly.
+"She came back to my house after seeing Eustacia."
+
+"The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass.  Was Mother
+much disturbed when she came to you, Thomasin?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very much indeed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate,
+and covered his eyes with his hand. 
+
+"Don't trouble about it, Clym.  They may get to be friends."
+
+He shook his head.  "Not two people with inflammable
+natures like theirs.  Well, what must be will be."
+
+"One thing is cheerful in it--the guineas are not lost."
+
+"I would rather have lost them twice over than have had
+this happen."
+
+
+Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to be
+indispensable--that he should speedily make some show
+of progress in his scholastic plans.  With this view
+he read far into the small hours during many nights. 
+
+One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with
+a strange sensation in his eyes.  The sun was shining directly
+upon the window-blind, and at his first glance thitherward
+a sharp pain obliged him to close his eyelids quickly. 
+At every new attempt to look about him the same morbid
+sensibility to light was manifested, and excoriating tears
+ran down his cheeks.  He was obliged to tie a bandage
+over his brow while dressing; and during the day it could
+not be abandoned.  Eustacia was thoroughly alarmed.
+On finding that the case was no better the next morning
+they decided to send to Anglebury for a surgeon. 
+
+Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease
+to be acute inflammation induced by Clym's night studies,
+continued in spite of a cold previously caught, which had
+weakened his eyes for the time. 
+
+Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was
+so anxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. 
+He was shut up in a room from which all light was excluded,
+and his condition would have been one of absolute
+misery had not Eustacia read to him by the glimmer of a
+shaded lamp.  He hoped that the worst would soon be over;
+but at the surgeon's third visit he learnt to his dismay
+that although he might venture out of doors with shaded
+eyes in the course of a month, all thought of pursuing
+his work, or of reading print of any description,
+would have to be given up for a long time to come. 
+
+One week and another week wore on, and nothing
+seemed to lighten the gloom of the young couple. 
+Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia, but she
+carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband.
+Suppose he should become blind, or, at all events,
+never recover sufficient strength of sight to engage
+in an occupation which would be congenial to her feelings,
+and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling among
+the hills?  That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely
+to cohere into substance in the presence of this misfortune.
+As day after day passed by, and he got no better,
+her mind ran more and more in this mournful groove,
+and she would go away from him into the garden and weep
+despairing tears. 
+
+Yeobright thought he would send for his mother;
+and then he thought he would not.  Knowledge of his state
+could only make her the more unhappy; and the seclusion
+of their life was such that she would hardly be likely
+to learn the news except through a special messenger. 
+Endeavouring to take the trouble as philosophically
+as possible, he waited on till the third week had arrived,
+when he went into the open air for the first time since
+the attack.  The surgeon visited him again at this stage,
+and Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion.
+The young man learnt with added surprise that the date at
+which he might expect to resume his labours was as uncertain
+as ever, his eyes being in that peculiar state which,
+though affording him sight enough for walking about,
+would not admit of their being strained upon any definite
+object without incurring the risk of reproducing ophthalmia
+in its acute form. 
+
+Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. 
+A quiet firmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession
+of him.  He was not to be blind; that was enough. 
+To be doomed to behold the world through smoked glass
+for an indefinite period was bad enough, and fatal
+to any kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute
+stoic in the face of mishaps which only affected his
+social standing; and, apart from Eustacia, the humblest
+walk of life would satisfy him if it could be made to work
+in with some form of his culture scheme.  To keep a cottage
+night-school was one such form; and his affliction did
+not master his spirit as it might otherwise have done. 
+
+He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts
+of Egdon with which he was best acquainted, being those
+lying nearer to his old home.  He saw before him in one
+of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron, and advancing,
+dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of a
+man who was cutting furze.  The worker recognized Clym,
+and Yeobright learnt from the voice that the speaker
+was Humphrey. 
+
+Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym's condition,
+and added, "Now, if yours was low-class work like mine,
+you could go on with it just the same."
+
+"Yes, I could," said Yeobright musingly.  "How much
+do you get for cutting these faggots?"
+
+"Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can
+live very well on the wages."
+
+During the whole of Yeobright's walk home to Alderworth he
+was lost in reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind.
+On his coming up to the house Eustacia spoke to him
+from the open window, and he went across to her. 
+
+"Darling," he said, "I am much happier.  And if my mother
+were reconciled to me and to you I should, I think,
+be happy quite."
+
+"I fear that will never be," she said, looking afar
+with her beautiful stormy eyes.  "How CAN you say
+'I am happier,' and nothing changed?"
+
+"It arises from my having at last discovered something I
+can do, and get a living at, in this time of misfortune."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I am going to be a furze- and turf-cutter."
+
+"No, Clym!" she said, the slight hopefulness previously
+apparent in her face going off again, and leaving her
+worse than before.
+
+"Surely I shall.  Is it not very unwise in us to go
+on spending the little money we've got when I can keep
+down expenditures by an honest occupation?  The outdoor
+exercise will do me good, and who knows but that in a few
+months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?"
+
+"But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance."
+
+"We don't require it.  If I go furze-cutting we shall
+be fairly well off."
+
+"In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt,
+and such people!" A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia's face,
+which he did not see.  There had been nonchalance
+in his tone, showing her that he felt no absolute grief
+at a consummation which to her was a positive horror. 
+
+The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage,
+and borrowed of him leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook,
+to use till he should be able to purchase some for himself.
+Then he sallied forth with his new fellow-labourer and
+old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the furze grew
+thickest he struck the first blow in his adopted calling. 
+His sight, like the wings in Rasselas, though useless
+to him for his grand purpose, sufficed for this strait,
+and he found that when a little practice should have hardened
+his palms against blistering he would be able to work
+with ease. 
+
+Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings,
+and went off to the rendezvous with Humphrey.  His custom
+was to work from four o'clock in the morning till noon;
+then, when the heat of the day was at its highest,
+to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards coming
+out again and working till dusk at nine. 
+
+This man from Paris was now so disguised by his
+leather accoutrements, and by the goggles he was obliged
+to wear over his eyes, that his closest friend might
+have passed by without recognizing him.  He was a brown
+spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse,
+and nothing more.  Though frequently depressed in
+spirit when not actually at work, owing to thoughts
+of Eustacia's position and his mother's estrangement,
+when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully disposed and calm. 
+
+His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort,
+his whole world being limited to a circuit of a few
+feet from his person.  His familiars were creeping and
+winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their band. 
+Bees hummed around his ears with an intimate air,
+and tugged at the heath and furze-flowers at his side
+in such numbers as to weigh them down to the sod. 
+The strange amber-coloured butterflies which Egdon produced,
+and which were never seen elsewhere, quivered in the breath
+of his lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and sported
+with the glittering point of his hook as he flourished
+it up and down.  Tribes of emerald-green grasshoppers
+leaped over his feet, falling awkwardly on their backs,
+heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance
+might rule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations
+under the fern-fronds with silent ones of homely hue.
+Huge flies, ignorant of larders and wire-netting, and
+quite in a savage state, buzzed about him without knowing
+that he was a man.  In and out of the fern-dells snakes
+glided in their most brilliant blue and yellow guise,
+it being the season immediately following the shedding
+of their old skins, when their colours are brightest.
+Litters of young rabbits came out from their forms to sun
+themselves upon hillocks, the hot beams blazing through
+the delicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing
+it to a blood-red transparency in which the veins could
+be seen.  None of them feared him.  The monotony of his
+occupation soothed him, and was in itself a pleasure. 
+A forced limitation of effort offered a justification
+of homely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience
+would hardly have allowed him to remain in such obscurity
+while his powers were unimpeded.  Hence Yeobright sometimes
+sang to himself, and when obliged to accompany Humphrey
+in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would amuse his
+companion with sketches of Parisian life and character,
+and so while away the time. 
+
+On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone
+in the direction of Yeobright's place of work.  He was
+busily chopping away at the furze, a long row of faggots
+which stretched downward from his position representing
+the labour of the day.  He did not observe her approach,
+and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent
+of song. 
+
+It shocked her.  To see him there, a poor afflicted man,
+earning money by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved
+her to tears; but to hear him sing and not at all rebel
+against an occupation which, however satisfactory to himself,
+was degrading to her, as an educated lady-wife, wounded
+her through.  Unconscious of her presence, he still went
+on singing:--
+
+
+       "Le point du jour
+     A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;
+       Flore est plus belle a son retour;
+       L'oiseau reprend doux chant d'amour;
+       Tout celebre dans la nature
+         Le point du jour.
+
+       "Le point du jour
+     Cause parfois, cause douleur extreme;
+       Que l'espace des nuits est court
+       Pour le berger brulant d'amour,
+       Force de quitter ce qu'il aime
+         Au point du jour!"
+
+
+It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much
+about social failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her
+head and wept in sick despair at thought of the blasting
+effect upon her own life of that mood and condition in him. 
+Then she came forward. 
+
+"I would starve rather than do it!" she exclaimed vehemently. 
+"And you can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!"
+
+"Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed
+something moving," he said gently.  He came forward,
+pulled off his huge leather glove, and took her hand.
+"Why do you speak in such a strange way?  It is only a
+little old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris,
+and now just applies to my life with you.  Has your love
+for me all died, then, because my appearance is no longer
+that of a fine gentleman?"
+
+"Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it
+may make me not love you."
+
+"Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk
+of doing that?"
+
+"Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won't
+give in to mine when I wish you to leave off this
+shameful labour.  Is there anything you dislike in me
+that you act so contrarily to my wishes?  I am your wife,
+and why will you not listen?  Yes, I am your wife indeed!"
+
+"I know what that tone means."
+
+"What tone?"
+
+"The tone in which you said, 'Your wife indeed.' It meant,
+'Your wife, worse luck.'"
+
+"It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. 
+A woman may have reason, though she is not without heart,
+and if I felt 'worse luck,' it was no ignoble feeling--
+it was only too natural.  There, you see that at any
+rate I do not attempt untruths.  Do you remember how,
+before we were married, I warned you that I had not good
+wifely qualities?"
+
+"You mock me to say that now.  On that point at least
+the only noble course would be to hold your tongue,
+for you are still queen of me, Eustacia, though I may no
+longer be king of you."
+
+"You are my husband.  Does not that content you?"
+
+"Not unless you are my wife without regret."
+
+"I cannot answer you.  I remember saying that I should
+be a serious matter on your hands."
+
+"Yes, I saw that."
+
+"Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would
+have seen any such thing; you are too severe upon me,
+Clym--I won't like your speaking so at all."
+
+"Well, I married you in spite of it, and don't regret
+doing so.  How cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I
+used to think there never was a warmer heart than yours."
+
+"Yes, I fear we are cooling--I see it as well as you,"
+she sighed mournfully.  "And how madly we loved two months
+ago! You were never tired of contemplating me, nor I
+of contemplating you.  Who could have thought then that by
+this time my eyes would not seem so very bright to yours,
+nor your lips so very sweet to mine?  Two months--is it
+possible?  Yes, 'tis too true!"
+
+"You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that's
+a hopeful sign."
+
+"No. I don't sigh for that.  There are other things
+for me to sigh for, or any other woman in my place."
+
+"That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste
+an unfortunate man?"
+
+"Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things?  I
+deserve pity as much as you.  As much?--I think I deserve
+it more.  For you can sing! It would be a strange hour
+which should catch me singing under such a cloud as this!
+Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would
+astonish and confound such an elastic mind as yours. 
+Even had you felt careless about your own affliction,
+you might have refrained from singing out of sheer pity
+for mine.  God! if I were a man in such a position I would
+curse rather than sing."
+
+Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm.  "Now, don't
+you suppose, my inexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel,
+in high Promethean fashion, against the gods and fate
+as well as you.  I have felt more steam and smoke of
+that sort than you have ever heard of.  But the more I
+see of life the more do I perceive that there is nothing
+particularly great in its greatest walks, and therefore
+nothing particularly small in mine of furze-cutting. 
+If I feel that the greatest blessings vouchsafed to us
+are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any great
+hardship when they are taken away?  So I sing to pass
+the time.  Have you indeed lost all tenderness for me,
+that you begrudge me a few cheerful moments?"
+
+"I have still some tenderness left for you."
+
+"Your words have no longer their old flavour.  And so love
+dies with good fortune!"
+
+"I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly,"
+she said in a broken voice.  "I will go home."
+
+
+
+3 - She Goes Out to Battle against Depression
+
+
+A few days later, before the month of August has expired,
+Eustacia and Yeobright sat together at their early dinner. 
+
+Eustacia's manner had become of late almost apathetic.
+There was a forlorn look about her beautiful eyes which,
+whether she deserved it or not, would have excited
+pity in the breast of anyone who had known her during
+the full flush of her love for Clym.  The feelings of
+husband and wife varied, in some measure, inversely with
+their positions.  Clym, the afflicted man, was cheerful;
+and he even tried to comfort her, who had never felt a
+moment of physical suffering in her whole life. 
+
+"Come, brighten up, dearest; we shall be all right again. 
+Some day perhaps I shall see as well as ever. 
+And I solemnly promise that I'll leave off cutting furze
+as soon as I have the power to do anything better. 
+You cannot seriously wish me to stay idling at home
+all day?"
+
+"But it is so dreadful--a furze-cutter! and you a man who
+have lived about the world, and speak French, and German,
+and who are fit for what is so much better than this."
+
+"I suppose when you first saw me and heard about me I
+was wrapped in a sort of golden halo to your eyes--a man
+who knew glorious things, and had mixed in brilliant
+scenes--in short, an adorable, delightful, distracting hero?"
+
+"Yes," she said, sobbing. 
+
+"And now I am a poor fellow in brown leather."
+
+"Don't taunt me.  But enough of this.  I will not be
+depressed any more.  I am going from home this afternoon,
+unless you greatly object.  There is to be a village
+picnic--a gipsying, they call it--at East Egdon, and I
+shall go."
+
+"To dance?"
+
+"Why not?  You can sing."
+
+"Well, well, as you will.  Must I come to fetch you?"
+
+"If you return soon enough from your work.  But do not
+inconvenience yourself about it.  I know the way home,
+and the heath has no terror for me."
+
+"And can you cling to gaiety so eagerly as to walk all
+the way to a village festival in search of it?"
+
+"Now, you don't like my going alone! Clym, you are
+not jealous?"
+
+"No. But I would come with you if it could give you
+any pleasure; though, as things stand, perhaps you
+have too much of me already.  Still, I somehow wish
+that you did not want to go.  Yes, perhaps I am jealous;
+and who could be jealous with more reason than I,
+a half-blind man, over such a woman as you?"
+
+"Don't think like it.  Let me go, and don't take all
+my spirits away!"
+
+"I would rather lose all my own, my sweet wife.  Go and
+do whatever you like.  Who can forbid your indulgence
+in any whim?  You have all my heart yet, I believe;
+and because you bear with me, who am in truth a drag
+upon you, I owe you thanks.  Yes, go alone and shine. 
+As for me, I will stick to my doom.  At that kind of
+meeting people would shun me.  My hook and gloves are like
+the St. Lazarus rattle of the leper, warning the world
+to get out of the way of a sight that would sadden them."
+He kissed her, put on his leggings, and went out. 
+
+When he was gone she rested her head upon her hands
+and said to herself, "Two wasted lives--his and mine. 
+And I am come to this! Will it drive me out of my mind?"
+
+She cast about for any possible course which offered
+the least improvement on the existing state of things,
+and could find none.  She imagined how all those Budmouth
+ones who should learn what had become of her would say,
+"Look at the girl for whom nobody was good enough!"
+To Eustacia the situation seemed such a mockery of her hopes
+that death appeared the only door of relief if the satire
+of Heaven should go much further.
+
+Suddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, "But I'll shake
+it off.  Yes, I WILL shake it off! No one shall know
+my suffering.  I'll be bitterly merry, and ironically gay,
+and I'll laugh in derision.  And I'll begin by going
+to this dance on the green."
+
+She ascended to her bedroom and dressed herself with
+scrupulous care.  To an onlooker her beauty would have
+made her feelings almost seem reasonable.  The gloomy
+corner into which accident as much as indiscretion
+had brought this woman might have led even a moderate
+partisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking
+the Supreme Power by what right a being of such exquisite
+finish had been placed in circumstances calculated
+to make of her charms a curse rather than a blessing. 
+
+It was five in the afternoon when she came out from the
+house ready for her walk.  There was material enough in the
+picture for twenty new conquests.  The rebellious sadness
+that was rather too apparent when she sat indoors without
+a bonnet was cloaked and softened by her outdoor attire,
+which always had a sort of nebulousness about it,
+devoid of harsh edges anywhere; so that her face looked
+from its environment as from a cloud, with no noticeable
+lines of demarcation between flesh and clothes.  The heat
+of the day had scarcely declined as yet, and she went
+along the sunny hills at a leisurely pace, there being
+ample time for her idle expedition.  Tall ferns buried
+her in their leafage whenever her path lay through them,
+which now formed miniature forests, though not one stem
+of them would remain to bud the next year. 
+
+The site chosen for the village festivity was one of the
+lawnlike oases which were occasionally, yet not often,
+met with on the plateaux of the heath district.  The brakes
+of furze and fern terminated abruptly round the margin,
+and the grass was unbroken.  A green cattletrack skirted
+the spot, without, however, emerging from the screen of fern,
+and this path Eustacia followed, in order to reconnoitre
+the group before joining it.  The lusty notes of the East
+Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and she now
+beheld the musicians themselves, sitting in a blue wagon
+with red wheels scrubbed as bright as new, and arched
+with sticks, to which boughs and flowers were tied. 
+In front of this was the grand central dance of fifteen
+or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferior
+individuals whose gyrations were not always in strict
+keeping with the tune. 
+
+The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a
+flush on their faces footed it to the girls, who, with the
+excitement and the exercise, blushed deeper than the pink
+of their numerous ribbons.  Fair ones with long curls,
+fair ones with short curls, fair ones with lovelocks,
+fair ones with braids, flew round and round; and a beholder
+might well have wondered how such a prepossessing set
+of young women of like size, age, and disposition,
+could have been collected together where there were only
+one or two villages to choose from.  In the background
+was one happy man dancing by himself, with closed eyes,
+totally oblivious of all the rest.  A fire was burning under
+a pollard thorn a few paces off, over which three kettles
+hung in a row.  Hard by was a table where elderly dames
+prepared tea, but Eustacia looked among them in vain for the
+cattle-dealer's wife who had suggested that she should come,
+and had promised to obtain a courteous welcome for her. 
+
+This unexpected absence of the only local resident whom
+Eustacia knew considerably damaged her scheme for an
+afternoon of reckless gaiety.  Joining in became a matter
+of difficulty, notwithstanding that, were she to advance,
+cheerful dames would come forward with cups of tea and make
+much of her as a stranger of superior grace and knowledge
+to themselves.  Having watched the company through the
+figures of two dances, she decided to walk a little further,
+to a cottage where she might get some refreshment,
+and then return homeward in the shady time of evening.
+
+This she did, and by the time that she retraced her steps
+towards the scene of the gipsying, which it was necessary
+to repass on her way to Alderworth, the sun was going down. 
+The air was now so still that she could hear the band
+afar off, and it seemed to be playing with more spirit,
+if that were possible, than when she had come away. 
+On reaching the hill the sun had quite disappeared;
+but this made little difference either to Eustacia
+or to the revellers, for a round yellow moon was rising
+before her, though its rays had not yet outmastered those
+from the west.  The dance was going on just the same,
+but strangers had arrived and formed a ring around the figure,
+so that Eustacia could stand among these without a chance
+of being recognized. 
+
+A whole village-full of sensuous emotion, scattered abroad
+all the year long, surged here in a focus for an hour.
+The forty hearts of those waving couples were beating as they
+had not done since, twelve months before, they had come
+together in similar jollity.  For the time paganism was
+revived in their hearts, the pride of life was all in all,
+and they adored none other than themselves. 
+
+How many of those impassioned but temporary embraces were
+destined to become perpetual was possibly the wonder of
+some of those who indulged in them, as well as of Eustacia
+who looked on.  She began to envy those pirouetters,
+to hunger for the hope and happiness which the
+fascination of the dance seemed to engender within them. 
+Desperately fond of dancing herself, one of Eustacia's
+expectations of Paris had been the opportunity it might
+afford her of indulgence in this favourite pastime. 
+Unhappily, that expectation was now extinct within her for ever. 
+
+Whilst she abstractedly watched them spinning and
+fluctuating in the increasing moonlight she suddenly
+heard her name whispered by a voice over her shoulder. 
+Turning in surprise, she beheld at her elbow one whose
+presence instantly caused her to flush to the temples. 
+
+It was Wildeve.  Till this moment he had not met her eye
+since the morning of his marriage, when she had been
+loitering in the church, and had startled him by lifting
+her veil and coming forward to sign the register as witness. 
+Yet why the sight of him should have instigated that sudden
+rush of blood she could not tell.
+
+Before she could speak he whispered, "Do you like dancing
+as much as ever?"
+
+"I think I do," she replied in a low voice. 
+
+"Will you dance with me?"
+
+"It would be a great change for me; but will it not
+seem strange?"
+
+"What strangeness can there be in relations dancing together?"
+
+"Ah--yes, relations.  Perhaps none."
+
+"Still, if you don't like to be seen, pull down your veil;
+though there is not much risk of being known by this light. 
+Lots of strangers are here."
+
+She did as he suggested; and the act was a tacit
+acknowledgment that she accepted his offer.
+
+Wildeve gave her his arm and took her down on the outside
+of the ring to the bottom of the dance, which they entered. 
+In two minutes more they were involved in the figure
+and began working their way upwards to the top. 
+Till they had advanced halfway thither Eustacia wished
+more than once that she had not yielded to his request;
+from the middle to the top she felt that, since she had come
+out to seek pleasure, she was only doing a natural thing
+to obtain it.  Fairly launched into the ceaseless glides
+and whirls which their new position as top couple opened
+up to them, Eustacia's pulses began to move too quickly
+for long rumination of any kind.
+
+Through the length of five-and-twenty couples they threaded
+their giddy way, and a new vitality entered her form.
+The pale ray of evening lent a fascination to the experience. 
+There is a certain degree and tone of light which tends
+to disturb the equilibrium of the senses, and to promote
+dangerously the tenderer moods; added to movement,
+it drives the emotions to rankness, the reason becoming
+sleepy and unperceiving in inverse proportion; and this
+light fell now upon these two from the disc of the moon. 
+All the dancing girls felt the symptoms, but Eustacia most
+of all.  The grass under their feet became trodden away,
+and the hard, beaten surface of the sod, when viewed aslant
+towards the moonlight, shone like a polished table. 
+The air became quite still, the flag above the wagon which held
+the musicians clung to the pole, and the players appeared
+only in outline against the sky; except when the circular
+mouths of the trombone, ophicleide, and French horn gleamed
+out like huge eyes from the shade of their figures. 
+The pretty dresses of the maids lost their subtler day
+colours and showed more or less of a misty white.
+Eustacia floated round and round on Wildeve's arm,
+her face rapt and statuesque; her soul had passed away
+from and forgotten her features, which were left empty
+and quiescent, as they always are when feeling goes beyond
+their register. 
+
+How near she was to Wildeve! it was terrible to think of. 
+She could feel his breathing, and he, of course,
+could feel hers.  How badly she had treated him! yet,
+here they were treading one measure.  The enchantment
+of the dance surprised her.  A clear line of difference
+divided like a tangible fence her experience within
+this maze of motion from her experience without it. 
+Her beginning to dance had been like a change of atmosphere;
+outside, she had been steeped in arctic frigidity
+by comparison with the tropical sensations here. 
+She had entered the dance from the troubled hours of her
+late life as one might enter a brilliant chamber after
+a night walk in a wood.  Wildeve by himself would have
+been merely an agitation; Wildeve added to the dance,
+and the moonlight, and the secrecy, began to be a delight.
+Whether his personality supplied the greater part of this
+sweetly compounded feeling, or whether the dance and the
+scene weighed the more therein, was a nice point upon
+which Eustacia herself was entirely in a cloud. 
+
+People began to say "Who are they?" but no invidious
+inquiries were made.  Had Eustacia mingled with the
+other girls in their ordinary daily walks the case would
+have been different: here she was not inconvenienced by
+excessive inspection, for all were wrought to their brightest
+grace by the occasion.  Like the planet Mercury surrounded
+by the lustre of sunset, her permanent brilliancy passed
+without much notice in the temporary glory of the situation. 
+
+As for Wildeve, his feelings are easy to guess. 
+Obstacles were a ripening sun to his love, and he
+was at this moment in a delirium of exquisite misery. 
+To clasp as his for five minutes what was another man's
+through all the rest of the year was a kind of thing he
+of all men could appreciate.  He had long since begun
+to sigh again for Eustacia; indeed, it may be asserted
+that signing the marriage register with Thomasin was the
+natural signal to his heart to return to its first quarters,
+and that the extra complication of Eustacia's marriage
+was the one addition required to make that return compulsory. 
+
+Thus, for different reasons, what was to the rest an exhilarating
+movement was to these two a riding upon the whirlwind. 
+The dance had come like an irresistible attack upon whatever
+sense of social order there was in their minds, to drive
+them back into old paths which were now doubly irregular. 
+Through three dances in succession they spun their way;
+and then, fatigued with the incessant motion, Eustacia turned
+to quit the circle in which she had already remained too long. 
+Wildeve led her to a grassy mound a few yards distant,
+where she sat down, her partner standing beside her. 
+From the time that he addressed her at the beginning
+of the dance till now they had not exchanged a word. 
+
+"The dance and the walking have tired you?" he said tenderly. 
+
+"No; not greatly."
+
+"It is strange that we should have met here of all places,
+after missing each other so long."
+
+"We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose."
+
+"Yes. But you began that proceeding--by breaking a promise."
+
+"It is scarcely worth while to talk of that now.
+We have formed other ties since then--you no less than I."
+
+"I am sorry to hear that your husband is ill."
+
+"He is not ill--only incapacitated."
+
+"Yes--that is what I mean.  I sincerely sympathize
+with you in your trouble.  Fate has treated you cruelly."
+
+She was silent awhile.  "Have you heard that he has
+chosen to work as a furze-cutter?" she said in a low,
+mournful voice.
+
+"It has been mentioned to me," answered Wildeve hesitatingly. 
+"But I hardly believed it."
+
+"It is true.  What do you think of me as a furze-
+cutter's wife?"
+
+"I think the same as ever of you, Eustacia.  Nothing of
+that sort can degrade you--you ennoble the occupation
+of your husband."
+
+"I wish I could feel it."
+
+"Is there any chance of Mr. Yeobright getting better?"
+
+"He thinks so.  I doubt it."
+
+"I was quite surprised to hear that he had taken a cottage. 
+I thought, in common with other people, that he would have
+taken you off to a home in Paris immediately after you had
+married him.  'What a gay, bright future she has before her!'
+I thought.  He will, I suppose, return there with you,
+if his sight gets strong again?"
+
+Observing that she did not reply he regarded her
+more closely.  She was almost weeping.  Images of a
+future never to be enjoyed, the revived sense of her
+bitter disappointment, the picture of the neighbour's
+suspended ridicule which was raised by Wildeve's words,
+had been too much for proud Eustacia's equanimity.
+
+Wildeve could hardly control his own too forward feelings
+when he saw her silent perturbation.  But he affected
+not to notice this, and she soon recovered her calmness. 
+
+"You do not intend to walk home by yourself?" he asked. 
+
+"O yes," said Eustacia.  "What could hurt me on this heath,
+who have nothing?"
+
+"By diverging a little I can make my way home the same
+as yours.  I shall be glad to keep you company as far
+as Throope Corner."  Seeing that Eustacia sat on in
+hesitation he added, "Perhaps you think it unwise to be
+seen in the same road with me after the events of last summer?"
+
+"Indeed I think no such thing," she said haughtily. 
+"I shall accept whose company I choose, for all that may be
+said by the miserable inhabitants of Egdon."
+
+"Then let us walk on--if you are ready.  Our nearest way
+is towards that holly bush with the dark shadow that you
+see down there."
+
+Eustacia arose, and walked beside him in the direction
+signified, brushing her way over the damping heath and fern,
+and followed by the strains of the merrymakers, who still kept
+up the dance.  The moon had now waxed bright and silvery,
+but the heath was proof against such illumination,
+and there was to be observed the striking scene of a dark,
+rayless tract of country under an atmosphere charged
+from its zenith to its extremities with whitest light. 
+To an eye above them their two faces would have appeared
+amid the expanse like two pearls on a table of ebony. 
+
+On this account the irregularities of the path were not visible,
+and Wildeve occasionally stumbled; whilst Eustacia found
+it necessary to perform some graceful feats of balancing
+whenever a small tuft of heather or root of furze
+protruded itself through the grass of the narrow track
+and entangled her feet.  At these junctures in her progress
+a hand was invariably stretched forward to steady her,
+holding her firmly until smooth ground was again reached,
+when the hand was again withdrawn to a respectful distance. 
+
+They performed the journey for the most part in silence,
+and drew near to Throope Corner, a few hundred yards from
+which a short path branched away to Eustacia's house. 
+By degrees they discerned coming towards them a pair of
+human figures, apparently of the male sex. 
+
+When they came a little nearer Eustacia broke the silence
+by saying, "One of those men is my husband.  He promised
+to come to meet me."
+
+"And the other is my greatest enemy," said Wildeve. 
+
+"It looks like Diggory Venn."
+
+"That is the man."
+
+"It is an awkward meeting," said she; "but such is my fortune.
+He knows too much about me, unless he could know more,
+and so prove to himself that what he now knows counts
+for nothing.  Well, let it be--you must deliver me up
+to them."
+
+"You will think twice before you direct me to do that. 
+Here is a man who has not forgotten an item in our meetings
+at Rainbarrow--he is in company with your husband. 
+Which of them, seeing us together here, will believe
+that our meeting and dancing at the gipsy party was
+by chance?"
+
+"Very well," she whispered gloomily.  "Leave me before
+they come up."
+
+Wildeve bade her a tender farewell, and plunged across
+the fern and furze, Eustacia slowly walking on.  In two
+or three minutes she met her husband and his companion. 
+
+"My journey ends here for tonight, reddleman," said Yeobright
+as soon as he perceived her.  "I turn back with this lady.
+Good night."
+
+"Good night, Mr. Yeobright," said Venn.  "I hope to see
+you better soon."
+
+The moonlight shone directly upon Venn's face as he spoke,
+and revealed all its lines to Eustacia.  He was looking
+suspiciously at her.  That Venn's keen eye had discerned
+what Yeobright's feeble vision had not--a man in the act
+of withdrawing from Eustacia's side--was within the limits
+of the probable. 
+
+If Eustacia had been able to follow the reddleman she would
+soon have found striking confirmation of her thought. 
+No sooner had Clym given her his arm and led her off
+the scene than the reddleman turned back from the beaten
+track towards East Egdon, whither he had been strolling
+merely to accompany Clym in his walk, Diggory's van
+being again in the neighbourhood.  Stretching out his
+long legs, he crossed the pathless portion of the heath
+somewhat in the direction which Wildeve had taken.
+Only a man accustomed to nocturnal rambles could at this
+hour have descended those shaggy slopes with Venn's
+velocity without falling headlong into a pit, or snapping
+off his leg by jamming his foot into some rabbit burrow. 
+But Venn went on without much inconvenience to himself,
+and the course of his scamper was towards the Quiet
+Woman Inn.  This place he reached in about half an hour,
+and he was well aware that no person who had been near
+Throope Corner when he started could have got down here
+before him. 
+
+The lonely inn was not yet closed, though scarcely
+an individual was there, the business done being chiefly
+with travellers who passed the inn on long journeys,
+and these had now gone on their way.  Venn went to the
+public room, called for a mug of ale, and inquired
+of the maid in an indifferent tone if Mr. Wildeve was at home. 
+
+Thomasin sat in an inner room and heard Venn's voice. 
+When customers were present she seldom showed herself,
+owing to her inherent dislike for the business;
+but perceiving that no one else was there tonight she
+came out. 
+
+"He is not at home yet, Diggory," she said pleasantly. 
+"But I expected him sooner.  He has been to East Egdon
+to buy a horse."
+
+"Did he wear a light wideawake?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I saw him at Throope Corner, leading one home,"
+said Venn drily.  "A beauty, with a white face and a mane
+as black as night.  He will soon be here, no doubt."
+Rising and looking for a moment at the pure, sweet face
+of Thomasin, over which a shadow of sadness had passed
+since the time when he had last seen her, he ventured to add,
+"Mr. Wildeve seems to be often away at this time."
+
+"O yes," cried Thomasin in what was intended to be a tone
+of gaiety.  "Husbands will play the truant, you know.
+I wish you could tell me of some secret plan that would
+help me to keep him home at my will in the evenings."
+
+"I will consider if I know of one," replied Venn in that
+same light tone which meant no lightness.  And then he
+bowed in a manner of his own invention and moved to go. 
+Thomasin offered him her hand; and without a sigh,
+though with food for many, the reddleman went out. 
+
+When Wildeve returned, a quarter of an hour later Thomasin
+said simply, and in the abashed manner usual with her now,
+"Where is the horse, Damon?"
+
+"O, I have not bought it, after all.  The man asks too much."
+
+"But somebody saw you at Throope Corner leading it
+home--a beauty, with a white face and a mane as black
+as night."
+
+"Ah!" said Wildeve, fixing his eyes upon her; "who told
+you that?"
+
+"Venn the reddleman."
+
+The expression of Wildeve's face became curiously condensed. 
+"That is a mistake--it must have been someone else,"
+he said slowly and testily, for he perceived that Venn's
+countermoves had begun again. 
+
+
+
+4 - Rough Coercion Is Employed
+
+
+Those words of Thomasin, which seemed so little, but meant
+so much, remained in the ears of Diggory Venn: "Help me
+to keep him home in the evenings."
+
+On this occasion Venn had arrived on Egdon Heath only to cross
+to the other side--he had no further connection with the
+interests of the Yeobright family, and he had a business of
+his own to attend to.  Yet he suddenly began to feel himself
+drifting into the old track of manoeuvring on Thomasin's account.
+
+He sat in his van and considered.  From Thomasin's words and
+manner he had plainly gathered that Wildeve neglected her. 
+For whom could he neglect her if not for Eustacia?  Yet it
+was scarcely credible that things had come to such a head
+as to indicate that Eustacia systematically encouraged him. 
+Venn resolved to reconnoitre somewhat carefully the lonely
+road which led along the vale from Wildeve's dwelling
+to Clym's house at Alderworth. 
+
+At this time, as has been seen, Wildeve was quite
+innocent of any predetermined act of intrigue, and except
+at the dance on the green he had not once met Eustacia
+since her marriage.  But that the spirit of intrigue
+was in him had been shown by a recent romantic habit
+of his--a habit of going out after dark and strolling
+towards Alderworth, there looking at the moon and stars,
+looking at Eustacia's house, and walking back at leisure. 
+
+Accordingly, when watching on the night after the festival,
+the reddleman saw him ascend by the little path,
+lean over the front gate of Clym's garden, sigh, and turn
+to go back again.  It was plain that Wildeve's intrigue
+was rather ideal than real.  Venn retreated before him
+down the hill to a place where the path was merely
+a deep groove between the heather; here he mysteriously
+bent over the ground for a few minutes, and retired. 
+When Wildeve came on to that spot his ankle was caught
+by something, and he fell headlong. 
+
+As soon as he had recovered the power of respiration
+he sat up and listened.  There was not a sound in the
+gloom beyond the spiritless stir of the summer wind.
+Feeling about for the obstacle which had flung him down,
+he discovered that two tufts of heath had been tied together
+across the path, forming a loop, which to a traveller
+was certain overthrow.  Wildeve pulled off the string
+that bound them, and went on with tolerable quickness. 
+On reaching home he found the cord to be of a reddish colour. 
+It was just what he had expected. 
+
+Although his weaknesses were not specially those akin
+to physical fear, this species of coup-de-Jarnac
+from one he knew too well troubled the mind of Wildeve. 
+But his movements were unaltered thereby.  A night
+or two later he again went along the vale to Alderworth,
+taking the precaution of keeping out of any path. 
+The sense that he was watched, that craft was employed
+to circumvent his errant tastes, added piquancy to a journey
+so entirely sentimental, so long as the danger was of no
+fearful sort.  He imagined that Venn and Mrs. Yeobright
+were in league, and felt that there was a certain legitimacy
+in combating such a coalition. 
+
+The heath tonight appeared to be totally deserted;
+and Wildeve, after looking over Eustacia's garden gate
+for some little time, with a cigar in his mouth, was tempted
+by the fascination that emotional smuggling had for his nature
+to advance towards the window, which was not quite closed,
+the blind being only partly drawn down.  He could see
+into the room, and Eustacia was sitting there alone. 
+Wildeve contemplated her for a minute, and then retreating
+into the heath beat the ferns lightly, whereupon moths flew
+out alarmed.  Securing one, he returned to the window,
+and holding the moth to the chink, opened his hand. 
+The moth made towards the candle upon Eustacia's table,
+hovered round it two or three times, and flew into
+the flame. 
+
+Eustacia started up.  This had been a well-known signal
+in old times when Wildeve had used to come secretly wooing
+to Mistover.  She at once knew that Wildeve was outside,
+but before she could consider what to do her husband
+came in from upstairs.  Eustacia's face burnt crimson
+at the unexpected collision of incidents, and filled it
+with an animation that it too frequently lacked. 
+
+"You have a very high colour, dearest," said Yeobright,
+when he came close enough to see it.  "Your appearance
+would be no worse if it were always so."
+
+"I am warm," said Eustacia.  "I think I will go into
+the air for a few minutes."
+
+"Shall I go with you?"
+
+"O no.  I am only going to the gate."
+
+She arose, but before she had time to get out of the room
+a loud rapping began upon the front door. 
+
+"I'll go--I'll go," said Eustacia in an unusually quick
+tone for her; and she glanced eagerly towards the window
+whence the moth had flown; but nothing appeared there. 
+
+"You had better not at this time of the evening,"
+he said.  Clym stepped before her into the passage,
+and Eustacia waited, her somnolent manner covering her
+inner heat and agitation.
+
+She listened, and Clym opened the door.  No words were
+uttered outside, and presently he closed it and came back,
+saying, "Nobody was there.  I wonder what that could have meant?"
+
+He was left to wonder during the rest of the evening,
+for no explanation offered itself, and Eustacia said nothing,
+the additional fact that she knew of only adding more
+mystery to the performance. 
+
+Meanwhile a little drama had been acted outside which saved
+Eustacia from all possibility of compromising herself
+that evening at least.  Whilst Wildeve had been preparing
+his moth-signal another person had come behind him up
+to the gate.  This man, who carried a gun in his hand,
+looked on for a moment at the other's operation by
+the window, walked up to the house, knocked at the door,
+and then vanished round the corner and over the hedge.
+
+"Damn him!" said Wildeve.  "He has been watching me again."
+
+As his signal had been rendered futile by this uproarious
+rapping Wildeve withdrew, passed out at the gate, and walked
+quickly down the path without thinking of anything except
+getting away unnoticed.  Halfway down the hill the path
+ran near a knot of stunted hollies, which in the general
+darkness of the scene stood as the pupil in a black eye.
+When Wildeve reached this point a report startled his ear,
+and a few spent gunshots fell among the leaves around him. 
+
+There was no doubt that he himself was the cause of that
+gun's discharge; and he rushed into the clump of hollies,
+beating the bushes furiously with his stick; but nobody
+was there.  This attack was a more serious matter than
+the last, and it was some time before Wildeve recovered
+his equanimity.  A new and most unpleasant system of menace
+had begun, and the intent appeared to be to do him grievous
+bodily harm.  Wildeve had looked upon Venn's first attempt
+as a species of horseplay, which the reddleman had indulged
+in for want of knowing better; but now the boundary
+line was passed which divides the annoying from the perilous. 
+
+Had Wildeve known how thoroughly in earnest Venn
+had become he might have been still more alarmed. 
+The reddleman had been almost exasperated by the sight
+of Wildeve outside Clym's house, and he was prepared to go
+to any lengths short of absolutely shooting him, to terrify
+the young innkeeper out of his recalcitrant impulses.
+The doubtful legitimacy of such rough coercion did not
+disturb the mind of Venn.  It troubles few such minds
+in such cases, and sometimes this is not to be regretted. 
+From the impeachment of Strafford to Farmer Lynch's
+short way with the scamps of Virginia there have been
+many triumphs of justice which are mockeries of law. 
+
+About half a mile below Clym's secluded dwelling
+lay a hamlet where lived one of the two constables
+who preserved the peace in the parish of Alderworth,
+and Wildeve went straight to the constable's cottage. 
+Almost the first thing that he saw on opening the door
+was the constable's truncheon hanging to a nail, as if
+to assure him that here were the means to his purpose. 
+On inquiry, however, of the constable's wife he learnt
+that the constable was not at home.  Wildeve said he
+would wait. 
+
+The minutes ticked on, and the constable did not arrive. 
+Wildeve cooled down from his state of high indignation
+to a restless dissatisfaction with himself, the scene,
+the constable's wife, and the whole set of circumstances. 
+He arose and left the house.  Altogether, the experience
+of that evening had had a cooling, not to say a chilling,
+effect on misdirected tenderness, and Wildeve was in no mood
+to ramble again to Alderworth after nightfall in hope of a
+stray glance from Eustacia. 
+
+Thus far the reddleman had been tolerably successful in his
+rude contrivances for keeping down Wildeve's inclination
+to rove in the evening.  He had nipped in the bud the
+possible meeting between Eustacia and her old lover this
+very night.  But he had not anticipated that the tendency
+of his action would be to divert Wildeve's movement
+rather than to stop it.  The gambling with the guineas
+had not conduced to make him a welcome guest to Clym;
+but to call upon his wife's relative was natural, and he
+was determined to see Eustacia.  It was necessary to choose
+some less untoward hour than ten o'clock at night. 
+"Since it is unsafe to go in the evening," he said,
+"I'll go by day."
+
+Meanwhile Venn had left the heath and gone to call upon
+Mrs. Yeobright, with whom he had been on friendly terms
+since she had learnt what a providential countermove he
+had made towards the restitution of the family guineas. 
+She wondered at the lateness of his call, but had no
+objection to see him. 
+
+He gave her a full account of Clym's affliction, and of the
+state in which he was living; then, referring to Thomasin,
+touched gently upon the apparent sadness of her days. 
+"Now, ma'am, depend upon it," he said, "you couldn't do
+a better thing for either of 'em than to make yourself
+at home in their houses, even if there should be a little
+rebuff at first."
+
+"Both she and my son disobeyed me in marrying;
+therefore I have no interest in their households. 
+Their troubles are of their own making."  Mrs. Yeobright
+tried to speak severely; but the account of her son's
+state had moved her more than she cared to show.
+
+"Your visits would make Wildeve walk straighter than he
+is inclined to do, and might prevent unhappiness down
+the heath."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I saw something tonight out there which I didn't like at all. 
+I wish your son's house and Mr. Wildeve's were a hundred
+miles apart instead of four or five."
+
+"Then there WAS an understanding between him
+and Clym's wife when he made a fool of Thomasin!"
+
+"We'll hope there's no understanding now."
+
+"And our hope will probably be very vain.  O Clym!
+O Thomasin!"
+
+"There's no harm done yet.  In fact, I've persuaded
+Wildeve to mind his own business."
+
+"How?"
+
+"O, not by talking--by a plan of mine called the silent system."
+
+"I hope you'll succeed."
+
+"I shall if you help me by calling and making friends
+with your son.  You'll have a chance then of using your eyes."
+
+"Well, since it has come to this," said Mrs. Yeobright sadly,
+"I will own to you, reddleman, that I thought of going. 
+I should be much happier if we were reconciled.
+The marriage is unalterable, my life may be cut short,
+and I should wish to die in peace.  He is my only son;
+and since sons are made of such stuff I am not sorry
+I have no other.  As for Thomasin, I never expected
+much from her; and she has not disappointed me. 
+But I forgave her long ago; and I forgive him now. 
+I'll go."
+
+At this very time of the reddleman's conversation
+with Mrs. Yeobright at Blooms-End another conversation
+on the same subject was languidly proceeding at Alderworth. 
+
+All the day Clym had borne himself as if his mind were too full
+of its own matter to allow him to care about outward things,
+and his words now showed what had occupied his thoughts. 
+It was just after the mysterious knocking that he began
+the theme.  "Since I have been away today, Eustacia,
+I have considered that something must be done to heal up
+this ghastly breach between my dear mother and myself. 
+It troubles me."
+
+"What do you propose to do?" said Eustacia abstractedly,
+for she could not clear away from her the excitement caused
+by Wildeve's recent manoeuvre for an interview.
+
+"You seem to take a very mild interest in what I propose,
+little or much," said Clym, with tolerable warmth. 
+
+"You mistake me," she answered, reviving at his reproach.
+"I am only thinking."
+
+"What of?"
+
+"Partly of that moth whose skeleton is getting burnt up
+in the wick of the candle," she said slowly.  "But you
+know I always take an interest in what you say."
+
+"Very well, dear.  Then I think I must go and call upon
+her."...He went on with tender feeling: "It is a thing
+I am not at all too proud to do, and only a fear
+that I might irritate her has kept me away so long. 
+But I must do something.  It is wrong in me to allow
+this sort of thing to go on."
+
+"What have you to blame yourself about?"
+
+"She is getting old, and her life is lonely, and I am
+her only son."
+
+"She has Thomasin."
+
+"Thomasin is not her daughter; and if she were that
+would not excuse me.  But this is beside the point. 
+I have made up my mind to go to her, and all I wish
+to ask you is whether you will do your best to help
+me--that is, forget the past; and if she shows her
+willingness to be reconciled, meet her halfway by welcoming
+her to our house, or by accepting a welcome to hers?"
+
+At first Eustacia closed her lips as if she would rather
+do anything on the whole globe than what he suggested. 
+But the lines of her mouth softened with thought, though not
+so far as they might have softened, and she said, "I will
+put nothing in your way; but after what has passed it,
+is asking too much that I go and make advances."
+
+"You never distinctly told me what did pass between you."
+
+"I could not do it then, nor can I now.  Sometimes more
+bitterness is sown in five minutes than can be got rid
+of in a whole life; and that may be the case here."
+She paused a few moments, and added, "If you had never
+returned to your native place, Clym, what a blessing it
+would have been for you!...It has altered the destinies of----"
+
+"Three people."
+
+"Five," Eustacia thought; but she kept that in. 
+
+
+
+5 - The Journey across the Heath
+
+
+Thursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series
+of days during which snug houses were stifling, and when cool
+draughts were treats; when cracks appeared in clayey gardens,
+and were called "earthquakes" by apprehensive children;
+when loose spokes were discovered in the wheels of carts
+and carriages; and when stinging insects haunted the air,
+the earth, and every drop of water that was to be found. 
+
+In Mrs. Yeobright's garden large-leaved plants of a
+tender kind flagged by ten o'clock in the morning;
+rhubarb bent downward at eleven; and even stiff cabbages
+were limp by noon. 
+
+It was about eleven o'clock on this day that Mrs. Yeobright
+started across the heath towards her son's house, to do
+her best in getting reconciled with him and Eustacia,
+in conformity with her words to the reddleman. 
+She had hoped to be well advanced in her walk before
+the heat of the day was at its highest, but after
+setting out she found that this was not to be done. 
+The sun had branded the whole heath with its mark,
+even the purple heath-flowers having put on a brownness
+under the dry blazes of the few preceding days. 
+Every valley was filled with air like that of a kiln,
+and the clean quartz sand of the winter water-courses,
+which formed summer paths, had undergone a species of
+incineration since the drought had set in. 
+
+In cool, fresh weather Mrs. Yeobright would have found
+no inconvenience in walking to Alderworth, but the present
+torrid attack made the journey a heavy undertaking
+for a woman past middle age; and at the end of the third
+mile she wished that she had hired Fairway to drive
+her a portion at least of the distance.  But from the
+point at which she had arrived it was as easy to reach
+Clym's house as to get home again.  So she went on,
+the air around her pulsating silently, and oppressing
+the earth with lassitude.  She looked at the sky overhead,
+and saw that the sapphirine hue of the zenith in spring
+and early summer had been replaced by a metallic violet. 
+
+Occasionally she came to a spot where independent worlds
+of ephemerons were passing their time in mad carousal,
+some in the air, some on the hot ground and vegetation,
+some in the tepid and stringy water of a nearly dried pool.
+All the shallower ponds had decreased to a vaporous mud
+amid which the maggoty shapes of innumerable obscure
+creatures could be indistinctly seen, heaving and wallowing
+with enjoyment.  Being a woman not disinclined to philosophize
+she sometimes sat down under her umbrella to rest
+and to watch their happiness, for a certain hopefulness
+as to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind,
+and between important thoughts left it free to dwell
+on any infinitesimal matter which caught her eyes. 
+
+Mrs. Yeobright had never before been to her son's house,
+and its exact position was unknown to her.  She tried one
+ascending path and another, and found that they led her astray. 
+Retracing her steps, she came again to an open level,
+where she perceived at a distance a man at work. 
+She went towards him and inquired the way. 
+
+The labourer pointed out the direction, and added, "Do you
+see that furze-cutter, ma'am, going up that footpath yond?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright strained her eyes, and at last said
+that she did perceive him. 
+
+"Well, if you follow him you can make no mistake. 
+He's going to the same place, ma'am."
+
+She followed the figure indicated.  He appeared of a
+russet hue, not more distinguishable from the scene around
+him than the green caterpillar from the leaf it feeds on. 
+His progress when actually walking was more rapid than
+Mrs. Yeobright's; but she was enabled to keep at an equable
+distance from him by his habit of stopping whenever he
+came to a brake of brambles, where he paused awhile. 
+On coming in her turn to each of these spots she found half
+a dozen long limp brambles which he had cut from the bush
+during his halt and laid out straight beside the path. 
+They were evidently intended for furze-faggot bonds which he
+meant to collect on his return. 
+
+The silent being who thus occupied himself seemed
+to be of no more account in life than an insect. 
+He appeared as a mere parasite of the heath, fretting its
+surface in his daily labour as a moth frets a garment,
+entirely engrossed with its products, having no knowledge
+of anything in the world but fern, furze, heath, lichens, and moss. 
+
+The furze-cutter was so absorbed in the business of his
+journey that he never turned his head; and his leather-
+legged and gauntleted form at length became to her as
+nothing more than a moving handpost to show her the way. 
+Suddenly she was attracted to his individuality by observing
+peculiarities in his walk.  It was a gait she had seen
+somewhere before; and the gait revealed the man to her,
+as the gait of Ahimaaz in the distant plain made him known
+to the watchman of the king.  "His walk is exactly as my
+husband's used to be," she said; and then the thought
+burst upon her that the furze-cutter was her son. 
+
+She was scarcely able to familiarize herself with this
+strange reality.  She had been told that Clym was in the
+habit of cutting furze, but she had supposed that he
+occupied himself with the labour only at odd times,
+by way of useful pastime; yet she now beheld him as a
+furze-cutter and nothing more--wearing the regulation
+dress of the craft, and thinking the regulation thoughts,
+to judge by his motions.  Planning a dozen hasty schemes
+for at once preserving him and Eustacia from this mode
+of life, she throbbingly followed the way, and saw him
+enter his own door.
+
+At one side of Clym's house was a knoll, and on the top
+of the knoll a clump of fir trees so highly thrust
+up into the sky that their foliage from a distance
+appeared as a black spot in the air above the crown
+of the hill.  On reaching this place Mrs. Yeobright felt
+distressingly agitated, weary, and unwell.  She ascended,
+and sat down under their shade to recover herself,
+and to consider how best to break the ground with Eustacia,
+so as not to irritate a woman underneath whose apparent
+indolence lurked passions even stronger and more active
+than her own.
+
+The trees beneath which she sat were singularly battered,
+rude, and wild, and for a few minutes Mrs. Yeobright
+dismissed thoughts of her own storm-broken and exhausted
+state to contemplate theirs.  Not a bough in the nine
+trees which composed the group but was splintered, lopped,
+and distorted by the fierce weather that there held them
+at its mercy whenever it prevailed.  Some were blasted
+and split as if by lightning, black stains as from fire
+marking their sides, while the ground at their feet was
+strewn with dead fir-needles and heaps of cones blown
+down in the gales of past years.  The place was called
+the Devil's Bellows, and it was only necessary to come
+there on a March or November night to discover the forcible
+reasons for that name.  On the present heated afternoon,
+when no perceptible wind was blowing, the trees kept up
+a perpetual moan which one could hardly believe to be caused
+by the air.
+
+Here she sat for twenty minutes or more ere she could
+summon resolution to go down to the door, her courage
+being lowered to zero by her physical lassitude.
+To any other person than a mother it might have seemed
+a little humiliating that she, the elder of the two women,
+should be the first to make advances.  But Mrs. Yeobright
+had well considered all that, and she only thought how best
+to make her visit appear to Eustacia not abject but wise. 
+
+From her elevated position the exhausted woman could
+perceive the roof of the house below, and the garden
+and the whole enclosure of the little domicile.  And now,
+at the moment of rising, she saw a second man approaching
+the gate.  His manner was peculiar, hesitating, and not
+that of a person come on business or by invitation. 
+He surveyed the house with interest, and then walked round
+and scanned the outer boundary of the garden, as one might
+have done had it been the birthplace of Shakespeare,
+the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Chateau of Hougomont. 
+After passing round and again reaching the gate he went in.
+Mrs. Yeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on
+finding her son and his wife by themselves; but a moment's
+thought showed her that the presence of an acquaintance
+would take off the awkwardness of her first appearance
+in the house, by confining the talk to general matters
+until she had begun to feel comfortable with them. 
+She came down the hill to the gate, and looked into the
+hot garden. 
+
+There lay the cat asleep on the bare gravel of the path,
+as if beds, rugs, and carpets were unendurable.  The leaves
+of the hollyhocks hung like half-closed umbrellas, the sap
+almost simmered in the stems, and foliage with a smooth
+surface glared like metallic mirrors.  A small apple tree,
+of the sort called Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate,
+the only one which throve in the garden, by reason of the
+lightness of the soil; and among the fallen apples on the
+ground beneath were wasps rolling drunk with the juice,
+or creeping about the little caves in each fruit which
+they had eaten out before stupefied by its sweetness. 
+By the door lay Clym's furze-hook and the last handful
+of faggot-bonds she had seen him gather; they had plainly
+been thrown down there as he entered the house. 
+
+
+
+6 - A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian
+
+
+Wildeve, as has been stated, was determined to visit
+Eustacia boldly, by day, and on the easy terms of a relation,
+since the reddleman had spied out and spoilt his walks
+to her by night.  The spell that she had thrown over him
+in the moonlight dance made it impossible for a man
+having no strong puritanic force within him to keep
+away altogether.  He merely calculated on meeting her and
+her husband in an ordinary manner, chatting a little while,
+and leaving again.  Every outward sign was to be conventional;
+but the one great fact would be there to satisfy him--he
+would see her.  He did not even desire Clym's absence,
+since it was just possible that Eustacia might resent any
+situation which could compromise her dignity as a wife,
+whatever the state of her heart towards him.  Women were often so. 
+
+He went accordingly; and it happened that the time of his
+arrival coincided with that of Mrs. Yeobright's pause on the
+hill near the house.  When he had looked round the premises
+in the manner she had noticed he went and knocked at the door. 
+There was a few minutes' interval, and then the key turned
+in the lock, the door opened, and Eustacia herself confronted him. 
+
+Nobody could have imagined from her bearing now that here
+stood the woman who had joined with him in the impassioned
+dance of the week before, unless indeed he could have
+penetrated below the surface and gauged the real depth
+of that still stream. 
+
+"I hope you reached home safely?" said Wildeve. 
+
+"O yes," she carelessly returned. 
+
+"And were you not tired the next day?  I feared you might be."
+
+"I was rather.  You need not speak low--nobody will
+over-hear us.  My small servant is gone on an errand
+to the village."
+
+"Then Clym is not at home?"
+
+"Yes, he is."
+
+"O! I thought that perhaps you had locked the door
+because you were alone and were afraid of tramps."
+
+"No--here is my husband."
+
+They had been standing in the entry.  Closing the front
+door and turning the key, as before, she threw open
+the door of the adjoining room and asked him to walk in. 
+Wildeve entered, the room appearing to be empty;
+but as soon as he had advanced a few steps he started. 
+On the hearthrug lay Clym asleep.  Beside him were
+the leggings, thick boots, leather gloves, and sleeve-
+waistcoat in which he worked.
+
+"You may go in; you will not disturb him," she said,
+following behind.  "My reason for fastening the door
+is that he may not be intruded upon by any chance comer
+while lying here, if I should be in the garden or upstairs."
+
+"Why is he sleeping there?" said Wildeve in low tones.
+
+"He is very weary.  He went out at half-past four
+this morning, and has been working ever since.  He cuts
+furze because it is the only thing he can do that does
+not put any strain upon his poor eyes."  The contrast
+between the sleeper's appearance and Wildeve's at this
+moment was painfully apparent to Eustacia, Wildeve being
+elegantly dressed in a new summer suit and light hat;
+and she continued: "Ah! you don't know how differently he
+appeared when I first met him, though it is such a little
+while ago.  His hands were as white and soft as mine;
+and look at them now, how rough and brown they are!
+His complexion is by nature fair, and that rusty look
+he has now, all of a colour with his leather clothes,
+is caused by the burning of the sun."
+
+"Why does he go out at all!" Wildeve whispered. 
+
+"Because he hates to be idle; though what he earns
+doesn't add much to our exchequer.  However, he says
+that when people are living upon their capital they must
+keep down current expenses by turning a penny where they can."
+
+"The fates have not been kind to you, Eustacia Yeobright."
+
+"I have nothing to thank them for."
+
+"Nor has he--except for their one great gift to him."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Wildeve looked her in the eyes. 
+
+Eustacia blushed for the first time that day. 
+"Well, I am a questionable gift," she said quietly.
+"I thought you meant the gift of content--which he has,
+and I have not."
+
+"I can understand content in such a case--though
+how the outward situation can attract him puzzles me."
+
+"That's because you don't know him.  He's an enthusiast
+about ideas, and careless about outward things. 
+He often reminds me of the Apostle Paul."
+
+"I am glad to hear that he's so grand in character as that."
+
+"Yes; but the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent
+as a man in the Bible he would hardly have done in real life."
+
+Their voices had instinctively dropped lower, though at first
+they had taken no particular care to avoid awakening Clym. 
+"Well, if that means that your marriage is a misfortune
+to you, you know who is to blame," said Wildeve. 
+
+"The marriage is no misfortune in itself," she retorted
+with some little petulance.  "It is simply the accident
+which has happened since that has been the cause of my ruin. 
+I have certainly got thistles for figs in a worldly sense,
+but how could I tell what time would bring forth?"
+
+"Sometimes, Eustacia, I think it is a judgment upon you. 
+You rightly belonged to me, you know; and I had no idea
+of losing you."
+
+"No, it was not my fault! Two could not belong to you;
+and remember that, before I was aware, you turned aside
+to another woman.  It was cruel levity in you to do that. 
+I never dreamt of playing such a game on my side till you
+began it on yours."
+
+"I meant nothing by it," replied Wildeve.  "It was a
+mere interlude.  Men are given to the trick of having a passing
+fancy for somebody else in the midst of a permanent love,
+which reasserts itself afterwards just as before. 
+On account of your rebellious manner to me I was tempted
+to go further than I should have done; and when you still
+would keep playing the same tantalizing part I went
+further still, and married her."  Turning and looking
+again at the unconscious form of Clym, he murmured,
+"I am afraid that you don't value your prize, Clym....He
+ought to be happier than I in one thing at least. 
+He may know what it is to come down in the world,
+and to be afflicted with a great personal calamity;
+but he probably doesn't know what it is to lose the woman
+he loved."
+
+"He is not ungrateful for winning her," whispered Eustacia,
+"and in that respect he is a good man.  Many women
+would go far for such a husband.  But do I desire
+unreasonably much in wanting what is called life--
+music, poetry, passion, war, and all the beating
+and pulsing that are going on in the great arteries
+of the world?  That was the shape of my youthful dream;
+but I did not get it.  Yet I thought I saw the way to it in my Clym."
+
+"And you only married him on that account?"
+
+"There you mistake me.  I married him because I loved him,
+but I won't say that I didn't love him partly because I
+thought I saw a promise of that life in him."
+
+"You have dropped into your old mournful key."
+
+"But I am not going to be depressed," she cried perversely.
+"I began a new system by going to that dance, and I mean
+to stick to it.  Clym can sing merrily; why should not I?"
+
+Wildeve looked thoughtfully at her.  "It is easier
+to say you will sing than to do it; though if I could I
+would encourage you in your attempt.  But as life means
+nothing to me, without one thing which is now impossible,
+you will forgive me for not being able to encourage you."
+
+"Damon, what is the matter with you, that you speak
+like that?" she asked, raising her deep shady eyes to his. 
+
+"That's a thing I shall never tell plainly; and perhaps if I
+try to tell you in riddles you will not care to guess them."
+
+Eustacia remained silent for a minute, and she said,
+"We are in a strange relationship today.  You mince
+matters to an uncommon nicety.  You mean, Damon, that you
+still love me.  Well, that gives me sorrow, for I am not
+made so entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing
+to spurn you for the information, as I ought to do.
+But we have said too much about this.  Do you mean to wait
+until my husband is awake?"
+
+"I thought to speak to him; but it is unnecessary,
+Eustacia, if I offend you by not forgetting you,
+you are right to mention it; but do not talk of spurning."
+
+She did not reply, and they stood looking musingly at Clym
+as he slept on in that profound sleep which is the result
+of physical labour carried on in circumstances that wake
+no nervous fear. 
+
+"God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!" said Wildeve. 
+"I have not slept like that since I was a boy--years and
+years ago."
+
+While they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible,
+and a knock came to the door.  Eustacia went to a window
+and looked out. 
+
+Her countenance changed.  First she became crimson,
+and then the red subsided till it even partially left
+her lips. 
+
+"Shall I go away?" said Wildeve, standing up.
+
+"I hardly know."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Mrs. Yeobright.  O, what she said to me that day! I
+cannot understand this visit--what does she mean?  And
+she suspects that past time of ours."
+
+"I am in your hands.  If you think she had better not see
+me here I'll go into the next room."
+
+"Well, yes--go."
+
+Wildeve at once withdrew; but before he had been half
+a minute in the adjoining apartment Eustacia came after him. 
+
+"No," she said, "we won't have any of this.  If she comes
+in she must see you--and think if she likes there's
+something wrong! But how can I open the door to her,
+when she dislikes me--wishes to see not me, but her son?
+I won't open the door!"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright knocked again more loudly. 
+
+"Her knocking will, in all likelihood, awaken him,"
+continued Eustacia, "and then he will let her in himself. 
+Ah--listen."
+
+They could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if
+disturbed by the knocking, and he uttered the word "Mother."
+
+"Yes--he is awake--he will go to the door,"
+she said, with a breath of relief.  "Come this way. 
+I have a bad name with her, and you must not be seen. 
+Thus I am obliged to act by stealth, not because I do ill,
+but because others are pleased to say so."
+
+By this time she had taken him to the back door,
+which was open, disclosing a path leading down the garden. 
+"Now, one word, Damon," she remarked as he stepped forth. 
+"This is your first visit here; let it be your last.
+We have been hot lovers in our time, but it won't do now. 
+Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Wildeve.  "I have had all I came for,
+and I am satisfied."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"A sight of you.  Upon my eternal honour I came for no more."
+
+Wildeve kissed his hand to the beautiful girl he addressed,
+and passed into the garden, where she watched him down the path,
+over the stile at the end, and into the ferns outside,
+which brushed his hips as he went along till he became lost
+in their thickets.  When he had quite gone she slowly turned,
+and directed her attention to the interior of the house. 
+
+But it was possible that her presence might not be
+desired by Clym and his mother at this moment of their
+first meeting, or that it would be superfluous. 
+At all events, she was in no hurry to meet Mrs. Yeobright.
+She resolved to wait till Clym came to look for her,
+and glided back into the garden.  Here she idly occupied
+herself for a few minutes, till finding no notice was
+taken of her she retraced her steps through the house to
+the front, where she listened for voices in the parlour. 
+But hearing none she opened the door and went in. 
+To her astonishment Clym lay precisely as Wildeve and herself
+had left him, his sleep apparently unbroken.  He had been
+disturbed and made to dream and murmur by the knocking,
+but he had not awakened.  Eustacia hastened to the door,
+and in spite of her reluctance to open it to a woman who had
+spoken of her so bitterly, she unfastened it and looked out. 
+Nobody was to be seen.  There, by the scraper, lay Clym's
+hook and the handful of faggot-bonds he had brought home;
+in front of her were the empty path, the garden gate standing
+slightly ajar; and, beyond, the great valley of purple
+heath thrilling silently in the sun.  Mrs. Yeobright
+was gone. 
+
+
+Clym's mother was at this time following a path which lay
+hidden from Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill.  Her walk
+thither from the garden gate had been hasty and determined,
+as of a woman who was now no less anxious to escape from
+the scene than she had previously been to enter it. 
+Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights
+were graven--that of Clym's hook and brambles at the door,
+and that of a woman's face at a window.  Her lips trembled,
+becoming unnaturally thin as she murmured, "'Tis too
+much--Clym, how can he bear to do it! He is at home;
+and yet he lets her shut the door against me!"
+
+In her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house
+she had diverged from the straightest path homeward,
+and while looking about to regain it she came upon
+a little boy gathering whortleberries in a hollow. 
+The boy was Johnny Nunsuch, who had been Eustacia's stoker
+at the bonfire, and, with the tendency of a minute body
+to gravitate towards a greater, he began hovering round
+Mrs. Yeobright as soon as she appeared, and trotted on
+beside her without perceptible consciousness of his act. 
+
+Mrs. Yeobright spoke to him as one in a mesmeric sleep. 
+"'Tis a long way home, my child, and we shall not get there
+till evening."
+
+"I shall," said her small companion.  "I am going to play
+marnels afore supper, and we go to supper at six o'clock,
+because Father comes home.  Does your father come home
+at six too?"
+
+"No, he never comes; nor my son either, nor anybody."
+
+"What have made you so down?  Have you seen a ooser?"
+
+"I have seen what's worse--a woman's face looking at me
+through a windowpane."
+
+"Is that a bad sight?"
+
+"Yes. It is always a bad sight to see a woman looking
+out at a weary wayfarer and not letting her in."
+
+"Once when I went to Throope Great Pond to catch effets
+I seed myself looking up at myself, and I was frightened
+and jumped back like anything."
+
+..."If they had only shown signs of meeting my advances
+halfway how well it might have been done! But there is
+no chance.  Shut out! She must have set him against me. 
+Can there be beautiful bodies without hearts inside?  I
+think so.  I would not have done it against a neighbour's
+cat on such a fiery day as this!"
+
+"What is it you say?"
+
+"Never again--never! Not even if they send for me!"
+
+"You must be a very curious woman to talk like that."
+
+"O no, not at all," she said, returning to the boy's prattle. 
+"Most people who grow up and have children talk as I do. 
+When you grow up your mother will talk as I do too."
+
+"I hope she won't; because 'tis very bad to talk nonsense."
+
+"Yes, child; it is nonsense, I suppose.  Are you not
+nearly spent with the heat?"
+
+"Yes. But not so much as you be."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Your face is white and wet, and your head is hanging-down-like."
+
+"Ah, I am exhausted from inside."
+
+"Why do you, every time you take a step, go like this?"
+The child in speaking gave to his motion the jerk and limp
+of an invalid. 
+
+"Because I have a burden which is more than I can bear."
+
+The little boy remained silently pondering, and they
+tottered on side by side until more than a quarter of an
+hour had elapsed, when Mrs. Yeobright, whose weakness
+plainly increased, said to him, "I must sit down here to rest."
+
+When she had seated herself he looked long in her
+face and said, "How funny you draw your breath--like
+a lamb when you drive him till he's nearly done for. 
+Do you always draw your breath like that?"
+
+"Not always."  Her voice was now so low as to be scarcely
+above a whisper.
+
+"You will go to sleep there, I suppose, won't you?  You
+have shut your eyes already."
+
+"No. I shall not sleep much till--another day, and then
+I hope to have a long, long one--very long.  Now can you
+tell me if Rimsmoor Pond is dry this summer?"
+
+"Rimsmoor Pond is, but Oker's Pool isn't, because he
+is deep, and is never dry--'tis just over there."
+
+"Is the water clear?"
+
+"Yes, middling--except where the heath-croppers walk
+into it."
+
+"Then, take this, and go as fast as you can, and dip me
+up the clearest you can find.  I am very faint."
+
+She drew from the small willow reticule that she carried
+in her hand an old-fashioned china teacup without
+a handle; it was one of half a dozen of the same sort
+lying in the reticule, which she had preserved ever
+since her childhood, and had brought with her today
+as a small present for Clym and Eustacia. 
+
+The boy started on his errand, and soon came back with
+the water, such as it was.  Mrs. Yeobright attempted
+to drink, but it was so warm as to give her nausea, and she
+threw it away.  Afterwards she still remained sitting,
+with her eyes closed. 
+
+The boy waited, played near her, caught several of the little
+brown butterflies which abounded, and then said as he
+waited again, "I like going on better than biding still. 
+Will you soon start again?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I wish I might go on by myself," he resumed,
+fearing, apparently, that he was to be pressed
+into some unpleasant service.  "Do you want me any more, please?"
+
+Mrs. Yeobright made no reply. 
+
+"What shall I tell Mother?" the boy continued. 
+
+"Tell her you have seen a broken-hearted woman cast off
+by her son."
+
+Before quite leaving her he threw upon her face a
+wistful glance, as if he had misgivings on the generosity
+of forsaking her thus.  He gazed into her face in a vague,
+wondering manner, like that of one examining some strange old
+manuscript the key to whose characters is undiscoverable.
+He was not so young as to be absolutely without a sense
+that sympathy was demanded, he was not old enough to be
+free from the terror felt in childhood at beholding misery
+in adult quarters hither-to deemed impregnable; and whether
+she were in a position to cause trouble or to suffer from it,
+whether she and her affliction were something to pity
+or something to fear, it was beyond him to decide. 
+He lowered his eyes and went on without another word.
+Before he had gone half a mile he had forgotten all about her,
+except that she was a woman who had sat down to rest. 
+
+Mrs. Yeobright's exertions, physical and emotional,
+had well-nigh prostrated her; but she continued to creep
+along in short stages with long breaks between.  The sun
+had now got far to the west of south and stood directly
+in her face, like some merciless incendiary, brand in hand,
+waiting to consume her.  With the departure of the boy
+all visible animation disappeared from the landscape,
+though the intermittent husky notes of the male grasshoppers
+from every tuft of furze were enough to show that amid
+the prostration of the larger animal species an unseen
+insect world was busy in all the fullness of life. 
+
+In two hours she reached a slope about three-fourths the
+whole distance from Alderworth to her own home, where a
+little patch of shepherd's-thyme intruded upon the path;
+and she sat down upon the perfumed mat it formed there. 
+In front of her a colony of ants had established a
+thoroughfare across the way, where they toiled a never-ending
+and heavy-laden throng.  To look down upon them was
+like observing a city street from the top of a tower. 
+She remembered that this bustle of ants had been in
+progress for years at the same spot--doubtless those of
+the old times were the ancestors of these which walked
+there now.  She leant back to obtain more thorough rest,
+and the soft eastern portion of the sky was as great
+a relief to her eyes as the thyme was to her head. 
+While she looked a heron arose on that side of the sky
+and flew on with his face towards the sun.  He had come
+dripping wet from some pool in the valleys, and as he
+flew the edges and lining of his wings, his thighs
+and his breast were so caught by the bright sunbeams
+that he appeared as if formed of burnished silver. 
+Up in the zenith where he was seemed a free and happy place,
+away from all contact with the earthly ball to which
+she was pinioned; and she wished that she could arise
+uncrushed from its surface and fly as he flew then. 
+
+But, being a mother, it was inevitable that she should soon
+cease to ruminate upon her own condition.  Had the track
+of her next thought been marked by a streak in the air,
+like the path of a meteor, it would have shown a direction
+contrary to the heron's, and have descended to the eastward
+upon the roof of Clym's house. 
+
+
+
+7 - The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends
+
+
+He in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up,
+and looked around.  Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard
+by him, and though she held a book in her hand she had
+not looked into it for some time. 
+
+"Well, indeed!" said Clym, brushing his eyes with his hands. 
+"How soundly I have slept! I have had such a tremendous dream,
+too--one I shall never forget."
+
+"I thought you had been dreaming," said she. 
+
+"Yes. It was about my mother.  I dreamt that I took you
+to her house to make up differences, and when we got there we
+couldn't get in, though she kept on crying to us for help. 
+However, dreams are dreams.  What o'clock is it, Eustacia?"
+
+"Half-past two."
+
+"So late, is it?  I didn't mean to stay so long.  By the
+time I have had something to eat it will be after three."
+
+"Ann is not come back from the village, and I thought I
+would let you sleep on till she returned."
+
+Clym went to the window and looked out.  Presently he said,
+musingly, "Week after week passes, and yet Mother does not come. 
+I thought I should have heard something from her long before this."
+
+Misgiving, regret, fear, resolution, ran their swift
+course of expression in Eustacia's dark eyes. 
+She was face to face with a monstrous difficulty,
+and she resolved to get free of it by postponement.
+
+"I must certainly go to Blooms-End soon," he continued,
+"and I think I had better go alone."  He picked up his
+leggings and gloves, threw them down again, and added,
+"As dinner will be so late today I will not go back to
+the heath, but work in the garden till the evening, and then,
+when it will be cooler, I will walk to Blooms-End.
+I am quite sure that if I make a little advance Mother
+will be willing to forget all.  It will be rather late
+before I can get home, as I shall not be able to do the
+distance either way in less than an hour and a half.
+But you will not mind for one evening, dear?  What are you
+thinking of to make you look so abstracted?"
+
+"I cannot tell you," she said heavily.  "I wish we didn't
+live here, Clym.  The world seems all wrong in this place."
+
+"Well--if we make it so.  I wonder if Thomasin has been to
+Blooms-End lately.  I hope so.  But probably not, as she is,
+I believe, expecting to be confined in a month or so. 
+I wish I had thought of that before.  Poor Mother must
+indeed be very lonely."
+
+"I don't like you going tonight."
+
+"Why not tonight?"
+
+"Something may be said which will terribly injure me."
+
+"My mother is not vindictive," said Clym, his colour
+faintly rising. 
+
+"But I wish you would not go," Eustacia repeated in a
+low tone.  "If you agree not to go tonight I promise to go
+by myself to her house tomorrow, and make it up with her,
+and wait till you fetch me."
+
+"Why do you want to do that at this particular time,
+when at every previous time that I have proposed it you
+have refused?"
+
+"I cannot explain further than that I should like to see
+her alone before you go," she answered, with an impatient
+move of her head, and looking at him with an anxiety
+more frequently seen upon those of a sanguine temperament
+than upon such as herself. 
+
+"Well, it is very odd that just when I had decided to go
+myself you should want to do what I proposed long ago.
+If I wait for you to go tomorrow another day will be lost;
+and I know I shall be unable to rest another night without
+having been.  I want to get this settled, and will. 
+You must visit her afterwards--it will be all the same."
+
+"I could even go with you now?"
+
+"You could scarcely walk there and back without a longer
+rest than I shall take.  No, not tonight, Eustacia."
+
+"Let it be as you say, then," she replied in the quiet way
+of one who, though willing to ward off evil consequences
+by a mild effort, would let events fall out as they
+might sooner than wrestle hard to direct them.
+
+Clym then went into the garden; and a thoughtful languor
+stole over Eustacia for the remainder of the afternoon,
+which her husband attributed to the heat of the weather. 
+
+In the evening he set out on the journey.  Although the heat
+of summer was yet intense the days had considerably shortened,
+and before he had advanced a mile on his way all the
+heath purples, browns, and greens had merged in a uniform
+dress without airiness or graduation, and broken only by
+touches of white where the little heaps of clean quartz sand
+showed the entrance to a rabbit burrow, or where the white
+flints of a footpath lay like a thread over the slopes.
+In almost every one of the isolated and stunted thorns
+which grew here and there a nighthawk revealed his presence
+by whirring like the clack of a mill as long as he could
+hold his breath, then stopping, flapping his wings,
+wheeling round the bush, alighting, and after a silent
+interval of listening beginning to whirr again.  At each
+brushing of Clym's feet white millermoths flew into the air
+just high enough to catch upon their dusty wings the mellowed
+light from the west, which now shone across the depressions
+and levels of the ground without falling thereon to light them up. 
+
+Yeobright walked on amid this quiet scene with a hope that
+all would soon be well.  Three miles on he came to a spot
+where a soft perfume was wafted across his path, and he
+stood still for a moment to inhale the familiar scent.
+It was the place at which, four hours earlier,
+his mother had sat down exhausted on the knoll covered
+with shepherd's-thyme. While he stood a sound between
+a breathing and a moan suddenly reached his ears.
+
+He looked to where the sound came from; but nothing
+appeared there save the verge of the hillock stretching
+against the sky in an unbroken line.  He moved a few
+steps in that direction, and now he perceived a recumbent
+figure almost close to his feet. 
+
+Among the different possibilities as to the person's
+individuality there did not for a moment occur to
+Yeobright that it might be one of his own family.
+Sometimes furze-cutters had been known to sleep
+out of doors at these times, to save a long journey
+homeward and back again; but Clym remembered the moan
+and looked closer, and saw that the form was feminine;
+and a distress came over him like cold air from a cave. 
+But he was not absolutely certain that the woman was his mother
+till he stooped and beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes.
+
+His breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry
+of anguish which would have escaped him died upon his lips. 
+During the momentary interval that elapsed before he
+became conscious that something must be done all sense
+of time and place left him, and it seemed as if he and his
+mother were as when he was a child with her many years
+ago on this heath at hours similar to the present. 
+Then he awoke to activity; and bending yet lower he found
+that she still breathed, and that her breath though feeble
+was regular, except when disturbed by an occasional gasp. 
+
+"O, what is it! Mother, are you very ill--you are not dying?"
+he cried, pressing his lips to her face.  "I am your Clym.
+How did you come here?  What does it all mean?"
+
+At that moment the chasm in their lives which his love
+for Eustacia had caused was not remembered by Yeobright,
+and to him the present joined continuously with that friendly
+past that had been their experience before the division. 
+
+She moved her lips, appeared to know him, but could not speak;
+and then Clym strove to consider how best to move her,
+as it would be necessary to get her away from the spot
+before the dews were intense.  He was able-bodied,
+and his mother was thin.  He clasped his arms round her,
+lifted her a little, and said, "Does that hurt you?"
+
+She shook her head, and he lifted her up; then, at a slow pace,
+went onward with his load.  The air was now completely cool;
+but whenever he passed over a sandy patch of ground
+uncarpeted with vegetation there was reflected from its
+surface into his face the heat which it had imbibed
+during the day.  At the beginning of his undertaking he
+had thought but little of the distance which yet would
+have to be traversed before Blooms-End could be reached;
+but though he had slept that afternoon he soon began
+to feel the weight of his burden.  Thus he proceeded,
+like Aeneas with his father; the bats circling round his head,
+nightjars flapping their wings within a yard of his face,
+and not a human being within call. 
+
+While he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother
+exhibited signs of restlessness under the constraint
+of being borne along, as if his arms were irksome to her. 
+He lowered her upon his knees and looked around.
+The point they had now reached, though far from any road,
+was not more than a mile from the Blooms-End cottages
+occupied by Fairway, Sam, Humphrey, and the Cantles. 
+Moreover, fifty yards off stood a hut, built of clods
+and covered with thin turves, but now entirely disused. 
+The simple outline of the lonely shed was visible,
+and thither he determined to direct his steps.  As soon
+as he arrived he laid her down carefully by the entrance,
+and then ran and cut with his pocketknife an armful of the
+dryest fern.  Spreading this within the shed, which was
+entirely open on one side, he placed his mother thereon;
+then he ran with all his might towards the dwelling
+of Fairway. 
+
+Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, disturbed only by the
+broken breathing of the sufferer, when moving figures began
+to animate the line between heath and sky.  In a few moments
+Clym arrived with Fairway, Humphrey, and Susan Nunsuch;
+Olly Dowden, who had chanced to be at Fairway's, Christian
+and Grandfer Cantle following helter-skelter behind. 
+They had brought a lantern and matches, water, a pillow,
+and a few other articles which had occurred to their minds
+in the hurry of the moment.  Sam had been despatched
+back again for brandy, and a boy brought Fairway's pony,
+upon which he rode off to the nearest medical man,
+with directions to call at Wildeve's on his way, and inform
+Thomasin that her aunt was unwell. 
+
+Sam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered
+by the light of the lantern; after which she became
+sufficiently conscious to signify by signs that something
+was wrong with her foot.  Olly Dowden at length
+understood her meaning, and examined the foot indicated. 
+It was swollen and red.  Even as they watched the red
+began to assume a more livid colour, in the midst
+of which appeared a scarlet speck, smaller than a pea,
+and it was found to consist of a drop of blood, which rose
+above the smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere.
+
+"I know what it is," cried Sam.  "She has been stung
+by an adder!"
+
+"Yes," said Clym instantly.  "I remember when I was
+a child seeing just such a bite.  O, my poor mother!"
+
+"It was my father who was bit," said Sam.  "And there's
+only one way to cure it.  You must rub the place
+with the fat of other adders, and the only way to get
+that is by frying them.  That's what they did for him."
+
+"'Tis an old remedy," said Clym distrustfully, "and I
+have doubts about it.  But we can do nothing else till
+the doctor comes."
+
+"'Tis a sure cure," said Olly Dowden, with emphasis. 
+"I've used it when I used to go out nursing."
+
+"Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them,"
+said Clym gloomily.
+
+"I will see what I can do," said Sam. 
+
+He took a green hazel which he had used as a walking stick,
+split it at the end, inserted a small pebble, and with
+the lantern in his hand went out into the heath.
+Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and despatched
+Susan Nunsuch for a frying pan.  Before she had returned
+Sam came in with three adders, one briskly coiling
+and uncoiling in the cleft of the stick, and the other
+two hanging dead across it. 
+
+"I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he
+ought to be," said Sam.  "These limp ones are two I
+killed today at work; but as they don't die till the sun
+goes down they can't be very stale meat."
+
+The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister
+look in its small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet
+pattern on its back seemed to intensify with indignation. 
+Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature, and the creature saw
+her--she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes. 
+
+"Look at that," murmured Christian Cantle.  "Neighbours, how
+do we know but that something of the old serpent in
+God's garden, that gied the apple to the young woman
+with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes still?
+Look at his eye--for all the world like a villainous sort
+of black currant.  'Tis to be hoped he can't ill-wish us!
+There's folks in heath who've been overlooked already. 
+I will never kill another adder as long as I live."
+
+"Well, 'tis right to be afeard of things, if folks can't
+help it," said Grandfer Cantle.  "'Twould have saved me
+many a brave danger in my time."
+
+"I fancy I heard something outside the shed," said Christian. 
+"I wish troubles would come in the daytime, for then
+a man could show his courage, and hardly beg for mercy
+of the most broomstick old woman he should see, if he
+was a brave man, and able to run out of her sight!"
+
+"Even such an ignorant fellow as I should know better
+than do that," said Sam. 
+
+"Well, there's calamities where we least expect it,
+whether or no.  Neighbours, if Mrs. Yeobright were to die,
+d'ye think we should be took up and tried for the
+manslaughter of a woman?"
+
+"No, they couldn't bring it in as that," said Sam,
+"unless they could prove we had been poachers at some time
+of our lives.  But she'll fetch round."
+
+"Now, if I had been stung by ten adders I should hardly
+have lost a day's work for't," said Grandfer Cantle.
+"Such is my spirit when I am on my mettle.  But perhaps
+'tis natural in a man trained for war.  Yes, I've gone
+through a good deal; but nothing ever came amiss to me
+after I joined the Locals in four."  He shook his head
+and smiled at a mental picture of himself in uniform. 
+"I was always first in the most galliantest scrapes in my
+younger days!"
+
+"I suppose that was because they always used to put
+the biggest fool afore," said Fairway from the fire,
+beside which he knelt, blowing it with his breath.
+
+"D'ye think so, Timothy?" said Grandfer Cantle, coming forward
+to Fairway's side with sudden depression in his face. 
+"Then a man may feel for years that he is good solid company,
+and be wrong about himself after all?"
+
+"Never mind that question, Grandfer.  Stir your stumps
+and get some more sticks.  'Tis very nonsense of an old
+man to prattle so when life and death's in mangling."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Grandfer Cantle, with melancholy conviction. 
+"Well, this is a bad night altogether for them that have
+done well in their time; and if I were ever such a dab
+at the hautboy or tenor viol, I shouldn't have the heart
+to play tunes upon 'em now."
+
+Susan now arrived with the frying pan, when the live
+adder was killed and the heads of the three taken off. 
+The remainders, being cut into lengths and split open,
+were tossed into the pan, which began hissing and crackling
+over the fire.  Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from
+the carcases, whereupon Clym dipped the corner of his
+handkerchief into the liquid and anointed the wound.
+
+
+
+8 - Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil
+
+
+In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage
+at Alderworth, had become considerably depressed by the
+posture of affairs.  The consequences which might result
+from Clym's discovery that his mother had been turned
+from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable,
+and this was a quality in events which she hated as much
+as the dreadful. 
+
+To be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome
+to her at any time, and this evening it was more irksome
+than usual by reason of the excitements of the past hours. 
+The two visits had stirred her into restlessness. 
+She was not wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness
+by the probability of appearing in an ill light in the
+discussion between Clym and his mother, but she was wrought
+to vexation, and her slumbering activities were quickened
+to the extent of wishing that she had opened the door. 
+She had certainly believed that Clym was awake,
+and the excuse would be an honest one as far as it went;
+but nothing could save her from censure in refusing
+to answer at the first knock.  Yet, instead of blaming
+herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders
+of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who had
+framed her situation and ruled her lot. 
+
+At this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by
+night than by day, and when Clym had been absent about
+an hour she suddenly resolved to go out in the direction
+of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting him on his return. 
+When she reached the garden gate she heard wheels approaching,
+and looking round beheld her grandfather coming up in his car. 
+
+"I can't stay a minute, thank ye," he answered
+to her greeting.  "I am driving to East Egdon;
+but I came round here just to tell you the news. 
+Perhaps you have heard--about Mr. Wildeve's fortune?"
+
+"No," said Eustacia blankly. 
+
+"Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand
+pounds--uncle died in Canada, just after hearing
+that all his family, whom he was sending home,
+had gone to the bottom in the Cassiopeia; so Wildeve
+has come into everything, without in the least expecting it."
+
+Eustacia stood motionless awhile.  "How long has he known
+of this?" she asked. 
+
+"Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew
+it at ten o'clock, when Charley came back.  Now, he is
+what I call a lucky man.  What a fool you were, Eustacia!"
+
+"In what way?" she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness. 
+
+"Why, in not sticking to him when you had him."
+
+"Had him, indeed!"
+
+"I did not know there had ever been anything between you
+till lately; and, faith, I should have been hot and strong
+against it if I had known; but since it seems that there
+was some sniffing between ye, why the deuce didn't you
+stick to him?"
+
+Eustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could
+say as much upon that subject as he if she chose. 
+
+"And how is your poor purblind husband?" continued the
+old man.  "Not a bad fellow either, as far as he goes."
+
+"He is quite well."
+
+"It is a good thing for his cousin what-d'ye-call-her?
+By George, you ought to have been in that galley,
+my girl! Now I must drive on.  Do you want any assistance?
+What's mine is yours, you know."
+
+"Thank you, Grandfather, we are not in want at present,"
+she said coldly.  "Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly
+as a useful pastime, because he can do nothing else."
+
+"He is paid for his pastime, isn't he?  Three shillings
+a hundred, I heard."
+
+"Clym has money," she said, colouring, "but he likes
+to earn a little."
+
+"Very well; good night."  And the captain drove on. 
+
+When her grandfather was gone Eustacia went on her
+way mechanically; but her thoughts were no longer concerning
+her mother-in-law and Clym.  Wildeve, notwithstanding his
+complaints against his fate, had been seized upon by destiny
+and placed in the sunshine once more.  Eleven thousand
+pounds! From every Egdon point of view he was a rich man. 
+In Eustacia's eyes, too, it was an ample sum--one sufficient
+to supply those wants of hers which had been stigmatized
+by Clym in his more austere moods as vain and luxurious. 
+Though she was no lover of money she loved what money
+could bring; and the new accessories she imagined around
+him clothed Wildeve with a great deal of interest. 
+She recollected now how quietly well-dressed he had been
+that morning--he had probably put on his newest suit,
+regardless of damage by briars and thorns.  And then she
+thought of his manner towards herself. 
+
+"O I see it, I see it," she said.  "How much he wishes
+he had me now, that he might give me all I desire!"
+
+In recalling the details of his glances and words--at
+the time scarcely regarded--it became plain to her how
+greatly they had been dictated by his knowledge of this
+new event.  "Had he been a man to bear a jilt ill-will he
+would have told me of his good fortune in crowing tones;
+instead of doing that he mentioned not a word, in deference
+to my misfortunes, and merely implied that he loved
+me still, as one superior to him."
+
+Wildeve's silence that day on what had happened to him was
+just the kind of behaviour calculated to make an impression
+on such a woman.  Those delicate touches of good taste were,
+in fact, one of the strong points in his demeanour towards
+the other sex.  The peculiarity of Wildeve was that,
+while at one time passionate, upbraiding, and resentful
+towards a woman, at another he would treat her with such
+unparalleled grace as to make previous neglect appear
+as no discourtesy, injury as no insult, interference as a
+delicate attention, and the ruin of her honour as excess
+of chivalry.  This man, whose admiration today Eustacia
+had disregarded, whose good wishes she had scarcely
+taken the trouble to accept, whom she had shown out of
+the house by the back door, was the possessor of eleven
+thousand pounds--a man of fair professional education,
+and one who had served his articles with a civil engineer. 
+
+So intent was Eustacia upon Wildeve's fortunes that she
+forgot how much closer to her own course were those of Clym;
+and instead of walking on to meet him at once she sat
+down upon a stone.  She was disturbed in her reverie by a
+voice behind, and turning her head beheld the old lover
+and fortunate inheritor of wealth immediately beside her.
+
+She remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look
+might have told any man who knew her so well as Wildeve
+that she was thinking of him. 
+
+"How did you come here?" she said in her clear low tone. 
+"I thought you were at home."
+
+"I went on to the village after leaving your garden;
+and now I have come back again--that's all.  Which way
+are you walking, may I ask?"
+
+She waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. "I
+am going to meet my husband.  I think I may possibly
+have got into trouble whilst you were with me today."
+
+"How could that be?"
+
+"By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright."
+
+"I hope that visit of mine did you no harm."
+
+"None. It was not your fault," she said quietly. 
+
+By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered
+on together, without speaking, for two or three minutes;
+when Eustacia broke silence by saying, "I assume I must
+congratulate you."
+
+"On what?  O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds,
+you mean.  Well, since I didn't get something else,
+I must be content with getting that."
+
+"You seem very indifferent about it.  Why didn't you
+tell me today when you came?" she said in the tone
+of a neglected person.  "I heard of it quite by accident."
+
+"I did mean to tell you," said Wildeve.  "But I--well,
+I will speak frankly--I did not like to mention it
+when I saw, Eustacia, that your star was not high.
+The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work,
+as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own
+fortune to you would be greatly out of place.  Yet, as you
+stood there beside him, I could not help feeling too
+that in many respects he was a richer man than I."
+
+At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness,
+"What, would you exchange with him--your fortune for me?"
+
+"I certainly would," said Wildeve.
+
+"As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd,
+suppose we change the subject?"
+
+"Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future,
+if you care to hear them.  I shall permanently invest
+nine thousand pounds, keep one thousand as ready money,
+and with the remaining thousand travel for a year or so."
+
+"Travel?  What a bright idea! Where will you go to?"
+
+"From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. 
+Then I shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine,
+before the hot weather comes on.  In the summer I shall
+go to America; and then, by a plan not yet settled,
+I shall go to Australia and round to India.  By that time
+I shall have begun to have had enough of it.  Then I shall
+probably come back to Paris again, and there I shall stay
+as long as I can afford to."
+
+"Back to Paris again," she murmured in a voice that was
+nearly a sigh.  She had never once told Wildeve of the
+Parisian desires which Clym's description had sown in her;
+yet here was he involuntarily in a position to gratify them. 
+"You think a good deal of Paris?" she added. 
+
+"Yes. In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot
+of the world."
+
+"And in mine! And Thomasin will go with you?"
+
+"Yes, if she cares to.  She may prefer to stay at home."
+
+"So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!"
+
+"I suppose you will.  But we know whose fault that is."
+
+"I am not blaming you," she said quickly. 
+
+"Oh, I thought you were.  If ever you SHOULD be inclined
+to blame me, think of a certain evening by Rainbarrow,
+when you promised to meet me and did not.  You sent me
+a letter; and my heart ached to read that as I hope
+yours never will.  That was one point of divergence. 
+I then did something in haste....But she is a good woman,
+and I will say no more."
+
+"I know that the blame was on my side that time,"
+said Eustacia.  "But it had not always been so.
+However, it is my misfortune to be too sudden in feeling. 
+O, Damon, don't reproach me any more--I can't bear that."
+
+They went on silently for a distance of two or three miles,
+when Eustacia said suddenly, "Haven't you come out of
+your way, Mr. Wildeve?"
+
+"My way is anywhere tonight.  I will go with you as far
+as the hill on which we can see Blooms-End, as it
+is getting late for you to be alone."
+
+"Don't trouble.  I am not obliged to be out at all. 
+I think I would rather you did not accompany me further. 
+This sort of thing would have an odd look if known."
+
+"Very well, I will leave you."  He took her hand unexpectedly,
+and kissed it--for the first time since her marriage. 
+"What light is that on the hill?" he added, as it were to
+hide the caress. 
+
+She looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding
+from the open side of a hovel a little way before them. 
+The hovel, which she had hitherto always found empty,
+seemed to be inhabited now. 
+
+"Since you have come so far," said Eustacia, "will you
+see me safely past that hut?  I thought I should have met
+Clym somewhere about here, but as he doesn't appear I
+will hasten on and get to Blooms-End before he leaves."
+
+They advanced to the turf-shed, and when they got near it
+the firelight and the lantern inside showed distinctly enough
+the form of a woman reclining on a bed of fern, a group
+of heath men and women standing around her.  Eustacia did
+not recognize Mrs. Yeobright in the reclining figure,
+nor Clym as one of the standers-by till she came close.
+Then she quickly pressed her hand up on Wildeve's arm
+and signified to him to come back from the open side
+of the shed into the shadow.
+
+"It is my husband and his mother," she whispered in an
+agitated voice.  "What can it mean?  Will you step forward
+and tell me?"
+
+Wildeve left her side and went to the back wall of the hut.
+Presently Eustacia perceived that he was beckoning to her,
+and she advanced and joined him. 
+
+"It is a serious case," said Wildeve.
+
+From their position they could hear what was proceeding inside. 
+
+"I cannot think where she could have been going,"
+said Clym to someone.  "She had evidently walked a long way,
+but even when she was able to speak just now she would
+not tell me where.  What do you really think of her?"
+
+"There is a great deal to fear," was gravely answered,
+in a voice which Eustacia recognized as that of the only
+surgeon in the district.  "She has suffered somewhat from
+the bite of the adder; but it is exhaustion which has
+overpowered her.  My impression is that her walk must
+have been exceptionally long."
+
+"I used to tell her not to overwalk herself this weather,"
+said Clym, with distress.  "Do you think we did well in
+using the adder's fat?"
+
+"Well, it is a very ancient remedy--the old remedy
+of the viper-catchers, I believe," replied the doctor.
+"It is mentioned as an infallible ointment by Hoffman,
+Mead, and I think the Abbe Fontana.  Undoubtedly it
+was as good a thing as you could do; though I question
+if some other oils would not have been equally efficacious."
+
+"Come here, come here!" was then rapidly said in anxious
+female tones, and Clym and the doctor could be heard
+rushing forward from the back part of the shed to where
+Mrs. Yeobright lay. 
+
+"Oh, what is it?" whispered Eustacia. 
+
+"'Twas Thomasin who spoke," said Wildeve.  "Then they
+have fetched her.  I wonder if I had better go in--yet
+it might do harm."
+
+For a long time there was utter silence among the
+group within; and it was broken at last by Clym saying,
+in an agonized voice, "O Doctor, what does it mean?"
+
+The doctor did not reply at once; ultimately he said,
+"She is sinking fast.  Her heart was previously affected,
+and physical exhaustion has dealt the finishing blow."
+
+Then there was a weeping of women, then waiting,
+then hushed exclamations, then a strange gasping sound,
+then a painful stillness. 
+
+"It is all over," said the doctor. 
+
+Further back in the hut the cotters whispered,
+"Mrs. Yeobright is dead."
+
+Almost at the same moment the two watchers observed the
+form of a small old-fashioned child entering at the open
+side of the shed.  Susan Nunsuch, whose boy it was,
+went forward to the opening and silently beckoned to him
+to go back. 
+
+"I've got something to tell 'ee, Mother," he cried in a
+shrill tone.  "That woman asleep there walked along with
+me today; and she said I was to say that I had seed her,
+and she was a broken-hearted woman and cast off by her son,
+and then I came on home."
+
+A confused sob as from a man was heard within,
+upon which Eustacia gasped faintly, "That's Clym--I
+must go to him--yet dare I do it?  No--come away!"
+
+When they had withdrawn from the neighbourhood of
+the shed she said huskily, "I am to blame for this. 
+There is evil in store for me."
+
+"Was she not admitted to your house after all?"
+Wildeve inquired. 
+
+"No, and that's where it all lies! Oh, what shall I do! I
+shall not intrude upon them--I shall go straight home. 
+Damon, good-bye! I cannot speak to you any more now."
+
+They parted company; and when Eustacia had reached
+the next hill she looked back.  A melancholy procession
+was wending its way by the light of the lantern from
+the hut towards Blooms-End. Wildeve was nowhere to be seen. 
+
+
+
+book five
+
+THE DISCOVERY
+
+
+
+1 - "Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery"
+
+
+One evening, about three weeks after the funeral of
+Mrs. Yeobright, when the silver face of the moon sent
+a bundle of beams directly upon the floor of Clym's house
+at Alderworth, a woman came forth from within.  She reclined
+over the garden gate as if to refresh herself awhile.
+The pale lunar touches which make beauties of hags lent
+divinity to this face, already beautiful. 
+
+She had not long been there when a man came up the road
+and with some hesitation said to her, "How is he tonight,
+ma'am, if you please?"
+
+"He is better, though still very unwell, Humphrey,"
+replied Eustacia. 
+
+"Is he light-headed, ma'am?"
+
+"No. He is quite sensible now."
+
+"Do he rave about his mother just the same, poor fellow?"
+continued Humphrey. 
+
+"Just as much, though not quite so wildly," she said
+in a low voice. 
+
+"It was very unfortunate, ma'am, that the boy Johnny
+should ever ha' told him his mother's dying words,
+about her being broken-hearted and cast off by her son. 
+'Twas enough to upset any man alive."
+
+Eustacia made no reply beyond that of a slight catch in
+her breath, as of one who fain would speak but could not;
+and Humphrey, declining her invitation to come in,
+went away. 
+
+Eustacia turned, entered the house, and ascended to
+the front bedroom, where a shaded light was burning. 
+In the bed lay Clym, pale, haggard, wide awake, tossing to
+one side and to the other, his eyes lit by a hot light,
+as if the fire in their pupils were burning up their substance. 
+
+"Is it you, Eustacia?" he said as she sat down. 
+
+"Yes, Clym.  I have been down to the gate.  The moon
+is shining beautifully, and there is not a leaf stirring."
+
+"Shining, is it?  What's the moon to a man like me?  Let
+it shine--let anything be, so that I never see another
+day!...Eustacia, I don't know where to look--my thoughts
+go through me like swords.  O, if any man wants to make
+himself immortal by painting a picture of wretchedness,
+let him come here!"
+
+"Why do you say so?"
+
+"I cannot help feeling that I did my best to kill her."
+
+"No, Clym."
+
+"Yes, it was so; it is useless to excuse me! My conduct
+to her was too hideous--I made no advances; and she
+could not bring herself to forgive me.  Now she is dead!
+If I had only shown myself willing to make it up with
+her sooner, and we had been friends, and then she had died,
+it wouldn't be so hard to bear.  But I never went near
+her house, so she never came near mine, and didn't know
+how welcome she would have been--that's what troubles me. 
+She did not know I was going to her house that very night,
+for she was too insensible to understand me.  If she
+had only come to see me! I longed that she would. 
+But it was not to be."
+
+There escaped from Eustacia one of those shivering
+sighs which used to shake her like a pestilent blast. 
+She had not yet told. 
+
+But Yeobright was too deeply absorbed in the ramblings
+incidental to his remorseful state to notice her. 
+During his illness he had been continually talking thus. 
+Despair had been added to his original grief by the
+unfortunate disclosure of the boy who had received the
+last words of Mrs. Yeobright--words too bitterly uttered
+in an hour of misapprehension.  Then his distress had
+overwhelmed him, and he longed for death as a field labourer
+longs for the shade.  It was the pitiful sight of a man
+standing in the very focus of sorrow.  He continually
+bewailed his tardy journey to his mother's house,
+because it was an error which could never be rectified,
+and insisted that he must have been horribly perverted
+by some fiend not to have thought before that it was his
+duty to go to her, since she did not come to him.  He would
+ask Eustacia to agree with him in his self-condemnation;
+and when she, seared inwardly by a secret she dared not tell,
+declared that she could not give an opinion, he would say,
+"That's because you didn't know my mother's nature. 
+She was always ready to forgive if asked to do so;
+but I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that
+made her unyielding.  Yet not unyielding--she was proud
+and reserved, no more....Yes, I can understand why she
+held out against me so long.  She was waiting for me. 
+I dare say she said a hundred times in her sorrow, 'What a
+return he makes for all the sacrifices I have made for him!'
+I never went to her! When I set out to visit her it was
+too late.  To think of that is nearly intolerable!"
+
+Sometimes his condition had been one of utter remorse,
+unsoftened by a single tear of pure sorrow: and then
+he writhed as he lay, fevered far more by thought than
+by physical ills.  "If I could only get one assurance
+that she did not die in a belief that I was resentful,"
+he said one day when in this mood, "it would be better to
+think of than a hope of heaven.  But that I cannot do."
+
+"You give yourself up too much to this wearying despair,"
+said Eustacia.  "Other men's mothers have died."
+
+"That doesn't make the loss of mine less.  Yet it
+is less the loss than the circumstances of the loss. 
+I sinned against her, and on that account there is no
+light for me."
+
+"She sinned against you, I think."
+
+"No, she did not.  I committed the guilt; and may
+the whole burden be upon my head!"
+
+"I think you might consider twice before you say that,"
+Eustacia replied.  "Single men have, no doubt, a right
+to curse themselves as much as they please; but men with
+wives involve two in the doom they pray down."
+
+"I am in too sorry a state to understand what you are
+refining on," said the wretched man.  "Day and night shout
+at me, 'You have helped to kill her.' But in loathing
+myself I may, I own, be unjust to you, my poor wife. 
+Forgive me for it, Eustacia, for I scarcely know what I do."
+
+Eustacia was always anxious to avoid the sight of her
+husband in such a state as this, which had become as
+dreadful to her as the trial scene was to Judas Iscariot. 
+It brought before her eyes the spectre of a worn-out
+woman knocking at a door which she would not open;
+and she shrank from contemplating it.  Yet it was better
+for Yeobright himself when he spoke openly of his
+sharp regret, for in silence he endured infinitely more,
+and would sometimes remain so long in a tense, brooding mood,
+consuming himself by the gnawing of his thought, that it
+was imperatively necessary to make him talk aloud, that his
+grief might in some degree expend itself in the effort.
+
+Eustacia had not been long indoors after her look at
+the moonlight when a soft footstep came up to the house,
+and Thomasin was announced by the woman downstairs. 
+
+"Ah, Thomasin! Thank you for coming tonight," said Clym
+when she entered the room.  "Here am I, you see. 
+Such a wretched spectacle am I, that I shrink from being
+seen by a single friend, and almost from you."
+
+"You must not shrink from me, dear Clym," said Thomasin
+earnestly, in that sweet voice of hers which came
+to a sufferer like fresh air into a Black Hole. 
+"Nothing in you can ever shock me or drive me away. 
+I have been here before, but you don't remember it."
+
+"Yes, I do; I am not delirious, Thomasin, nor have I
+been so at all.  Don't you believe that if they say so. 
+I am only in great misery at what I have done, and that,
+with the weakness, makes me seem mad.  But it has not upset
+my reason.  Do you think I should remember all about my
+mother's death if I were out of my mind?  No such good luck. 
+Two months and a half, Thomasin, the last of her life, did my
+poor mother live alone, distracted and mourning because of me;
+yet she was unvisited by me, though I was living only six
+miles off.  Two months and a half--seventy-five days did
+the sun rise and set upon her in that deserted state
+which a dog didn't deserve! Poor people who had nothing
+in common with her would have cared for her, and visited
+her had they known her sickness and loneliness; but I,
+who should have been all to her, stayed away like a cur. 
+If there is any justice in God let Him kill me now. 
+He has nearly blinded me, but that is not enough. 
+If He would only strike me with more pain I would believe in
+Him forever!"
+
+"Hush, hush! O, pray, Clym, don't, don't say it!"
+implored Thomasin, affrighted into sobs and tears;
+while Eustacia, at the other side of the room,
+though her pale face remained calm, writhed in her chair. 
+Clym went on without heeding his cousin. 
+
+"But I am not worth receiving further proof even of
+Heaven's reprobation.  Do you think, Thomasin, that she
+knew me--that she did not die in that horrid mistaken
+notion about my not forgiving her, which I can't
+tell you how she acquired?  If you could only assure
+me of that! Do you think so, Eustacia?  Do speak to me."
+
+"I think I can assure you that she knew better at last,"
+said Thomasin.  The pallid Eustacia said nothing. 
+
+"Why didn't she come to my house?  I would have taken
+her in and showed her how I loved her in spite of all. 
+But she never came; and I didn't go to her, and she died
+on the heath like an animal kicked out, nobody to help
+her till it was too late.  If you could have seen her,
+Thomasin, as I saw her--a poor dying woman, lying in
+the dark upon the bare ground, moaning, nobody near,
+believing she was utterly deserted by all the world,
+it would have moved you to anguish, it would have moved
+a brute.  And this poor woman my mother! No wonder she
+said to the child, 'You have seen a broken-hearted woman.'
+What a state she must have been brought to, to say that! and
+who can have done it but I?  It is too dreadful to think of,
+and I wish I could be punished more heavily than I am.
+How long was I what they called out of my senses?"
+
+"A week, I think."
+
+"And then I became calm."
+
+"Yes, for four days."
+
+"And now I have left off being calm."
+
+"But try to be quiet--please do, and you will soon be strong. 
+If you could remove that impression from your mind--"
+
+"Yes, yes," he said impatiently.  "But I don't want
+to get strong.  What's the use of my getting well?  It
+would be better for me if I die, and it would certainly
+be better for Eustacia.  Is Eustacia there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It would be better for you, Eustacia, if I were to die?"
+
+"Don't press such a question, dear Clym."
+
+"Well, it really is but a shadowy supposition;
+for unfortunately I am going to live.  I feel myself
+getting better.  Thomasin, how long are you going to stay
+at the inn, now that all this money has come to your husband?"
+
+"Another month or two, probably; until my illness is over. 
+We cannot get off till then.  I think it will be a month
+or more."
+
+"Yes, yes.  Of course.  Ah, Cousin Tamsie, you will get over
+your trouble--one little month will take you through it,
+and bring something to console you; but I shall never get
+over mine, and no consolation will come!"
+
+"Clym, you are unjust to yourself.  Depend upon it,
+Aunt thought kindly of you.  I know that, if she had lived,
+you would have been reconciled with her."
+
+"But she didn't come to see me, though I asked her,
+before I married, if she would come.  Had she come,
+or had I gone there, she would never have died saying,
+'I am a broken-hearted woman, cast off by my son.' My door
+has always been open to her--a welcome here has always
+awaited her.  But that she never came to see."
+
+"You had better not talk any more now, Clym," said Eustacia
+faintly from the other part of the room, for the scene
+was growing intolerable to her. 
+
+"Let me talk to you instead for the little time I shall
+be here," Thomasin said soothingly.  "Consider what a
+one-sided way you have of looking at the matter, Clym. 
+When she said that to the little boy you had not found her
+and taken her into your arms; and it might have been uttered
+in a moment of bitterness.  It was rather like Aunt to say
+things in haste.  She sometimes used to speak so to me.
+Though she did not come I am convinced that she thought
+of coming to see you.  Do you suppose a man's mother could
+live two or three months without one forgiving thought?
+She forgave me; and why should she not have forgiven you?"
+
+"You laboured to win her round; I did nothing.  I, who was
+going to teach people the higher secrets of happiness,
+did not know how to keep out of that gross misery which
+the most untaught are wise enough to avoid."
+
+"How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?" said Eustacia. 
+
+"Damon set me down at the end of the lane.  He has driven
+into East Egdon on business, and he will come and pick
+me up by-and-by."
+
+Accordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels. 
+Wildeve had come, and was waiting outside with his horse
+and gig. 
+
+"Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes,"
+said Thomasin. 
+
+"I will run down myself," said Eustacia.
+
+She went down.  Wildeve had alighted, and was standing
+before the horse's head when Eustacia opened the door.
+He did not turn for a moment, thinking the comer Thomasin. 
+Then he looked, startled ever so little, and said one word:
+"Well?"
+
+"I have not yet told him," she replied in a whisper. 
+
+"Then don't do so till he is well--it will be fatal. 
+You are ill yourself."
+
+"I am wretched....O Damon," she said, bursting into tears,
+"I--I can't tell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly
+bear this.  I can tell nobody of my trouble--nobody
+knows of it but you."
+
+"Poor girl!" said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress,
+and at last led on so far as to take her hand. 
+"It is hard, when you have done nothing to deserve it,
+that you should have got involved in such a web as this.
+You were not made for these sad scenes.  I am to blame most. 
+If I could only have saved you from it all!"
+
+"But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do?  To
+sit by him hour after hour, and hear him reproach
+himself as being the cause of her death, and to know
+that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all,
+drives me into cold despair.  I don't know what to do. 
+Should I tell him or should I not tell him?  I always am
+asking myself that.  O, I want to tell him; and yet I
+am afraid.  If he find it out he must surely kill me,
+for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings now. 
+'Beware the fury of a patient man' sounds day by day in my
+ears as I watch him."
+
+"Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance. 
+And when you tell, you must only tell part--for his
+own sake."
+
+"Which part should I keep back?"
+
+Wildeve paused.  "That I was in the house at the time,"
+he said in a low tone. 
+
+"Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has been whispered. 
+How much easier are hasty actions than speeches that will
+excuse them!"
+
+"If he were only to die--" Wildeve murmured. 
+
+"Do not think of it! I would not buy hope of immunity
+by so cowardly a desire even if I hated him.  Now I am
+going up to him again.  Thomasin bade me tell you she
+would be down in a few minutes.  Good-bye."
+
+She returned, and Thomasin soon appeared.  When she was
+seated in the gig with her husband, and the horse was turning
+to go off, Wildeve lifted his eyes to the bedroom windows. 
+Looking from one of them he could discern a pale,
+tragic face watching him drive away.  It was Eustacia's.
+
+
+
+2 - A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding
+
+
+Clym's grief became mitigated by wearing itself out. 
+His strength returned, and a month after the visit of
+Thomasin he might have been seen walking about the garden. 
+Endurance and despair, equanimity and gloom, the tints of
+health and the pallor of death, mingled weirdly in his face. 
+He was now unnaturally silent upon all of the past that
+related to his mother; and though Eustacia knew that he
+was thinking of it none the less, she was only too glad
+to escape the topic ever to bring it up anew.  When his
+mind had been weaker his heart had led him to speak out;
+but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he sank
+into taciturnity. 
+
+One evening when he was thus standing in the garden,
+abstractedly spudding up a weed with his stick, a bony
+figure turned the corner of the house and came up to him. 
+
+"Christian, isn't it?" said Clym.  "I am glad you have
+found me out.  I shall soon want you to go to Blooms-
+End and assist me in putting the house in order. 
+I suppose it is all locked up as I left it?"
+
+"Yes, Mister Clym."
+
+"Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?"
+
+"Yes, without a drop o' rain, thank God.  But I was
+coming to tell 'ee of something else which is quite
+different from what we have lately had in the family. 
+I am sent by the rich gentleman at the Woman, that we
+used to call the landlord, to tell 'ee that Mrs. Wildeve
+is doing well of a girl, which was born punctually
+at one o'clock at noon, or a few minutes more or less;
+and 'tis said that expecting of this increase is what have
+kept 'em there since they came into their money."
+
+"And she is getting on well, you say?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  Only Mr. Wildeve is twanky because 'tisn't
+a boy--that's what they say in the kitchen, but I was
+not supposed to notice that."
+
+"Christian, now listen to me."
+
+"Yes, sure, Mr. Yeobright."
+
+"Did you see my mother the day before she died?"
+
+"No, I did not."
+
+Yeobright's face expressed disappointment. 
+
+"But I zeed her the morning of the same day she died."
+
+Clym's look lighted up.  "That's nearer still to my meaning,"
+he said.
+
+"Yes, I know 'twas the same day; for she said, 'I be going
+to see him, Christian; so I shall not want any vegetables
+brought in for dinner.'"
+
+"See whom?"
+
+"See you.  She was going to your house, you understand."
+
+Yeobright regarded Christian with intense surprise. 
+"Why did you never mention this?" he said.  "Are you sure
+it was my house she was coming to?"
+
+"O yes.  I didn't mention it because I've never zeed
+you lately.  And as she didn't get there it was all nought,
+and nothing to tell."
+
+"And I have been wondering why she should have walked in
+the heath on that hot day! Well, did she say what she was
+coming for?  It is a thing, Christian, I am very anxious to know."
+
+"Yes, Mister Clym.  She didn't say it to me, though I
+think she did to one here and there."
+
+"Do you know one person to whom she spoke of it?"
+
+"There is one man, please, sir, but I hope you won't mention
+my name to him, as I have seen him in strange places,
+particular in dreams.  One night last summer he glared
+at me like Famine and Sword, and it made me feel so low
+that I didn't comb out my few hairs for two days. 
+He was standing, as it might be, Mister Yeobright, in the
+middle of the path to Mistover, and your mother came up,
+looking as pale--"
+
+"Yes, when was that?"
+
+"Last summer, in my dream."
+
+"Pooh! Who's the man?"
+
+"Diggory, the reddleman.  He called upon her and sat
+with her the evening before she set out to see you. 
+I hadn't gone home from work when he came up to the gate."
+
+"I must see Venn--I wish I had known it before,"
+said Clym anxiously.  "I wonder why he has not come
+to tell me?"
+
+"He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not
+be likely to know you wanted him."
+
+"Christian," said Clym, "you must go and find Venn. 
+I am otherwise engaged, or I would go myself.  Find him
+at once, and tell him I want to speak to him."
+
+"I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day," said Christian,
+looking dubiously round at the declining light;
+"but as to night-time, never is such a bad hand as I,
+Mister Yeobright."
+
+"Search the heath when you will, so that you bring him soon. 
+Bring him tomorrow, if you can."
+
+Christian then departed.  The morrow came, but no Venn. 
+In the evening Christian arrived, looking very weary.
+He had been searching all day, and had heard nothing of
+the reddleman. 
+
+"Inquire as much as you can tomorrow without neglecting
+your work," said Yeobright.  "Don't come again till you
+have found him."
+
+The next day Yeobright set out for the old house at
+Blooms-End, which, with the garden, was now his own. 
+His severe illness had hindered all preparations for his
+removal thither; but it had become necessary that he
+should go and overlook its contents, as administrator
+to his mother's little property; for which purpose he
+decided to pass the next night on the premises. 
+
+He journeyed onward, not quickly or decisively, but in the slow
+walk of one who has been awakened from a stupefying sleep. 
+It was early afternoon when he reached the valley.
+The expression of the place, the tone of the hour,
+were precisely those of many such occasions in days gone by;
+and these antecedent similarities fostered the illusion that she,
+who was there no longer, would come out to welcome him. 
+The garden gate was locked and the shutters were closed,
+just as he himself had left them on the evening after
+the funeral.  He unlocked the gate, and found that a spider
+had already constructed a large web, tying the door
+to the lintel, on the supposition that it was never to be
+opened again.  When he had entered the house and flung
+back the shutters he set about his task of overhauling
+the cupboards and closets, burning papers, and considering
+how best to arrange the place for Eustacia's reception,
+until such time as he might be in a position to carry
+out his long-delayed scheme, should that time ever arrive. 
+
+As he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined
+for the alterations which would have to be made in the
+time-honoured furnishing of his parents and grandparents,
+to suit Eustacia's modern ideas.  The gaunt oak-cased clock,
+with the picture of the Ascension on the door panel
+and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes on the base;
+his grandmother's corner cupboard with the glass door,
+through which the spotted china was visible; the dumb-waiter;
+the wooden tea trays; the hanging fountain with the brass
+tap--whither would these venerable articles have to be
+banished?
+
+He noticed that the flowers in the window had died for
+want of water, and he placed them out upon the ledge,
+that they might be taken away.  While thus engaged he
+heard footsteps on the gravel without, and somebody
+knocked at the door. 
+
+Yeobright opened it, and Venn was standing before him. 
+
+"Good morning," said the reddleman.  "Is Mrs. Yeobright
+at home?"
+
+Yeobright looked upon the ground.  "Then you have not
+seen Christian or any of the Egdon folks?" he said. 
+
+"No. I have only just returned after a long stay away. 
+I called here the day before I left."
+
+"And you have heard nothing?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"My mother is--dead."
+
+"Dead!" said Venn mechanically. 
+
+"Her home now is where I shouldn't mind having mine."
+
+Venn regarded him, and then said, "If I didn't see your
+face I could never believe your words.  Have you been ill?"
+
+"I had an illness."
+
+"Well, the change! When I parted from her a month ago
+everything seemed to say that she was going to begin
+a new life."
+
+"And what seemed came true."
+
+"You say right, no doubt.  Trouble has taught you a deeper
+vein of talk than mine.  All I meant was regarding
+her life here.  She has died too soon."
+
+"Perhaps through my living too long.  I have had a bitter
+experience on that score this last month, Diggory. 
+But come in; I have been wanting to see you."
+
+He conducted the reddleman into the large room where
+the dancing had taken place the previous Christmas,
+and they sat down in the settle together.  "There's the
+cold fireplace, you see," said Clym.  "When that half-
+burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive!
+Little has been changed here yet.  I can do nothing. 
+My life creeps like a snail."
+
+"How came she to die?" said Venn. 
+
+Yeobright gave him some particulars of her illness
+and death, and continued: "After this no kind of pain
+will ever seem more than an indisposition to me.
+I began saying that I wanted to ask you something, but I
+stray from subjects like a drunken man.  I am anxious
+to know what my mother said to you when she last saw you. 
+You talked with her a long time, I think?"
+
+"I talked with her more than half an hour."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"Yes. And it must have been on account of what we said
+that she was on the heath.  Without question she was
+coming to see you."
+
+"But why should she come to see me if she felt so bitterly
+against me?  There's the mystery."
+
+"Yet I know she quite forgave 'ee."
+
+"But, Diggory--would a woman, who had quite forgiven her son,
+say, when she felt herself ill on the way to his house,
+that she was broken-hearted because of his ill-usage?  Never!"
+
+"What I know is that she didn't blame you at all. 
+She blamed herself for what had happened, and only herself. 
+I had it from her own lips."
+
+"You had it from her lips that I had NOT ill-treated her;
+and at the same time another had it from her lips that I
+HAD ill-treated her?  My mother was no impulsive woman
+who changed her opinion every hour without reason. 
+How can it be, Venn, that she should have told such
+different stories in close succession?"
+
+"I cannot say.  It is certainly odd, when she had
+forgiven you, and had forgiven your wife, and was going
+to see ye on purpose to make friends."
+
+"If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this
+incomprehensible thing!...Diggory, if we, who remain alive,
+were only allowed to hold conversation with the dead--just
+once, a bare minute, even through a screen of iron bars,
+as with persons in prison--what we might learn! How many
+who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And this
+mystery--I should then be at the bottom of it at once. 
+But the grave has forever shut her in; and how shall it
+be found out now?"
+
+No reply was returned by his companion, since none could
+be given; and when Venn left, a few minutes later,
+Clym had passed from the dullness of sorrow to the
+fluctuation of carking incertitude. 
+
+He continued in the same state all the afternoon. 
+A bed was made up for him in the same house by a neighbour,
+that he might not have to return again the next day;
+and when he retired to rest in the deserted place it
+was only to remain awake hour after hour thinking the
+same thoughts.  How to discover a solution to this riddle
+of death seemed a query of more importance than highest
+problems of the living.  There was housed in his memory
+a vivid picture of the face of a little boy as he entered
+the hovel where Clym's mother lay.  The round eyes,
+eager gaze, the piping voice which enunciated the words,
+had operated like stilettos on his brain. 
+
+A visit to the boy suggested itself as a means of gleaning
+new particulars; though it might be quite unproductive. 
+To probe a child's mind after the lapse of six weeks,
+not for facts which the child had seen and understood,
+but to get at those which were in their nature beyond him,
+did not promise much; yet when every obvious channel
+is blocked we grope towards the small and obscure. 
+There was nothing else left to do; after that he would allow
+the enigma to drop into the abyss of undiscoverable things. 
+
+It was about daybreak when he had reached this decision,
+and he at once arose.  He locked up the house and went out
+into the green patch which merged in heather further on. 
+In front of the white garden-palings the path branched
+into three like a broad arrow.  The road to the right led
+to the Quiet Woman and its neighbourhood; the middle track
+led to Mistover Knap; the left-hand track led over the hill
+to another part of Mistover, where the child lived. 
+On inclining into the latter path Yeobright felt
+a creeping chilliness, familiar enough to most people,
+and probably caused by the unsunned morning air.  In after
+days he thought of it as a thing of singular significance. 
+
+When Yeobright reached the cottage of Susan Nunsuch,
+the mother of the boy he sought, he found that the inmates
+were not yet astir.  But in upland hamlets the transition
+from a-bed to abroad is surprisingly swift and easy. 
+There no dense partition of yawns and toilets divides
+humanity by night from humanity by day.  Yeobright tapped
+at the upper windowsill, which he could reach with his
+walking stick; and in three or four minutes the woman
+came down. 
+
+It was not till this moment that Clym recollected her to be
+the person who had behaved so barbarously to Eustacia. 
+It partly explained the insuavity with which the woman
+greeted him.  Moreover, the boy had been ailing again;
+and Susan now, as ever since the night when he had
+been pressed into Eustacia's service at the bonfire,
+attributed his indispositions to Eustacia's influence
+as a witch.  It was one of those sentiments which lurk
+like moles underneath the visible surface of manners,
+and may have been kept alive by Eustacia's entreaty to
+the captain, at the time that he had intended to prosecute
+Susan for the pricking in church, to let the matter drop;
+which he accordingly had done. 
+
+Yeobright overcame his repugnance, for Susan had at least
+borne his mother no ill-will. He asked kindly for the boy;
+but her manner did not improve. 
+
+"I wish to see him," continued Yeobright, with some hesitation,
+"to ask him if he remembers anything more of his walk
+with my mother than what he has previously told."
+
+She regarded him in a peculiar and criticizing manner. 
+To anybody but a half-blind man it would have said,
+"You want another of the knocks which have already laid you
+so low."
+
+She called the boy downstairs, asked Clym to sit down on
+a stool, and continued, "Now, Johnny, tell Mr. Yeobright
+anything you can call to mind."
+
+"You have not forgotten how you walked with the poor lady
+on that hot day?" said Clym. 
+
+"No," said the boy. 
+
+"And what she said to you?"
+
+The boy repeated the exact words he had used on entering the hut. 
+Yeobright rested his elbow on the table and shaded his face
+with his hand; and the mother looked as if she wondered
+how a man could want more of what had stung him so deeply. 
+
+"She was going to Alderworth when you first met her?"
+
+"No; she was coming away."
+
+"That can't be."
+
+"Yes; she walked along with me.  I was coming away, too."
+
+"Then where did you first see her?"
+
+"At your house."
+
+"Attend, and speak the truth!" said Clym sternly. 
+
+"Yes, sir; at your house was where I seed her first."
+
+Clym started up, and Susan smiled in an expectant way
+which did not embellish her face; it seemed to mean,
+"Something sinister is coming!"
+
+"What did she do at my house?"
+
+"She went and sat under the trees at the Devil's Bellows."
+
+"Good God! this is all news to me!"
+
+"You never told me this before?" said Susan.
+
+"No, Mother; because I didn't like to tell 'ee I had been
+so far.  I was picking blackhearts, and went further
+than I meant."
+
+"What did she do then?" said Yeobright. 
+
+"Looked at a man who came up and went into your house."
+
+"That was myself--a furze-cutter, with brambles in his hand."
+
+"No; 'twas not you.  'Twas a gentleman.  You had gone
+in afore."
+
+"Who was he?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Now tell me what happened next."
+
+"The poor lady went and knocked at your door, and the lady
+with black hair looked out of the side window at her."
+
+The boy's mother turned to Clym and said, "This is
+something you didn't expect?"
+
+Yeobright took no more notice of her than if he had been
+of stone.  "Go on, go on," he said hoarsely to the boy. 
+
+"And when she saw the young lady look out of the window
+the old lady knocked again; and when nobody came she took
+up the furze-hook and looked at it, and put it down again,
+and then she looked at the faggot-bonds; and then she
+went away, and walked across to me, and blowed her breath
+very hard, like this.  We walked on together, she and I,
+and I talked to her and she talked to me a bit, but not much,
+because she couldn't blow her breath."
+
+"O!" murmured Clym, in a low tone, and bowed his head.
+"Let's have more," he said. 
+
+"She couldn't talk much, and she couldn't walk; and her
+face was, O so queer!"
+
+"How was her face?"
+
+"Like yours is now."
+
+The woman looked at Yeobright, and beheld him colourless,
+in a cold sweat.  "Isn't there meaning in it?"
+she said stealthily.  "What do you think of her now?"
+
+"Silence!" said Clym fiercely.  And, turning to the boy,
+"And then you left her to die?"
+
+"No," said the woman, quickly and angrily.  "He did
+not leave her to die! She sent him away.  Whoever says
+he forsook her says what's not true."
+
+"Trouble no more about that," answered Clym, with a
+quivering mouth.  "What he did is a trifle in comparison
+with what he saw.  Door kept shut, did you say?  Kept shut,
+she looking out of window?  Good heart of God!--what
+does it mean?"
+
+The child shrank away from the gaze of his questioner. 
+
+"He said so," answered the mother, "and Johnny's a God-
+fearing boy and tells no lies."
+
+"'Cast off by my son!' No, by my best life, dear mother,
+it is not so! But by your son's, your son's--May all
+murderesses get the torment they deserve!"
+
+With these words Yeobright went forth from the little dwelling. 
+The pupils of his eyes, fixed steadfastly on blankness,
+were vaguely lit with an icy shine; his mouth had passed
+into the phase more or less imaginatively rendered in studies
+of Oedipus.  The strangest deeds were possible to his mood. 
+But they were not possible to his situation.  Instead of there
+being before him the pale face of Eustacia, and a masculine
+shape unknown, there was only the imperturbable countenance
+of the heath, which, having defied the cataclysmal onsets
+of centuries, reduced to insignificance by its seamed
+and antique features the wildest turmoil of a single man. 
+
+
+
+3 - Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning
+
+
+
+A consciousness of a vast impassivity in all which lay
+around him took possession even of Yeobright in his wild
+walk towards Alderworth.  He had once before felt in his own
+person this overpowering of the fervid by the inanimate;
+but then it had tended to enervate a passion far sweeter
+than that which at present pervaded him.  It was once
+when he stood parting from Eustacia in the moist still
+levels beyond the hills. 
+
+But dismissing all this he went onward home, and came to
+the front of his house.  The blinds of Eustacia's bedroom
+were still closely drawn, for she was no early riser. 
+All the life visible was in the shape of a solitary thrush
+cracking a small snail upon the door-stone for his breakfast,
+and his tapping seemed a loud noise in the general
+silence which prevailed; but on going to the door Clym
+found it unfastened, the young girl who attended upon
+Eustacia being astir in the back part of the premises. 
+Yeobright entered and went straight to his wife's room. 
+
+The noise of his arrival must have aroused her, for when
+he opened the door she was standing before the looking
+glass in her nightdress, the ends of her hair gathered
+into one hand, with which she was coiling the whole mass
+round her head, previous to beginning toilette operations. 
+She was not a woman given to speaking first at a meeting,
+and she allowed Clym to walk across in silence,
+without turning her head.  He came behind her, and she saw
+his face in the glass.  It was ashy, haggard, and terrible. 
+Instead of starting towards him in sorrowful surprise,
+as even Eustacia, undemonstrative wife as she was, would have
+done in days before she burdened herself with a secret,
+she remained motionless, looking at him in the glass. 
+And while she looked the carmine flush with which warmth
+and sound sleep had suffused her cheeks and neck dissolved
+from view, and the deathlike pallor in his face flew across
+into hers.  He was close enough to see this, and the sight
+instigated his tongue. 
+
+"You know what is the matter," he said huskily. 
+"I see it in your face."
+
+Her hand relinquished the rope of hair and dropped to
+her side, and the pile of tresses, no longer supported,
+fell from the crown of her head about her shoulders
+and over the white nightgown.  She made no reply. 
+
+"Speak to me," said Yeobright peremptorily. 
+
+The blanching process did not cease in her, and her lips
+now became as white as her face.  She turned to him
+and said, "Yes, Clym, I'll speak to you.  Why do you
+return so early?  Can I do anything for you?"
+
+"Yes, you can listen to me.  It seems that my wife
+is not very well?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Your face, my dear; your face.  Or perhaps it is
+the pale morning light which takes your colour away?
+Now I am going to reveal a secret to you.  Ha-ha!"
+
+"O, that is ghastly!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Your laugh."
+
+"There's reason for ghastliness.  Eustacia, you have held
+my happiness in the hollow of your hand, and like a devil
+you have dashed it down!"
+
+She started back from the dressing-table, retreated a few
+steps from him, and looked him in the face.  "Ah! you
+think to frighten me," she said, with a slight laugh.
+"Is it worth while?  I am undefended, and alone."
+
+"How extraordinary!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"As there is ample time I will tell you, though you know
+well enough.  I mean that it is extraordinary that you
+should be alone in my absence.  Tell me, now, where is
+he who was with you on the afternoon of the thirty-
+first of August?  Under the bed?  Up the chimney?"
+
+A shudder overcame her and shook the light fabric of her
+nightdress throughout.  "I do not remember dates so exactly,"
+she said.  "I cannot recollect that anybody was with me
+besides yourself."
+
+"The day I mean," said Yeobright, his voice growing louder
+and harsher, "was the day you shut the door against my
+mother and killed her.  O, it is too much--too bad!"
+He leant over the footpiece of the bedstead for a few moments,
+with his back towards her; then rising again--"Tell me,
+tell me! tell me--do you hear?" he cried, rushing up to
+her and seizing her by the loose folds of her sleeve. 
+
+The superstratum of timidity which often overlies those who
+are daring and defiant at heart had been passed through,
+and the mettlesome substance of the woman was reached. 
+The red blood inundated her face, previously so pale. 
+
+"What are you going to do?" she said in a low voice,
+regarding him with a proud smile.  "You will not alarm
+me by holding on so; but it would be a pity to tear
+my sleeve."
+
+Instead of letting go he drew her closer to him.  "Tell me
+the particulars of--my mother's death," he said in a hard,
+panting whisper; "or--I'll--I'll--"
+
+"Clym," she answered slowly, "do you think you dare
+do anything to me that I dare not bear?  But before you
+strike me listen.  You will get nothing from me by a blow,
+even though it should kill me, as it probably will. 
+But perhaps you do not wish me to speak--killing may be all
+you mean?"
+
+"Kill you! Do you expect it?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"No less degree of rage against me will match your previous
+grief for her."
+
+"Phew--I shall not kill you," he said contemptuously,
+as if under a sudden change of purpose.  "I did think of it;
+but--I shall not.  That would be making a martyr of you,
+and sending you to where she is; and I would keep
+you away from her till the universe come to an end,
+if I could."
+
+"I almost wish you would kill me," said she with gloomy
+bitterness.  "It is with no strong desire, I assure you,
+that I play the part I have lately played on earth. 
+You are no blessing, my husband."
+
+"You shut the door--you looked out of the window upon
+her--you had a man in the house with you--you sent her
+away to die.  The inhumanity--the treachery--I will not
+touch you--stand away from me--and confess every word!"
+
+"Never! I'll hold my tongue like the very death that I
+don't mind meeting, even though I can clear myself
+of half you believe by speaking.  Yes.  I will! Who
+of any dignity would take the trouble to clear cobwebs
+from a wild man's mind after such language as this?  No;
+let him go on, and think his narrow thoughts, and run
+his head into the mire.  I have other cares."
+
+"'Tis too much--but I must spare you."
+
+"Poor charity."
+
+"By my wretched soul you sting me, Eustacia! I can keep
+it up, and hotly too.  Now, then, madam, tell me his name!"
+
+"Never, I am resolved."
+
+"How often does he write to you?  Where does he put his
+letters--when does he meet you?  Ah, his letters! Do you
+tell me his name?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Then I'll find it myself."  His eyes had fallen upon
+a small desk that stood near, on which she was accustomed
+to write her letters.  He went to it.  It was locked. 
+
+"Unlock this!"
+
+"You have no right to say it.  That's mine."
+
+Without another word he seized the desk and dashed
+it to the floor.  The hinge burst open, and a number
+of letters tumbled out. 
+
+"Stay!" said Eustacia, stepping before him with more
+excitement than she had hitherto shown. 
+
+"Come, come! stand away! I must see them."
+
+She looked at the letters as they lay, checked her feeling
+and moved indifferently aside; when he gathered them up,
+and examined them. 
+
+By no stretch of meaning could any but a harmless construction
+be placed upon a single one of the letters themselves. 
+The solitary exception was an empty envelope directed to her,
+and the handwriting was Wildeve's. Yeobright held it up. 
+Eustacia was doggedly silent. 
+
+"Can you read, madam?  Look at this envelope.  Doubtless we
+shall find more soon, and what was inside them. 
+I shall no doubt be gratified by learning in good time
+what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a certain
+trade my lady is."
+
+"Do you say it to me--do you?" she gasped. 
+
+He searched further, but found nothing more.  "What was
+in this letter?" he said. 
+
+"Ask the writer.  Am I your hound that you should talk
+to me in this way?"
+
+"Do you brave me?  do you stand me out, mistress?  Answer. 
+Don't look at me with those eyes if you would bewitch me
+again! Sooner than that I die.  You refuse to answer?"
+
+"I wouldn't tell you after this, if I were as innocent
+as the sweetest babe in heaven!"
+
+"Which you are not."
+
+"Certainly I am not absolutely," she replied.  "I have not
+done what you suppose; but if to have done no harm at all
+is the only innocence recognized, I am beyond forgiveness. 
+But I require no help from your conscience."
+
+"You can resist, and resist again! Instead of hating
+you I could, I think, mourn for and pity you, if you
+were contrite, and would confess all.  Forgive you I
+never can.  I don't speak of your lover--I will give you
+the benefit of the doubt in that matter, for it only affects
+me personally.  But the other--had you half-killed me,
+had it been that you wilfully took the sight away from
+these feeble eyes of mine, I could have forgiven you. 
+But THAT'S too much for nature!"
+
+"Say no more.  I will do without your pity.  But I would
+have saved you from uttering what you will regret."
+
+"I am going away now.  I shall leave you."
+
+"You need not go, as I am going myself.  You will keep
+just as far away from me by staying here."
+
+"Call her to mind--think of her--what goodness there was
+in her--it showed in every line of her face! Most women,
+even when but slightly annoyed, show a flicker of evil
+in some curl of the mouth or some corner of the cheek;
+but as for her, never in her angriest moments was there
+anything malicious in her look.  She was angered quickly,
+but she forgave just as readily, and underneath her pride there
+was the meekness of a child.  What came of it.?--what cared
+you?  You hated her just as she was learning to love you. 
+O! couldn't you see what was best for you, but must
+bring a curse upon me, and agony and death upon her,
+by doing that cruel deed! What was the fellow's name
+who was keeping you company and causing you to add cruelty
+to her to your wrong to me?  Was it Wildeve?  Was it poor
+Thomasin's husband?  Heaven, what wickedness! Lost your voice,
+have you?  It is natural after detection of that most noble
+trick....Eustacia, didn't any tender thought of your own
+mother lead you to think of being gentle to mine at such
+a time of weariness?  Did not one grain of pity enter your
+heart as she turned away?  Think what a vast opportunity
+was then lost of beginning a forgiving and honest course.
+Why did not you kick him out, and let her in, and say I'll
+be an honest wife and a noble woman from this hour?  Had I
+told you to go and quench eternally our last flickering
+chance of happiness here you could have done no worse. 
+Well, she's asleep now; and have you a hundred gallants,
+neither they nor you can insult her any more."
+
+"You exaggerate fearfully," she said in a faint,
+weary voice; "but I cannot enter into my defence--it
+is not worth doing.  You are nothing to me in future,
+and the past side of the story may as well remain untold. 
+I have lost all through you, but I have not complained. 
+Your blunders and misfortunes may have been a sorrow to you,
+but they have been a wrong to me.  All persons of refinement
+have been scared away from me since I sank into the mire
+of marriage.  Is this your cherishing--to put me into a hut
+like this, and keep me like the wife of a hind?  You deceived
+me--not by words, but by appearances, which are less seen
+through than words.  But the place will serve as well
+as any other--as somewhere to pass from--into my grave."
+Her words were smothered in her throat, and her head
+drooped down.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that.  Am I the cause of
+your sin?" (Eustacia made a trembling motion towards him.)
+"What, you can begin to shed tears and offer me your
+hand?  Good God! can you?  No, not I. I'll not commit
+the fault of taking that."  (The hand she had offered
+dropped nervelessly, but the tears continued flowing.)
+"Well, yes, I'll take it, if only for the sake of my own
+foolish kisses that were wasted there before I knew
+what I cherished.  How bewitched I was! How could there
+be any good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?"
+
+"O, O, O!" she cried, breaking down at last; and, shaking
+with sobs which choked her, she sank upon her knees. 
+"O, will you have done! O, you are too relentless--there's
+a limit to the cruelty of savages! I have held out long--but
+you crush me down.  I beg for mercy--I cannot bear this
+any longer--it is inhuman to go further with this! If I
+had--killed your--mother with my own hand--I should not
+deserve such a scourging to the bone as this.  O, O! God
+have mercy upon a miserable woman!...You have beaten me in
+this game--I beg you to stay your hand in pity!...I confess
+that I--wilfully did not undo the door the first time she
+knocked--but--I should have unfastened it the second--
+if I had not thought you had gone to do it yourself. 
+When I found you had not I opened it, but she was gone. 
+That's the extent of my crime--towards HER. Best natures
+commit bad faults sometimes, don't they?--I think they do. 
+Now I will leave you--for ever and ever!"
+
+"Tell all, and I WILL pity you.  Was the man
+in the house with you Wildeve?"
+
+"I cannot tell," she said desperately through her sobbing. 
+"Don't insist further--I cannot tell.  I am going from
+this house.  We cannot both stay here."
+
+"You need not go--I will go.  You can stay here."
+
+"No, I will dress, and then I will go."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Where I came from, or ELSEWHERE."
+
+She hastily dressed herself, Yeobright moodily
+walking up and down the room the whole of the time. 
+At last all her things were on.  Her little hands
+quivered so violently as she held them to her chin
+to fasten her bonnet that she could not tie the strings,
+and after a few moments she relinquished the attempt. 
+Seeing this he moved forward and said, "Let me tie them."
+
+She assented in silence, and lifted her chin.  For once
+at least in her life she was totally oblivious of the
+charm of her attitude.  But he was not, and he turned
+his eyes aside, that he might not be tempted to softness. 
+
+The strings were tied; she turned from him.  "Do you
+still prefer going away yourself to my leaving you?"
+he inquired again. 
+
+"I do."
+
+"Very well--let it be.  And when you will confess
+to the man I may pity you."
+
+She flung her shawl about her and went downstairs,
+leaving him standing in the room. 
+
+
+Eustacia had not long been gone when there came a knock
+at the door of the bedroom; and Yeobright said, "Well?"
+
+It was the servant; and she replied, "Somebody from
+Mrs. Wildeve's have called to tell 'ee that the mis'ess
+and the baby are getting on wonderful well, and the baby's
+name is to be Eustacia Clementine."  And the girl retired. 
+
+"What a mockery!" said Clym.  "This unhappy marriage
+of mine to be perpetuated in that child's name!"
+
+
+
+4 - The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One
+
+
+Eustacia's journey was at first as vague in direction as that
+of thistledown on the wind.  She did not know what to do. 
+She wished it had been night instead of morning, that she
+might at least have borne her misery without the possibility
+of being seen.  Tracing mile after mile along between
+the dying ferns and the wet white spiders' webs, she at
+length turned her steps towards her grandfather's house. 
+She found the front door closed and locked.  Mechanically she
+went round to the end where the stable was, and on looking
+in at the stable door she saw Charley standing within. 
+
+"Captain Vye is not at home?" she said. 
+
+"No, ma'am," said the lad in a flutter of feeling;
+"he's gone to Weatherbury, and won't be home till night. 
+And the servant is gone home for a holiday.  So the house
+is locked up."
+
+Eustacia's face was not visible to Charley as she stood
+at the doorway, her back being to the sky, and the stable
+but indifferently lighted; but the wildness of her manner
+arrested his attention.  She turned and walked away across
+the enclosure to the gate, and was hidden by the bank. 
+
+When she had disappeared Charley, with misgiving
+in his eyes, slowly came from the stable door,
+and going to another point in the bank he looked over. 
+Eustacia was leaning against it on the outside,
+her face covered with her hands, and her head pressing
+the dewy heather which bearded the bank's outer side. 
+She appeared to be utterly indifferent to the circumstance
+that her bonnet, hair, and garments were becoming wet
+and disarranged by the moisture of her cold, harsh pillow. 
+Clearly something was wrong. 
+
+Charley had always regarded Eustacia as Eustacia had
+regarded Clym when she first beheld him--as a romantic
+and sweet vision, scarcely incarnate.  He had been
+so shut off from her by the dignity of her look and
+the pride of her speech, except at that one blissful
+interval when he was allowed to hold her hand, that he
+had hardly deemed her a woman, wingless and earthly,
+subject to household conditions and domestic jars. 
+The inner details of her life he had only conjectured. 
+She had been a lovely wonder, predestined to an orbit
+in which the whole of his own was but a point; and this
+sight of her leaning like a helpless, despairing creature
+against a wild wet bank filled him with an amazed horror. 
+He could no longer remain where he was.  Leaping over,
+he came up, touched her with his finger, and said tenderly,
+"You are poorly, ma'am. What can I do?"
+
+Eustacia started up, and said, "Ah, Charley--you
+have followed me.  You did not think when I left
+home in the summer that I should come back like this!"
+
+"I did not, dear ma'am. Can I help you now?"
+
+"I am afraid not.  I wish I could get into the house.
+I feel giddy--that's all."
+
+"Lean on my arm, ma'am, till we get to the porch, and I
+will try to open the door."
+
+He supported her to the porch, and there depositing her on
+a seat hastened to the back, climbed to a window by the
+help of a ladder, and descending inside opened the door. 
+Next he assisted her into the room, where there was an
+old-fashioned horsehair settee as large as a donkey wagon. 
+She lay down here, and Charley covered her with a cloak he
+found in the hall. 
+
+"Shall I get you something to eat and drink?" he said. 
+
+"If you please, Charley.  But I suppose there is no fire?"
+
+"I can light it, ma'am."
+
+He vanished, and she heard a splitting of wood and a blowing
+of bellows; and presently he returned, saying, "I have
+lighted a fire in the kitchen, and now I'll light one here."
+
+He lit the fire, Eustacia dreamily observing him from
+her couch.  When it was blazing up he said, "Shall I wheel
+you round in front of it, ma'am, as the morning is chilly?"
+
+"Yes, if you like."
+
+"Shall I go and bring the victuals now?"
+
+"Yes, do," she murmured languidly. 
+
+When he had gone, and the dull sounds occasionally
+reached her ears of his movements in the kitchen,
+she forgot where she was, and had for a moment to consider
+by an effort what the sounds meant.  After an interval
+which seemed short to her whose thoughts were elsewhere,
+he came in with a tray on which steamed tea and toast,
+though it was nearly lunch-time.
+
+"Place it on the table," she said.  "I shall be ready soon."
+
+He did so, and retired to the door; when, however,
+he perceived that she did not move he came back a few steps. 
+
+"Let me hold it to you, if you don't wish to get up,"
+said Charley.  He brought the tray to the front of the couch,
+where he knelt down, adding, "I will hold it for you."
+
+Eustacia sat up and poured out a cup of tea.  "You are
+very kind to me, Charley," she murmured as she sipped. 
+
+"Well, I ought to be," said he diffidently, taking great
+trouble not to rest his eyes upon her, though this was
+their only natural position, Eustacia being immediately
+before him.  "You have been kind to me."
+
+"How have I?" said Eustacia. 
+
+"You let me hold your hand when you were a maiden at home."
+
+"Ah, so I did.  Why did I do that?  My mind is lost--it
+had to do with the mumming, had it not?"
+
+"Yes, you wanted to go in my place."
+
+"I remember.  I do indeed remember--too well!"
+
+She again became utterly downcast; and Charley,
+seeing that she was not going to eat or drink any more,
+took away the tray. 
+
+Afterwards he occasionally came in to see if the fire
+was burning, to ask her if she wanted anything, to tell
+her that the wind had shifted from south to west, to ask
+her if she would like him to gather her some blackberries;
+to all which inquiries she replied in the negative or
+with indifference. 
+
+She remained on the settee some time longer, when she
+aroused herself and went upstairs.  The room in which she
+had formerly slept still remained much as she had left it,
+and the recollection that this forced upon her of her
+own greatly changed and infinitely worsened situation
+again set on her face the undetermined and formless
+misery which it had worn on her first arrival. 
+She peeped into her grandfather's room, through which
+the fresh autumn air was blowing from the open window. 
+Her eye was arrested by what was a familiar sight enough,
+though it broke upon her now with a new significance. 
+
+It was a brace of pistols, hanging near the head of her
+grandfather's bed, which he always kept there loaded,
+as a precaution against possible burglars, the house being
+very lonely.  Eustacia regarded them long, as if they
+were the page of a book in which she read a new and a
+strange matter.  Quickly, like one afraid of herself,
+she returned downstairs and stood in deep thought. 
+
+"If I could only do it!" she said.  "It would be doing
+much good to myself and all connected with me, and no
+harm to a single one."
+
+The idea seemed to gather force within her, and she
+remained in a fixed attitude nearly ten minutes,
+when a certain finality was expressed in her gaze,
+and no longer the blankness of indecision. 
+
+She turned and went up the second time--softly and
+stealthily now--and entered her grandfather's room, her eyes
+at once seeking the head of the bed.  The pistols were gone. 
+
+The instant quashing of her purpose by their absence
+affected her brain as a sudden vacuum affects the
+body--she nearly fainted.  Who had done this?  There
+was only one person on the premises besides herself. 
+Eustacia involuntarily turned to the open window
+which overlooked the garden as far as the bank that
+bounded it.  On the summit of the latter stood Charley,
+sufficiently elevated by its height to see into the room. 
+His gaze was directed eagerly and solicitously upon her. 
+
+She went downstairs to the door and beckoned to him. 
+
+"You have taken them away?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Why did you do it?"
+
+"I saw you looking at them too long."
+
+"What has that to do with it?"
+
+"You have been heart-broken all the morning, as if you
+did not want to live."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And I could not bear to leave them in your way. 
+There was meaning in your look at them."
+
+"Where are they now?"
+
+"Locked up."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the stable."
+
+"Give them to me."
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"You refuse?"
+
+"I do.  I care too much for you to give 'em up."
+
+She turned aside, her face for the first time softening
+from the stony immobility of the earlier day, and the
+corners of her mouth resuming something of that delicacy
+of cut which was always lost in her moments of despair. 
+At last she confronted him again. 
+
+"Why should I not die if I wish?" she said tremulously. 
+"I have made a bad bargain with life, and I am weary
+of it--weary. And now you have hindered my escape.
+O, why did you, Charley! What makes death painful except
+the thought of others' grief?--and that is absent in my case,
+for not a sigh would follow me!"
+
+"Ah, it is trouble that has done this! I wish in my very
+soul that he who brought it about might die and rot,
+even if 'tis transportation to say it!"
+
+"Charley, no more of that.  What do you mean to do about
+this you have seen?"
+
+"Keep it close as night, if you promise not to think
+of it again."
+
+"You need not fear.  The moment has passed.  I promise."
+She then went away, entered the house, and lay down. 
+
+Later in the afternoon her grandfather returned.
+He was about to question her categorically, but on looking
+at her he withheld his words. 
+
+"Yes, it is too bad to talk of," she slowly returned
+in answer to his glance.  "Can my old room be got ready
+for me tonight, Grandfather?  I shall want to occupy
+it again."
+
+He did not ask what it all meant, or why she had left
+her husband, but ordered the room to be prepared. 
+
+
+
+5 - An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
+
+
+Charley's attentions to his former mistress were unbounded. 
+The only solace to his own trouble lay in his attempts
+to relieve hers.  Hour after hour he considered her wants;
+he thought of her presence there with a sort of gratitude,
+and, while uttering imprecations on the cause of
+her unhappiness, in some measure blessed the result. 
+Perhaps she would always remain there, he thought, and then
+he would be as happy as he had been before.  His dread
+was lest she should think fit to return to Alderworth,
+and in that dread his eyes, with all the inquisitiveness
+of affection, frequently sought her face when she was
+not observing him, as he would have watched the head
+of a stockdove to learn if it contemplated flight. 
+Having once really succoured her, and possibly preserved
+her from the rashest of acts, he mentally assumed
+in addition a guardian's responsibility for her welfare. 
+
+For this reason he busily endeavoured to provide her with
+pleasant distractions, bringing home curious objects which he
+found in the heath, such as white trumpet-shaped mosses,
+redheaded lichens, stone arrowheads used by the old tribes
+on Egdon, and faceted crystals from the hollows of flints. 
+These he deposited on the premises in such positions
+that she should see them as if by accident. 
+
+A week passed, Eustacia never going out of the house.
+Then she walked into the enclosed plot and looked
+through her grandfather's spyglass, as she had been in
+the habit of doing before her marriage.  One day she saw,
+at a place where the highroad crossed the distant valley,
+a heavily laden wagon passing along.  It was piled
+with household furniture.  She looked again and again,
+and recognized it to be her own.  In the evening her
+grandfather came indoors with a rumour that Yeobright
+had removed that day from Alderworth to the old house at
+Blooms-End.
+
+On another occasion when reconnoitring thus she beheld
+two female figures walking in the vale.  The day was fine
+and clear; and the persons not being more than half a mile
+off she could see their every detail with the telescope. 
+The woman walking in front carried a white bundle in her arms,
+from one end of which hung a long appendage of drapery;
+and when the walkers turned, so that the sun fell more directly
+upon them, Eustacia could see that the object was a baby. 
+She called Charley, and asked him if he knew who they were,
+though she well guessed.
+
+"Mrs. Wildeve and the nurse-girl," said Charley. 
+
+"The nurse is carrying the baby?" said Eustacia.
+
+"No, 'tis Mrs. Wildeve carrying that," he answered,
+"and the nurse walks behind carrying nothing."
+
+The lad was in good spirits that day, for the Fifth
+of November had again come round, and he was planning yet
+another scheme to divert her from her too absorbing thoughts. 
+For two successive years his mistress had seemed
+to take pleasure in lighting a bonfire on the bank
+overlooking the valley; but this year she had apparently
+quite forgotten the day and the customary deed. 
+He was careful not to remind her, and went on with his
+secret preparations for a cheerful surprise, the more
+zealously that he had been absent last time and unable
+to assist.  At every vacant minute he hastened to gather
+furze-stumps, thorn-tree roots, and other solid materials
+from the adjacent slopes, hiding them from cursory view.
+
+The evening came, and Eustacia was still seemingly
+unconscious of the anniversary.  She had gone indoors
+after her survey through the glass, and had not been
+visible since.  As soon as it was quite dark Charley
+began to build the bonfire, choosing precisely that spot
+on the bank which Eustacia had chosen at previous times. 
+
+When all the surrounding bonfires had burst into
+existence Charley kindled his, and arranged its fuel
+so that it should not require tending for some time. 
+He then went back to the house, and lingered round the
+door and windows till she should by some means or other
+learn of his achievement and come out to witness it. 
+But the shutters were closed, the door remained shut,
+and no heed whatever seemed to be taken of his performance. 
+Not liking to call her he went back and replenished the fire,
+continuing to do this for more than half an hour. 
+It was not till his stock of fuel had greatly diminished
+that he went to the back door and sent in to beg that
+Mrs. Yeobright would open the window-shutters and see
+the sight outside. 
+
+Eustacia, who had been sitting listlessly in the parlour,
+started up at the intelligence and flung open the shutters.
+Facing her on the bank blazed the fire, which at once sent
+a ruddy glare into the room where she was, and overpowered
+the candles. 
+
+"Well done, Charley!" said Captain Vye from the chimney-corner.
+"But I hope it is not my wood that he's burning....Ah, it
+was this time last year that I met with that man Venn,
+bringing home Thomasin Yeobright--to be sure it was! Well,
+who would have thought that girl's troubles would have
+ended so well?  What a snipe you were in that matter,
+Eustacia! Has your husband written to you yet?"
+
+"No," said Eustacia, looking vaguely through the window
+at the fire, which just then so much engaged her mind
+that she did not resent her grandfather's blunt opinion. 
+She could see Charley's form on the bank, shovelling and
+stirring the fire; and there flashed upon her imagination
+some other form which that fire might call up. 
+
+She left the room, put on her garden bonnet and cloak,
+and went out.  Reaching the bank, she looked over
+with a wild curiosity and misgiving, when Charley said
+to her, with a pleased sense of himself, "I made it o'
+purpose for you, ma'am."
+
+"Thank you," she said hastily.  "But I wish you to put
+it out now."
+
+"It will soon burn down," said Charley, rather disappointed. 
+"Is it not a pity to knock it out?"
+
+"I don't know," she musingly answered. 
+
+They stood in silence, broken only by the crackling
+of the flames, till Charley, perceiving that she did
+not want to talk to him, moved reluctantly away. 
+
+Eustacia remained within the bank looking at the fire,
+intending to go indoors, yet lingering still.  Had she
+not by her situation been inclined to hold in indifference
+all things honoured of the gods and of men she would
+probably have come away.  But her state was so hopeless
+that she could play with it.  To have lost is less
+disturbing than to wonder if we may possibly have won;
+and Eustacia could now, like other people at such a stage,
+take a standing-point outside herself, observe herself
+as a disinterested spectator, and think what a sport for
+Heaven this woman Eustacia was. 
+
+While she stood she heard a sound.  It was the splash
+of a stone in the pond. 
+
+Had Eustacia received the stone full in the bosom
+her heart could not have given a more decided thump. 
+She had thought of the possibility of such a signal in
+answer to that which had been unwittingly given by Charley;
+but she had not expected it yet.  How prompt Wildeve
+was! Yet how could he think her capable of deliberately
+wishing to renew their assignations now?  An impulse to
+leave the spot, a desire to stay, struggled within her;
+and the desire held its own.  More than that it did
+not do, for she refrained even from ascending the bank
+and looking over.  She remained motionless, not disturbing
+a muscle of her face or raising her eyes; for were she to
+turn up her face the fire on the bank would shine upon it,
+and Wildeve might be looking down. 
+
+There was a second splash into the pond. 
+
+Why did he stay so long without advancing and looking
+over?  Curiosity had its way--she ascended one or two
+of the earth-steps in the bank and glanced out. 
+
+Wildeve was before her.  He had come forward after throwing
+the last pebble, and the fire now shone into each of their
+faces from the bank stretching breast-high between them. 
+
+"I did not light it!" cried Eustacia quickly.  "It was
+lit without my knowledge.  Don't, don't come over to me!"
+
+"Why have you been living here all these days without
+telling me?  You have left your home.  I fear I am something
+to blame in this?"
+
+"I did not let in his mother; that's how it is!"
+
+"You do not deserve what you have got, Eustacia; you are
+in great misery; I see it in your eyes, your mouth, and all
+over you.  My poor, poor girl!" He stepped over the bank. 
+"You are beyond everything unhappy!"
+
+"No, no; not exactly--"
+
+"It has been pushed too far--it is killing you--I do think it!"
+
+Her usually quiet breathing had grown quicker with his words. 
+"I--I--" she began, and then burst into quivering sobs,
+shaken to the very heart by the unexpected voice of pity--a
+sentiment whose existence in relation to herself she had
+almost forgotten. 
+
+This outbreak of weeping took Eustacia herself so much by
+surprise that she could not leave off, and she turned aside
+from him in some shame, though turning hid nothing from him.
+She sobbed on desperately; then the outpour lessened,
+and she became quieter.  Wildeve had resisted the impulse
+to clasp her, and stood without speaking. 
+
+"Are you not ashamed of me, who used never to be
+a crying animal?" she asked in a weak whisper as she
+wiped her eyes.  "Why didn't you go away?  I wish you
+had not seen quite all that; it reveals too much by half."
+
+"You might have wished it, because it makes me
+as sad as you," he said with emotion and deference. 
+"As for revealing--the word is impossible between us two."
+
+"I did not send for you--don't forget it, Damon; I am
+in pain, but I did not send for you! As a wife, at least,
+I've been straight."
+
+"Never mind--I came.  O, Eustacia, forgive me for the harm
+I have done you in these two past years! I see more and more
+that I have been your ruin."
+
+"Not you.  This place I live in."
+
+"Ah, your generosity may naturally make you say that. 
+But I am the culprit.  I should either have done more or
+nothing at all."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"I ought never to have hunted you out, or, having done it,
+I ought to have persisted in retaining you. 
+But of course I have no right to talk of that now. 
+I will only ask this--can I do anything for you?  Is there
+anything on the face of the earth that a man can do to
+make you happier than you are at present?  If there is,
+I will do it.  You may command me, Eustacia, to the limit
+of my influence; and don't forget that I am richer now. 
+Surely something can be done to save you from this! Such
+a rare plant in such a wild place it grieves me to see. 
+Do you want anything bought?  Do you want to go anywhere?
+Do you want to escape the place altogether?  Only say it,
+and I'll do anything to put an end to those tears, which but
+for me would never have been at all."
+
+"We are each married to another person," she said faintly;
+"and assistance from you would have an evil sound--after--after--"
+
+"Well, there's no preventing slanderers from having
+their fill at any time; but you need not be afraid. 
+Whatever I may feel I promise you on my word of honour never
+to speak to you about--or act upon--until you say I may. 
+I know my duty to Thomasin quite as well as I know my duty
+to you as a woman unfairly treated.  What shall I assist
+you in?"
+
+"In getting away from here."
+
+"Where do you wish to go to?"
+
+"I have a place in my mind.  If you could help me as far
+as Budmouth I can do all the rest.  Steamers sail from
+there across the Channel, and so I can get to Paris,
+where I want to be.  Yes," she pleaded earnestly, "help me
+to get to Budmouth harbour without my grandfather's
+or my husband's knowledge, and I can do all the rest."
+
+"Will it be safe to leave you there alone?"
+
+"Yes, yes.  I know Budmouth well."
+
+"Shall I go with you?  I am rich now."
+
+She was silent. 
+
+"Say yes, sweet!"
+
+She was silent still. 
+
+"Well, let me know when you wish to go.  We shall be at
+our present house till December; after that we remove
+to Casterbridge.  Command me in anything till that time."
+
+"I will think of this," she said hurriedly.  "Whether I
+can honestly make use of you as a friend, or must close
+with you as a lover--that is what I must ask myself. 
+If I wish to go and decide to accept your company I will
+signal to you some evening at eight o'clock punctually,
+and this will mean that you are to be ready with a horse
+and trap at twelve o'clock the same night to drive me to
+Budmouth harbour in time for the morning boat."
+
+"I will look out every night at eight, and no signal
+shall escape me."
+
+"Now please go away.  If I decide on this escape I can
+only meet you once more unless--I cannot go without you. 
+Go--I cannot bear it longer.  Go--go!"
+
+Wildeve slowly went up the steps and descended into the
+darkness on the other side; and as he walked he glanced back,
+till the bank blotted out her form from his further view. 
+
+
+
+6 - Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter
+
+
+Yeobright was at this time at Blooms-End, hoping that
+Eustacia would return to him.  The removal of furniture
+had been accomplished only that day, though Clym
+had lived in the old house for more than a week. 
+He had spent the time in working about the premises,
+sweeping leaves from the garden paths, cutting dead
+stalks from the flower beds, and nailing up creepers
+which had been displaced by the autumn winds.  He took
+no particular pleasure in these deeds, but they formed
+a screen between himself and despair.  Moreover, it had
+become a religion with him to preserve in good condition
+all that had lapsed from his mother's hands to his own. 
+
+During these operations he was constantly on the watch
+for Eustacia.  That there should be no mistake about
+her knowing where to find him he had ordered a notice
+board to be affixed to the garden gate at Alderworth,
+signifying in white letters whither he had removed.
+When a leaf floated to the earth he turned his head,
+thinking it might be her foot-fall. A bird searching
+for worms in the mould of the flower-beds sounded like her
+hand on the latch of the gate; and at dusk, when soft,
+strange ventriloquisms came from holes in the ground,
+hollow stalks, curled dead leaves, and other crannies
+wherein breezes, worms, and insects can work their will,
+he fancied that they were Eustacia, standing without and
+breathing wishes of reconciliation. 
+
+Up to this hour he had persevered in his resolve not to invite
+her back.  At the same time the severity with which he
+had treated her lulled the sharpness of his regret for
+his mother, and awoke some of his old solicitude for his
+mother's supplanter.  Harsh feelings produce harsh usage,
+and this by reaction quenches the sentiments that gave
+it birth.  The more he reflected the more he softened. 
+But to look upon his wife as innocence in distress
+was impossible, though he could ask himself whether he
+had given her quite time enough--if he had not come
+a little too suddenly upon her on that sombre morning.
+
+Now that the first flush of his anger had paled he was
+disinclined to ascribe to her more than an indiscreet
+friendship with Wildeve, for there had not appeared in her
+manner the signs of dishonour.  And this once admitted,
+an absolutely dark interpretation of her act towards
+his mother was no longer forced upon him. 
+
+On the evening of the fifth November his thoughts
+of Eustacia were intense.  Echoes from those past times
+when they had exchanged tender words all the day long came
+like the diffused murmur of a seashore left miles behind. 
+"Surely," he said, "she might have brought herself
+to communicate with me before now, and confess honestly
+what Wildeve was to her."
+
+Instead of remaining at home that night he determined to go
+and see Thomasin and her husband.  If he found opportunity
+he would allude to the cause of the separation between
+Eustacia and himself, keeping silence, however, on the
+fact that there was a third person in his house when his
+mother was turned away.  If it proved that Wildeve was
+innocently there he would doubtless openly mention it. 
+If he were there with unjust intentions Wildeve,
+being a man of quick feeling, might possibly say something
+to reveal the extent to which Eustacia was compromised. 
+
+But on reaching his cousin's house he found that only
+Thomasin was at home, Wildeve being at that time on his way
+towards the bonfire innocently lit by Charley at Mistover. 
+Thomasin then, as always, was glad to see Clym, and took
+him to inspect the sleeping baby, carefully screening
+the candlelight from the infant's eyes with her hand. 
+
+"Tamsin, have you heard that Eustacia is not with me. 
+now?" he said when they had sat down again. 
+
+"No," said Thomasin, alarmed. 
+
+"And not that I have left Alderworth?"
+
+"No. I never hear tidings from Alderworth unless you
+bring them.  What is the matter?"
+
+Clym in a disturbed voice related to her his visit
+to Susan Nunsuch's boy, the revelation he had made,
+and what had resulted from his charging Eustacia
+with having wilfully and heartlessly done the deed. 
+He suppressed all mention of Wildeve's presence with her. 
+
+"All this, and I not knowing it!" murmured Thomasin
+in an awestruck tone, "Terrible! What could have made
+her--O, Eustacia! And when you found it out you went
+in hot haste to her?  Were you too cruel?--or is she
+really so wicked as she seems?"
+
+"Can a man be too cruel to his mother's enemy?"
+
+"I can fancy so."
+
+"Very well, then--I'll admit that he can.  But now
+what is to be done?"
+
+"Make it up again--if a quarrel so deadly can ever
+be made up.  I almost wish you had not told me. 
+But do try to be reconciled.  There are ways, after all,
+if you both wish to."
+
+"I don't know that we do both wish to make it up,"
+said Clym.  "If she had wished it, would she not have sent
+to me by this time?"
+
+"You seem to wish to, and yet you have not sent to her."
+
+"True; but I have been tossed to and fro in doubt
+if I ought, after such strong provocation.  To see
+me now, Thomasin, gives you no idea of what I have been;
+of what depths I have descended to in these few last days. 
+O, it was a bitter shame to shut out my mother like that!
+Can I ever forget it, or even agree to see her again?"
+
+"She might not have known that anything serious would
+come of it, and perhaps she did not mean to keep Aunt
+out altogether."
+
+"She says herself that she did not.  But the fact remains
+that keep her out she did."
+
+"Believe her sorry, and send for her."
+
+"How if she will not come?"
+
+"It will prove her guilty, by showing that it is her habit
+to nourish enmity.  But I do not think that for a moment."
+
+"I will do this.  I will wait for a day or two longer--
+not longer than two days certainly; and if she does
+not send to me in that time I will indeed send to her. 
+I thought to have seen Wildeve here tonight.  Is he
+from home?"
+
+Thomasin blushed a little.  "No," she said.  "He is merely
+gone out for a walk."
+
+"Why didn't he take you with him?  The evening is fine.
+You want fresh air as well as he."
+
+"Oh, I don't care for going anywhere; besides, there is baby."
+
+"Yes, yes.  Well, I have been thinking whether I should
+not consult your husband about this as well as you,"
+said Clym steadily. 
+
+"I fancy I would not," she quickly answered.  "It can
+do no good."
+
+Her cousin looked her in the face.  No doubt Thomasin was
+ignorant that her husband had any share in the events of
+that tragic afternoon; but her countenance seemed to signify
+that she concealed some suspicion or thought of the reputed
+tender relations between Wildeve and Eustacia in days gone by. 
+
+Clym, however, could make nothing of it, and he rose
+to depart, more in doubt than when he came. 
+
+"You will write to her in a day or two?" said the young
+woman earnestly.  "I do so hope the wretched separation
+may come to an end."
+
+"I will," said Clym; "I don't rejoice in my present state
+at all."
+
+And he left her and climbed over the hill to Blooms-End. 
+Before going to bed he sat down and wrote the following
+letter:--
+
+
+MY DEAR EUSTACIA,--I must obey my heart without consulting
+my reason too closely.  Will you come back to me?  Do so,
+and the past shall never be mentioned.  I was too severe;
+but O, Eustacia, the provocation! You don't know,
+you never will know, what those words of anger cost me
+which you drew down upon yourself.  All that an honest
+man can promise you I promise now, which is that from me
+you shall never suffer anything on this score again. 
+After all the vows we have made, Eustacia, I think we
+had better pass the remainder of our lives in trying
+to keep them.  Come to me, then, even if you reproach me.
+I have thought of your sufferings that morning on which I
+parted from you; I know they were genuine, and they are as
+much as you ought to bear.  Our love must still continue. 
+Such hearts as ours would never have been given us but
+to be concerned with each other.  I could not ask you
+back at first, Eustacia, for I was unable to persuade
+myself that he who was with you was not there as a lover. 
+But if you will come and explain distracting appearances
+I do not question that you can show your honesty to me. 
+Why have you not come before?  Do you think I will
+not listen to you?  Surely not, when you remember the
+kisses and vows we exchanged under the summer moon. 
+Return then, and you shall be warmly welcomed. 
+I can no longer think of you to your prejudice--I am
+but too much absorbed in justifying you.--Your husband
+as ever,
+
+CLYM. 
+
+
+"There," he said, as he laid it in his desk, "that's a
+good thing done.  If she does not come before tomorrow
+night I will send it to her."
+
+Meanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat
+sighing uneasily.  Fidelity to her husband had that evening
+induced her to conceal all suspicion that Wildeve's
+interest in Eustacia had not ended with his marriage. 
+But she knew nothing positive; and though Clym was her
+well-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still. 
+
+When, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk
+to Mistover, Thomasin said, "Damon, where have you been?  I
+was getting quite frightened, and thought you had fallen
+into the river.  I dislike being in the house by myself."
+
+"Frightened?" he said, touching her cheek as if she were
+some domestic animal.  "Why, I thought nothing could
+frighten you.  It is that you are getting proud, I am sure,
+and don't like living here since we have risen above
+our business.  Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting
+a new house; but I couldn't have set about it sooner,
+unless our ten thousand pounds had been a hundred thousand,
+when we could have afforded to despise caution."
+
+"No--I don't mind waiting--I would rather stay here
+twelve months longer than run any risk with baby. 
+But I don't like your vanishing so in the evenings. 
+There's something on your mind--I know there is, Damon. 
+You go about so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it
+were somebody's gaol instead of a nice wild place to
+walk in."
+
+He looked towards her with pitying surprise.  "What, do
+you like Egdon Heath?" he said. 
+
+"I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face."
+
+"Pooh, my dear.  You don't know what you like."
+
+"I am sure I do.  There's only one thing unpleasant
+about Egdon."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"You never take me with you when you walk there.  Why do
+you wander so much in it yourself if you so dislike it?"
+
+The inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting,
+and he sat down before replying.  "I don't think you
+often see me there.  Give an instance."
+
+"I will," she answered triumphantly.  "When you went
+out this evening I thought that as baby was asleep I
+would see where you were going to so mysteriously without
+telling me.  So I ran out and followed behind you. 
+You stopped at the place where the road forks,
+looked round at the bonfires, and then said, 'Damn it,
+I'll go!' And you went quickly up the left-hand road. 
+Then I stood and watched you."
+
+Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile,
+"Well, what wonderful discovery did you make?"
+
+"There--now you are angry, and we won't talk of this
+any more."  She went across to him, sat on a footstool,
+and looked up in his face. 
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, "that's how you always back out. 
+We will go on with it now we have begun.  What did you
+next see?  I particularly want to know."
+
+"Don't be like that, Damon!" she murmured.  "I didn't
+see anything.  You vanished out of sight, and then I
+looked round at the bonfires and came in."
+
+"Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. 
+Are you trying to find out something bad about me?"
+
+"Not at all! I have never done such a thing before,
+and I shouldn't have done it now if words had not sometimes
+been dropped about you."
+
+"What DO you mean?" he impatiently asked.
+
+"They say--they say you used to go to Alderworth in
+the evenings, and it puts into my mind what I have heard about--"
+
+Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. 
+"Now," he said, flourishing his hand in the air,
+"just out with it, madam! I demand to know what remarks
+you have heard."
+
+"Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of
+Eustacia--nothing more than that, though dropped
+in a bit-by-bit way.  You ought not to be angry!"
+
+He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. 
+"Well," he said, "there is nothing new in that, and of
+course I don't mean to be rough towards you, so you need
+not cry.  Now, don't let us speak of the subject any more."
+
+And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason
+for not mentioning Clym's visit to her that evening,
+and his story.
+
+
+
+7 - The Night of the Sixth of November
+
+
+Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed
+anxious that something should happen to thwart her
+own intention.  The only event that could really change
+her position was the appearance of Clym.  The glory
+which had encircled him as her lover was departed now;
+yet some good simple quality of his would occasionally
+return to her memory and stir a momentary throb of hope
+that he would again present himself before her.  But calmly
+considered it was not likely that such a severance as
+now existed would ever close up--she would have to live
+on as a painful object, isolated, and out of place. 
+She had used to think of the heath alone as an uncongenial
+spot to be in; she felt it now of the whole world. 
+
+Towards evening on the sixth her determination to go away
+again revived.  About four o'clock she packed up anew
+the few small articles she had brought in her flight
+from Alderworth, and also some belonging to her which had
+been left here; the whole formed a bundle not too large
+to be carried in her hand for a distance of a mile or two. 
+The scene without grew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied
+downwards from the sky like vast hammocks slung across it,
+and with the increase of night a stormy wind arose;
+but as yet there was no rain. 
+
+Eustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more to do,
+and she wandered to and fro on the hill, not far from the
+house she was soon to leave.  In these desultory ramblings
+she passed the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, a little lower
+down than her grandfather's. The door was ajar, and a
+riband of bright firelight fell over the ground without. 
+As Eustacia crossed the firebeams she appeared for an
+instant as distinct as a figure in a phantasmagoria--a
+creature of light surrounded by an area of darkness;
+the moment passed, and she was absorbed in night again. 
+
+A woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and
+recognized her in that momentary irradiation.  This was
+Susan herself, occupied in preparing a posset for her
+little boy, who, often ailing, was now seriously unwell. 
+Susan dropped the spoon, shook her fist at the vanished figure,
+and then proceeded with her work in a musing, absent way. 
+
+At eight o'clock, the hour at which Eustacia had promised
+to signal Wildeve if ever she signalled at all, she looked
+around the premises to learn if the coast was clear,
+went to the furze-rick, and pulled thence a long-stemmed
+bough of that fuel.  This she carried to the corner of
+the bank, and, glancing behind to see if the shutters were
+all closed, she struck a light, and kindled the furze. 
+When it was thoroughly ablaze Eustacia took it by the stem
+and waved it in the air above her head till it had burned
+itself out. 
+
+She was gratified, if gratification were possible
+to such a mood, by seeing a similar light in the
+vicinity of Wildeve's residence a minute or two later.
+Having agreed to keep watch at this hour every night,
+in case she should require assistance, this promptness
+proved how strictly he had held to his word.
+Four hours after the present time, that is, at midnight,
+he was to be ready to drive her to Budmouth, as prearranged. 
+
+Eustacia returned to the house.  Supper having been got
+over she retired early, and sat in her bedroom waiting for
+the time to go by.  The night being dark and threatening,
+Captain Vye had not strolled out to gossip in any cottage or
+to call at the inn, as was sometimes his custom on these long
+autumn nights; and he sat sipping grog alone downstairs. 
+About ten o'clock there was a knock at the door. 
+When the servant opened it the rays of the candle fell
+upon the form of Fairway. 
+
+"I was a-forced to go to Lower Mistover tonight,"
+he said, "and Mr. Yeobright asked me to leave this here
+on my way; but, faith, I put it in the lining of my hat,
+and thought no more about it till I got back and was
+hasping my gate before going to bed.  So I have run back
+with it at once."
+
+He handed in a letter and went his way.  The girl brought
+it to the captain, who found that it was directed
+to Eustacia.  He turned it over and over, and fancied
+that the writing was her husband's, though he could not
+be sure.  However, he decided to let her have it at once
+if possible, and took it upstairs for that purpose;
+but on reaching the door of her room and looking
+in at the keyhole he found there was no light within,
+the fact being that Eustacia, without undressing,
+had flung herself upon the bed, to rest and gather a
+little strength for her coming journey.  Her grandfather
+concluded from what he saw that he ought not to disturb her;
+and descending again to the parlour he placed the letter
+on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning. 
+
+At eleven o'clock he went to bed himself, smoked for
+some time in his bedroom, put out his light at half-
+past eleven, and then, as was his invariable custom,
+pulled up the blind before getting into bed, that he
+might see which way the wind blew on opening his eyes
+in the morning, his bedroom window commanding a view
+of the flagstaff and vane.  Just as he had lain down he
+was surprised to observe the white pole of the staff flash
+into existence like a streak of phosphorus drawn downwards
+across the shade of night without.  Only one explanation
+met this--a light had been suddenly thrown upon the pole
+from the direction of the house.  As everybody had retired
+to rest the old man felt it necessary to get out of bed,
+open the window softly, and look to the right and left. 
+Eustacia's bedroom was lighted up, and it was the shine
+from her window which had lighted the pole.  Wondering what
+had aroused her, he remained undecided at the window,
+and was thinking of fetching the letter to slip it under
+her door, when he heard a slight brushing of garments
+on the partition dividing his room from the passage. 
+
+The captain concluded that Eustacia, feeling wakeful,
+had gone for a book, and would have dismissed the matter
+as unimportant if he had not also heard her distinctly
+weeping as she passed.
+
+"She is thinking of that husband of hers," he said to himself. 
+"Ah, the silly goose! she had no business to marry him.
+I wonder if that letter is really his?"
+
+He arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door,
+and said, "Eustacia!" There was no answer.  "Eustacia!" he
+repeated louder, "there is a letter on the mantelpiece
+for you."
+
+But no response was made to this statement save an imaginary
+one from the wind, which seemed to gnaw at the corners of
+the house, and the stroke of a few drops of rain upon the windows. 
+
+He went on to the landing, and stood waiting nearly
+five minutes.  Still she did not return.  He went back
+for a light, and prepared to follow her; but first he looked
+into her bedroom.  There, on the outside of the quilt,
+was the impression of her form, showing that the bed
+had not been opened; and, what was more significant,
+she had not taken her candlestick downstairs.
+He was now thoroughly alarmed; and hastily putting on
+his clothes he descended to the front door, which he
+himself had bolted and locked.  It was now unfastened.
+There was no longer any doubt that Eustacia had left
+the house at this midnight hour; and whither could
+she have gone?  To follow her was almost impossible. 
+Had the dwelling stood in an ordinary road, two persons
+setting out, one in each direction, might have made sure
+of overtaking her; but it was a hopeless task to seek
+for anybody on a heath in the dark, the practicable
+directions for flight across it from any point being
+as numerous as the meridians radiating from the pole. 
+Perplexed what to do, he looked into the parlour, and was
+vexed to find that the letter still lay there untouched. 
+
+
+At half-past eleven, finding that the house was silent,
+Eustacia had lighted her candle, put on some warm
+outer wrappings, taken her bag in her hand, and,
+extinguishing the light again, descended the staircase. 
+When she got into the outer air she found that it had begun
+to rain, and as she stood pausing at the door it increased,
+threatening to come on heavily.  But having committed
+herself to this line of action there was no retreating
+for bad weather.  Even the receipt of Clym's letter
+would not have stopped her now.  The gloom of the night
+was funereal; all nature seemed clothed in crape. 
+The spiky points of the fir trees behind the house rose
+into the sky like the turrets and pinnacles of an abbey. 
+Nothing below the horizon was visible save a light
+which was still burning in the cottage of Susan Nunsuch. 
+
+Eustacia opened her umbrella and went out from the enclosure
+by the steps over the bank, after which she was beyond
+all danger of being perceived.  Skirting the pool,
+she followed the path towards Rainbarrow, occasionally
+stumbling over twisted furze roots, tufts of rushes,
+or oozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at this season lay
+scattered about the heath like the rotten liver and lungs
+of some colossal animal.  The moon and stars were closed
+up by cloud and rain to the degree of extinction. 
+It was a night which led the traveller's thoughts
+instinctively to dwell on nocturnal scenes of disaster
+in the chronicles of the world, on all that is terrible
+and dark in history and legend--the last plague of Egypt,
+the destruction of Sennacherib's host, the agony in Gethsemane. 
+
+Eustacia at length reached Rainbarrow, and stood still there
+to think.  Never was harmony more perfect than that between
+the chaos of her mind and the chaos of the world without. 
+A sudden recollection had flashed on her this moment--she
+had not money enough for undertaking a long journey. 
+Amid the fluctuating sentiments of the day her
+unpractical mind had not dwelt on the necessity of being
+well-provided, and now that she thoroughly realized the
+conditions she sighed bitterly and ceased to stand erect,
+gradually crouching down under the umbrella as if she
+were drawn into the Barrow by a hand from beneath. 
+Could it be that she was to remain a captive still?
+Money--she had never felt its value before.  Even to
+efface herself from the country means were required. 
+To ask Wildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him
+to accompany her was impossible to a woman with a shadow
+of pride left in her; to fly as his mistress--and she
+knew that he loved her--was of the nature of humiliation. 
+
+Anyone who had stood by now would have pitied her,
+not so much on account of her exposure to weather,
+and isolation from all of humanity except the mouldered
+remains inside the tumulus; but for that other form
+of misery which was denoted by the slightly rocking
+movement that her feelings imparted to her person. 
+Extreme unhappiness weighed visibly upon her.  Between the
+drippings of the rain from her umbrella to her mantle,
+from her mantle to the heather, from the heather to the earth,
+very similar sounds could be heard coming from her lips;
+and the tearfulness of the outer scene was repeated upon
+her face.  The wings of her soul were broken by the cruel
+obstructiveness of all about her; and even had she seen
+herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth,
+entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port,
+she would have been but little more buoyant, so fearfully
+malignant were other things.  She uttered words aloud. 
+When a woman in such a situation, neither old, deaf, crazed,
+nor whimsical, takes upon herself to sob and soliloquize
+aloud there is something grievous the matter. 
+
+"Can I go, can I go?" she moaned.  "He's not GREAT
+enough for me to give myself to--he does not suffice
+for my desire!...If he had been a Saul or a Bonaparte--
+ah! But to break my marriage vow for him--it is too poor
+a luxury!...And I have no money to go alone! And if I could,
+what comfort to me?  I must drag on next year, as I have
+dragged on this year, and the year after that as before. 
+How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman,
+and how destiny has been against me!...I do not deserve
+my lot!" she cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. 
+"O, the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived
+world! I was capable of much; but I have been injured
+and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O,
+how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me,
+who have done no harm to Heaven at all!"
+
+
+The distant light which Eustacia had cursorily observed in
+leaving the house came, as she had divined, from the cottage
+window of Susan Nunsuch.  What Eustacia did not divine
+was the occupation of the woman within at that moment.
+Susan's sight of her passing figure earlier in the evening,
+not five minutes after the sick boy's exclamation,
+"Mother, I do feel so bad!" persuaded the matron that an evil
+influence was certainly exercised by Eustacia's propinquity. 
+
+On this account Susan did not go to bed as soon as the
+evening's work was over, as she would have done at
+ordinary times.  To counteract the malign spell which she
+imagined poor Eustacia to be working, the boy's mother
+busied herself with a ghastly invention of superstition,
+calculated to bring powerlessness, atrophy, and annihilation
+on any human being against whom it was directed. 
+It was a practice well known on Egdon at that date,
+and one that is not quite extinct at the present day. 
+
+She passed with her candle into an inner room, where,
+among other utensils, were two large brown pans,
+containing together perhaps a hundredweight of liquid honey,
+the produce of the bees during the foregoing summer.
+On a shelf over the pans was a smooth and solid yellow
+mass of a hemispherical form, consisting of beeswax
+from the same take of honey.  Susan took down the lump,
+and cutting off several thin slices, heaped them in an
+iron ladle, with which she returned to the living-room,
+and placed the vessel in the hot ashes of the fireplace. 
+As soon as the wax had softened to the plasticity
+of dough she kneaded the pieces together.  And now her
+face became more intent.  She began moulding the wax;
+and it was evident from her manner of manipulation that
+she was endeavouring to give it some preconceived form. 
+The form was human. 
+
+By warming and kneading, cutting and twisting,
+dismembering and re-joining the incipient image she had in
+about a quarter of an hour produced a shape which tolerably
+well resembled a woman, and was about six inches high. 
+She laid it on the table to get cold and hard.  Meanwhile she
+took the candle and went upstairs to where the little boy was lying. 
+
+"Did you notice, my dear, what Mrs. Eustacia wore this
+afternoon besides the dark dress?"
+
+"A red ribbon round her neck."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"No--except sandal-shoes."
+
+"A red ribbon and sandal-shoes," she said to herself. 
+
+Mrs. Nunsuch went and searched till she found a fragment
+of the narrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs
+and tied round the neck of the image.  Then fetching
+ink and a quilt from the rickety bureau by the window,
+she blackened the feet of the image to the extent presumably
+covered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot marked
+cross-lines in the shape taken by the sandalstrings
+of those days.  Finally she tied a bit of black thread
+round the upper part of the head, in faint resemblance
+to a snood worn for confining the hair.
+
+Susan held the object at arm's length and contemplated
+it with a satisfaction in which there was no smile.
+To anybody acquainted with the inhabitants of Egdon Heath
+the image would have suggested Eustacia Yeobright. 
+
+From her workbasket in the window-seat the woman took
+a paper of pins, of the old long and yellow sort,
+whose heads were disposed to come off at their first usage. 
+These she began to thrust into the image in all directions,
+with apparently excruciating energy.  Probably as many
+as fifty were thus inserted, some into the head of the
+wax model, some into the shoulders, some into the trunk,
+some upwards through the soles of the feet, till the figure
+was completely permeated with pins. 
+
+She turned to the fire.  It had been of turf; and though
+the high heap of ashes which turf fires produce was
+somewhat dark and dead on the outside, upon raking it
+abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass showed a glow
+of red heat.  She took a few pieces of fresh turf from
+the chimney-corner and built them together over the glow,
+upon which the fire brightened.  Seizing with the tongs
+the image that she had made of Eustacia, she held it in
+the heat, and watched it as it began to waste slowly away. 
+And while she stood thus engaged there came from between
+her lips a murmur of words. 
+
+It was a strange jargon--the Lord's Prayer repeated
+backwards--the incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining
+unhallowed assistance against an enemy.  Susan uttered
+the lugubrious discourse three times slowly, and when it
+was completed the image had considerably diminished. 
+As the wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from
+the spot, and curling its tongue round the figure ate still
+further into its substance.  A pin occasionally dropped
+with the wax, and the embers heated it red as it lay. 
+
+
+
+8 - Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
+
+
+While the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing,
+and the fair woman herself was standing on Rainbarrow,
+her soul in an abyss of desolation seldom plumbed by one
+so young, Yeobright sat lonely at Blooms-End. He had
+fulfilled his word to Thomasin by sending off Fairway
+with the letter to his wife, and now waited with increased
+impatience for some sound or signal of her return. 
+Were Eustacia still at Mistover the very least he expected
+was that she would send him back a reply tonight by the
+same hand; though, to leave all to her inclination,
+he had cautioned Fairway not to ask for an answer. 
+If one were handed to him he was to bring it immediately;
+if not, he was to go straight home without troubling to come
+round to Blooms-End again that night. 
+
+But secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope.  Eustacia might
+possibly decline to use her pen--it was rather her way to
+work silently--and surprise him by appearing at his door. 
+How fully her mind was made up to do otherwise he did
+not know.
+
+To Clym's regret it began to rain and blow hard as the
+evening advanced.  The wind rasped and scraped at the
+corners of the house, and filliped the eavesdroppings
+like peas against the panes.  He walked restlessly about
+the untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises in windows
+and doors by jamming splinters of wood into the casements
+and crevices, and pressing together the leadwork of the
+quarries where it had become loosened from the glass. 
+It was one of those nights when cracks in the walls of
+old churches widen, when ancient stains on the ceilings
+of decayed manor houses are renewed and enlarged from
+the size of a man's hand to an area of many feet. 
+The little gate in the palings before his dwelling
+continually opened and clicked together again, but when he
+looked out eagerly nobody was there; it was as if invisible
+shapes of the dead were passing in on their way to visit him. 
+
+Between ten and eleven o'clock, finding that neither
+Fairway nor anybody else came to him, he retired
+to rest, and despite his anxieties soon fell asleep.
+His sleep, however, was not very sound, by reason of
+the expectancy he had given way to, and he was easily
+awakened by a knocking which began at the door about an
+hour after.  Clym arose and looked out of the window. 
+Rain was still falling heavily, the whole expanse of heath
+before him emitting a subdued hiss under the downpour. 
+It was too dark to see anything at all. 
+
+"Who's there?" he cried. 
+
+Light footsteps shifted their position in the porch,
+and he could just distinguish in a plaintive female voice
+the words, "O Clym, come down and let me in!"
+
+He flushed hot with agitation.  "Surely it is Eustacia!"
+he murmured.  If so, she had indeed come to him unawares. 
+
+He hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. 
+On his flinging open the door the rays of the candle fell
+upon a woman closely wrapped up, who at once came forward. 
+
+"Thomasin!" he exclaimed in an indescribable tone
+of disappointment.  "It is Thomasin, and on such a night
+as this! O, where is Eustacia?"
+
+Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting. 
+
+"Eustacia?  I don't know, Clym; but I can think," she said
+with much perturbation.  "Let me come in and rest--I
+will explain this.  There is a great trouble brewing--my
+husband and Eustacia!"
+
+"What, what?"
+
+"I think my husband is going to leave me or do something
+dreadful--I don't know what--Clym, will you go and see?
+I have nobody to help me but you; Eustacia has not yet
+come home?"
+
+"No."
+
+She went on breathlessly: "Then they are going to run off
+together! He came indoors tonight about eight o'clock and
+said in an off-hand way, 'Tamsie, I have just found that I
+must go a journey.' 'When?' I said.  'Tonight,' he said.
+'Where?' I asked him.  'I cannot tell you at present,'
+he said; 'I shall be back again tomorrow.' He then went
+and busied himself in looking up his things, and took no
+notice of me at all.  I expected to see him start, but he
+did not, and then it came to be ten o'clock, when he said,
+'You had better go to bed.' I didn't know what to do,
+and I went to bed.  I believe he thought I fell asleep,
+for half an hour after that he came up and unlocked the oak
+chest we keep money in when we have much in the house and
+took out a roll of something which I believe was banknotes,
+though I was not aware that he had 'em there.  These he must
+have got from the bank when he went there the other day. 
+What does he want banknotes for, if he is only going off
+for a day?  When he had gone down I thought of Eustacia,
+and how he had met her the night before--I know he did
+meet her, Clym, for I followed him part of the way; but I
+did not like to tell you when you called, and so make you
+think ill of him, as I did not think it was so serious.
+Then I could not stay in bed; I got up and dressed myself,
+and when I heard him out in the stable I thought I would come
+and tell you.  So I came downstairs without any noise and
+slipped out."
+
+"Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?"
+
+"No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade
+him not to go?  He takes no notice of what I say, and puts
+me off with the story of his going on a journey, and will
+be home tomorrow, and all that; but I don't believe it. 
+I think you could influence him."
+
+"I'll go," said Clym.  "O, Eustacia!"
+
+Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having
+by this time seated herself she began to unroll it,
+when a baby appeared as the kernel to the husks--dry,
+warm, and unconscious of travel or rough weather. 
+Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found
+time to begin crying as she said, "I brought baby,
+for I was afraid what might happen to her.  I suppose
+it will be her death, but I couldn't leave her with Rachel!"
+
+Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth,
+raked abroad the embers, which were scarcely yet extinct,
+and blew up a flame with the bellows. 
+
+"Dry yourself," he said.  "I'll go and get some more wood."
+
+"No, no--don't stay for that.  I'll make up the fire. 
+Will you go at once--please will you?"
+
+Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. 
+While he was gone another rapping came to the door. 
+This time there was no delusion that it might be Eustacia's--the
+footsteps just preceding it had been heavy and slow. 
+Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note
+in answer, descended again and opened the door. 
+
+"Captain Vye?" he said to a dripping figure. 
+
+"Is my granddaughter here?" said the captain.
+
+"No."
+
+"Then where is she?".
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But you ought to know--you are her husband."
+
+"Only in name apparently," said Clym with rising excitement. 
+"I believe she means to elope tonight with Wildeve. 
+I am just going to look to it."
+
+"Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago. 
+Who's sitting there?"
+
+"My cousin Thomasin."
+
+The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. 
+"I only hope it is no worse than an elopement," he said.
+
+"Worse?  What's worse than the worst a wife can do?"
+
+"Well, I have been told a strange tale.  Before starting
+in search of her I called up Charley, my stable lad. 
+I missed my pistols the other day."
+
+"Pistols?"
+
+"He said at the time that he took them down to clean. 
+He has now owned that he took them because he saw Eustacia
+looking curiously at them; and she afterwards owned to him
+that she was thinking of taking her life, but bound him
+to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a thing again. 
+I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado enough to use
+one of them; but it shows what has been lurking in her mind;
+and people who think of that sort of thing once think
+of it again."
+
+"Where are the pistols?"
+
+"Safely locked up.  O no, she won't touch them again.
+But there are more ways of letting out life than through
+a bullet-hole. What did you quarrel about so bitterly
+with her to drive her to all this?  You must have treated
+her badly indeed.  Well, I was always against the marriage,
+and I was right."
+
+"Are you going with me?" said Yeobright, paying no
+attention to the captain's latter remark.  "If so
+I can tell you what we quarrelled about as we walk along."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To Wildeve's--that was her destination, depend upon it."
+
+Thomasin here broke in, still weeping: "He said he
+was only going on a sudden short journey; but if so why
+did he want so much money?  O, Clym, what do you think
+will happen?  I am afraid that you, my poor baby,
+will soon have no father left to you!"
+
+"I am off now," said Yeobright, stepping into the porch.
+
+"I would fain go with 'ee," said the old man doubtfully.
+"But I begin to be afraid that my legs will hardly carry me
+there such a night as this.  I am not so young as I was. 
+If they are interrupted in their flight she will be sure to come
+back to me, and I ought to be at the house to receive her. 
+But be it as 'twill I can't walk to the Quiet Woman,
+and that's an end on't. I'll go straight home."
+
+"It will perhaps be best," said Clym.  "Thomasin, dry
+yourself, and be as comfortable as you can."
+
+With this he closed the door upon her, and left the house
+in company with Captain Vye, who parted from him outside
+the gate, taking the middle path, which led to Mistover. 
+Clym crossed by the right-hand track towards the inn. 
+
+Thomasin, being left alone, took off some of her
+wet garments, carried the baby upstairs to Clym's bed,
+and then came down to the sitting-room again,
+where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself.
+The fire soon flared up the chimney, giving the room
+an appearance of comfort that was doubled by contrast
+with the drumming of the storm without, which snapped
+at the windowpanes and breathed into the chimney strange
+low utterances that seemed to be the prologue to some tragedy. 
+
+But the least part of Thomasin was in the house,
+for her heart being at ease about the little girl
+upstairs she was mentally following Clym on his journey. 
+Having indulged in this imaginary peregrination for some
+considerable interval, she became impressed with a sense
+of the intolerable slowness of time.  But she sat on. 
+The moment then came when she could scarcely sit longer,
+and it was like a satire on her patience to remember
+that Clym could hardly have reached the inn as yet. 
+At last she went to the baby's bedside.  The child was
+sleeping soundly; but her imagination of possibly disastrous
+events at her home, the predominance within her of the
+unseen over the seen, agitated her beyond endurance. 
+She could not refrain from going down and opening the door.
+The rain still continued, the candlelight falling upon the
+nearest drops and making glistening darts of them as they
+descended across the throng of invisible ones behind.
+To plunge into that medium was to plunge into water
+slightly diluted with air.  But the difficulty of returning
+to her house at this moment made her all the more
+desirous of doing so--anything was better than suspense. 
+"I have come here well enough," she said, "and why
+shouldn't I go back again?  It is a mistake for me to
+be away."
+
+She hastily fetched the infant, wrapped it up, cloaked
+herself as before, and shoveling the ashes over the fire,
+to prevent accidents, went into the open air.  Pausing first
+to put the door key in its old place behind the shutter,
+she resolutely turned her face to the confronting pile
+of firmamental darkness beyond the palings, and stepped into
+its midst.  But Thomasin's imagination being so actively
+engaged elsewhere, the night and the weather had for her
+no terror beyond that of their actual discomfort and difficulty. 
+
+She was soon ascending Blooms-End valley and traversing
+the undulations on the side of the hill.  The noise
+of the wind over the heath was shrill, and as if it
+whistled for joy at finding a night so congenial as this. 
+Sometimes the path led her to hollows between thickets of
+tall and dripping bracken, dead, though not yet prostrate,
+which enclosed her like a pool.  When they were more than
+usually tall she lifted the baby to the top of her head,
+that it might be out of the reach of their drenching fronds. 
+On higher ground, where the wind was brisk and sustained,
+the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent,
+so that it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness
+of the point at which it left the bosoms of the clouds. 
+Here self-defence was impossible, and individual drops
+stuck into her like the arrows into Saint Sebastian. 
+She was enabled to avoid puddles by the nebulous paleness
+which signified their presence, though beside anything less
+dark than the heath they themselves would have appeared
+as blackness. 
+
+Yet in spite of all this Thomasin was not sorry that she
+had started.  To her there were not, as to Eustacia,
+demons in the air, and malice in every bush and bough. 
+The drops which lashed her face were not scorpions,
+but prosy rain; Egdon in the mass was no monster whatever,
+but impersonal open ground.  Her fears of the place
+were rational, her dislikes of its worst moods reasonable. 
+At this time it was in her view a windy, wet place, in which
+a person might experience much discomfort, lose the path
+without care, and possibly catch cold. 
+
+If the path is well known the difficulty at such
+times of keeping therein is not altogether great,
+from its familiar feel to the feet; but once lost it
+is irrecoverable.  Owing to her baby, who somewhat impeded
+Thomasin's view forward and distracted her mind, she did
+at last lose the track.  This mishap occurred when she
+was descending an open slope about two-thirds home. 
+Instead of attempting, by wandering hither and thither,
+the hopeless task of finding such a mere thread,
+she went straight on, trusting for guidance to her general
+knowledge of the contours, which was scarcely surpassed
+by Clym's or by that of the heath-croppers themselves.
+
+At length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to
+discern through the rain a faint blotted radiance,
+which presently assumed the oblong form of an open door. 
+She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon aware
+of the nature of the door by its height above the ground. 
+
+"Why, it is Diggory Venn's van, surely!" she said. 
+
+A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew,
+often Venn's chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood;
+and she guessed at once that she had stumbled upon this
+mysterious retreat.  The question arose in her mind whether
+or not she should ask him to guide her into the path. 
+In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would
+appeal to him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing
+before his eyes at this place and season.  But when,
+in pursuance of this resolve, Thomasin reached the van
+and looked in she found it to be untenanted; though there
+was no doubt that it was the reddleman's. The fire was
+burning in the stove, the lantern hung from the nail.
+Round the doorway the floor was merely sprinkled with rain,
+and not saturated, which told her that the door had not long
+been opened. 
+
+While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard
+a footstep advancing from the darkness behind her,
+and turning, beheld the well-known form in corduroy,
+lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams falling upon
+him through an intervening gauze of raindrops. 
+
+"I thought you went down the slope," he said,
+without noticing her face.  "How do you come back here again?"
+
+"Diggory?" said Thomasin faintly. 
+
+"Who are you?" said Venn, still unperceiving.  "And why
+were you crying so just now?"
+
+"O, Diggory! don't you know me?" said she.  "But of course
+you don't, wrapped up like this.  What do you mean?  I
+have not been crying here, and I have not been here before."
+
+Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated
+side of her form. 
+
+"Mrs. Wildeve!" he exclaimed, starting.  "What a time
+for us to meet! And the baby too! What dreadful thing
+can have brought you out on such a night as this?"
+
+She could not immediately answer; and without asking her
+permission he hopped into his van, took her by the arm,
+and drew her up after him. 
+
+"What is it?" he continued when they stood within. 
+
+"I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am
+in a great hurry to get home.  Please show me as quickly
+as you can! It is so silly of me not to know Egdon better,
+and I cannot think how I came to lose the path. 
+Show me quickly, Diggory, please."
+
+"Yes, of course.  I will go with 'ee. But you came to me
+before this, Mrs. Wildeve?"
+
+"I only came this minute."
+
+"That's strange.  I was lying down here asleep about five
+minutes ago, with the door shut to keep out the weather,
+when the brushing of a woman's clothes over the heath-bushes
+just outside woke me up, for I don't sleep heavy,
+and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying from
+the same woman.  I opened my door and held out my lantern,
+and just as far as the light would reach I saw a woman;
+she turned her head when the light sheened on her,
+and then hurried on downhill.  I hung up the lantern,
+and was curious enough to pull on my things and dog her
+a few steps, but I could see nothing of her any more. 
+That was where I had been when you came up; and when I saw you
+I thought you were the same one."
+
+"Perhaps it was one of the heathfolk going home?"
+
+"No, it couldn't be.  'Tis too late.  The noise of her
+gown over the he'th was of a whistling sort that nothing
+but silk will make."
+
+"It wasn't I, then.  My dress is not silk, you see....Are
+we anywhere in a line between Mistover and the inn?"
+
+"Well, yes; not far out."
+
+"Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!"
+
+She jumped down from the van before he was aware,
+when Venn unhooked the lantern and leaped down after her. 
+"I'll take the baby, ma'am," he said.  "You must be tired
+out by the weight."
+
+Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby
+into Venn's hands.  "Don't squeeze her, Diggory," she said,
+"or hurt her little arm; and keep the cloak close over
+her like this, so that the rain may not drop in her face."
+
+"I will," said Venn earnestly.  "As if I could hurt
+anything belonging to you!"
+
+"I only meant accidentally," said Thomasin. 
+
+"The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet,"
+said the reddleman when, in closing the door of his cart
+to padlock it, he noticed on the floor a ring of water
+drops where her cloak had hung from her. 
+
+Thomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid
+the larger bushes, stopping occasionally and covering
+the lantern, while he looked over his shoulder to gain
+some idea of the position of Rainbarrow above them,
+which it was necessary to keep directly behind their backs
+to preserve a proper course. 
+
+"You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?"
+
+"Quite sure.  May I ask how old he is, ma'am?"
+
+"He!" said Thomasin reproachfully.  "Anybody can see better
+than that in a moment.  She is nearly two months old. 
+How far is it now to the inn?"
+
+"A little over a quarter of a mile."
+
+"Will you walk a little faster?"
+
+"I was afraid you could not keep up."
+
+"I am very anxious to get there.  Ah, there is a light
+from the window!"
+
+"'Tis not from the window.  That's a gig-lamp, to the best
+of my belief."
+
+"O!" said Thomasin in despair.  "I wish I had been there
+sooner--give me the baby, Diggory--you can go back now."
+
+"I must go all the way," said Venn.  "There is a quag
+between us and that light, and you will walk into it up
+to your neck unless I take you round."
+
+"But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag
+in front of that."
+
+"No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards."
+
+"Never mind," said Thomasin hurriedly.  "Go towards
+the light, and not towards the inn."
+
+"Yes," answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and,
+after a pause, "I wish you would tell me what this great
+trouble is.  I think you have proved that I can be trusted."
+
+"There are some things that cannot be--cannot be told to--"
+And then her heart rose into her throat, and she could say
+no more. 
+
+
+
+9 - Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
+
+
+Having seen Eustacia's signal from the hill at eight
+o'clock, Wildeve immediately prepared to assist her
+in her flight, and, as he hoped, accompany her.  He was
+somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informing Thomasin
+that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient
+to rouse her suspicions.  When she had gone to bed he
+collected the few articles he would require, and went
+upstairs to the money-chest, whence he took a tolerably
+bountiful sum in notes, which had been advanced to him
+on the property he was so soon to have in possession,
+to defray expenses incidental to the removal. 
+
+He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure
+himself that the horse, gig, and harness were in a fit
+condition for a long drive.  Nearly half an hour
+was spent thus, and on returning to the house Wildeve
+had no thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. 
+He had told the stable lad not to stay up, leading the boy
+to understand that his departure would be at three or four
+in the morning; for this, though an exceptional hour,
+was less strange than midnight, the time actually agreed on,
+the packet from Budmouth sailing between one and two.
+
+At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. 
+By no effort could he shake off the oppression of spirits
+which he had experienced ever since his last meeting
+with Eustacia, but he hoped there was that in his
+situation which money could cure.  He had persuaded
+himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle
+wife by settling on her the half of his property,
+and with chivalrous devotion towards another and greater
+woman by sharing her fate, was possible.  And though he
+meant to adhere to Eustacia's instructions to the letter,
+to deposit her where she wished and to leave her,
+should that be her will, the spell that she had cast
+over him intensified, and his heart was beating fast
+in the anticipated futility of such commands in the face
+of a mutual wish that they should throw in their lot together.
+
+He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures,
+maxims, and hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he
+again went softly to the stable, harnessed the horse,
+and lit the lamps; whence, taking the horse by the head,
+he led him with the covered car out of the yard
+to a spot by the roadside some quarter of a mile below the inn. 
+
+Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving
+rain by a high bank that had been cast up at this place. 
+Along the surface of the road where lit by the lamps
+the loosened gravel and small stones scudded and clicked
+together before the wind, which, leaving them in heaps,
+plunged into the heath and boomed across the bushes
+into darkness.  Only one sound rose above this din
+of weather, and that was the roaring of a ten-hatch weir
+to the southward, from a river in the meads which formed
+the boundary of the heath in this direction. 
+
+He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy
+that the midnight hour must have struck.  A very strong
+doubt had arisen in his mind if Eustacia would venture
+down the hill in such weather; yet knowing her nature he
+felt that she might.  "Poor thing! 'tis like her ill-luck,"
+he murmured. 
+
+At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. 
+To his surprise it was nearly a quarter past midnight. 
+He now wished that he had driven up the circuitous road
+to Mistover, a plan not adopted because of the enormous
+length of the route in proportion to that of the pedestrian's
+path down the open hillside, and the consequent increase
+of labour for the horse. 
+
+At this moment a footstep approached; but the light
+of the lamps being in a different direction the comer
+was not visible.  The step paused, then came on again. 
+
+"Eustacia?" said Wildeve. 
+
+The person came forward, and the light fell upon
+the form of Clym, glistening with wet, whom Wildeve
+immediately recognized; but Wildeve, who stood behind
+the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.
+
+He stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could
+have anything to do with the flight of his wife or not. 
+The sight of Yeobright at once banished Wildeve's
+sober feelings, who saw him again as the deadly rival
+from whom Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards. 
+Hence Wildeve did not speak, in the hope that Clym would
+pass by without particular inquiry. 
+
+While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound
+became audible above the storm and wind.  Its origin was
+unmistakable--it was the fall of a body into the stream
+in the adjoining mead, apparently at a point near the weir. 
+
+Both started.  "Good God! can it be she?" said Clym. 
+
+"Why should it be she?" said Wildeve, in his alarm
+forgetting that he had hitherto screened himself. 
+
+"Ah!--that's you, you traitor, is it?" cried Yeobright. 
+"Why should it be she?  Because last week she would have
+put an end to her life if she had been able.  She ought
+to have been watched! Take one of the lamps and come
+with me."
+
+Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on;
+Wildeve did not wait to unfasten the other, but followed
+at once along the meadow track to the weir, a little in
+the rear of Clym. 
+
+Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool,
+fifty feet in diameter, into which the water flowed
+through ten huge hatches, raised and lowered by a winch
+and cogs in the ordinary manner.  The sides of the pool
+were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away
+the bank; but the force of the stream in winter was
+sometimes such as to undermine the retaining wall and
+precipitate it into the hole.  Clym reached the hatches,
+the framework of which was shaken to its foundations
+by the velocity of the current.  Nothing but the froth
+of the waves could be discerned in the pool below. 
+He got upon the plank bridge over the race, and holding
+to the rail, that the wind might not blow him off,
+crossed to the other side of the river.  There he leant
+over the wall and lowered the lamp, only to behold the
+vortex formed at the curl of the returning current. 
+
+Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the
+light from Yeobright's lamp shed a flecked and agitated
+radiance across the weir pool, revealing to the ex-engineer
+the tumbling courses of the currents from the hatches above.
+Across this gashed and puckered mirror a dark body
+was slowly borne by one of the backward currents. 
+
+"O, my darling!" exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice;
+and, without showing sufficient presence of mind even
+to throw off his greatcoat, he leaped into the boiling caldron. 
+
+Yeobright could now also discern the floating body,
+though but indistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve's
+plunge that there was life to be saved he was about
+to leap after.  Bethinking himself of a wiser plan,
+he placed the lamp against a post to make it stand upright,
+and running round to the lower part of the pool,
+where there was no wall, he sprang in and boldly waded
+upwards towards the deeper portion.  Here he was taken
+off his legs, and in swimming was carried round into the
+centre of the basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling. 
+
+While these hasty actions were in progress here,
+Venn and Thomasin had been toiling through the lower
+corner of the heath in the direction of the light.
+They had not been near enough to the river to hear
+the plunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage lamp,
+and watched its motion into the mead.  As soon as they
+reached the car and horse Venn guessed that something
+new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the course
+of the moving light.  Venn walked faster than Thomasin,
+and came to the weir alone. 
+
+The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone
+across the water, and the reddleman observed something
+floating motionless.  Being encumbered with the infant,
+he ran back to meet Thomasin.
+
+"Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve," he said hastily. 
+"Run home with her, call the stable lad, and make him send
+down to me any men who may be living near.  Somebody has
+fallen into the weir."
+
+Thomasin took the child and ran.  When she came to the
+covered car the horse, though fresh from the stable,
+was standing perfectly still, as if conscious of misfortune.
+She saw for the first time whose it was.  She nearly fainted,
+and would have been unable to proceed another step
+but that the necessity of preserving the little girl
+from harm nerved her to an amazing self-control. In this
+agony of suspense she entered the house, put the baby
+in a place of safety, woke the lad and the female domestic,
+and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage. 
+
+Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed
+that the small upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. 
+He found one of these lying upon the grass, and taking
+it under one arm, and with his lantern in his hand,
+entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym had done.
+As soon as he began to be in deep water he flung himself
+across the hatch; thus supported he was able to keep
+afloat as long as he chose, holding the lantern aloft
+with his disengaged hand.  Propelled by his feet,
+he steered round and round the pool, ascending each time
+by one of the back streams and descending in the middle
+of the current. 
+
+At first he could see nothing.  Then amidst the
+glistening of the whirlpools and the white clots of foam
+he distinguished a woman's bonnet floating alone. 
+His search was now under the left wall, when something
+came to the surface almost close beside him.  It was not,
+as he had expected, a woman, but a man.  The reddleman
+put the ring of the lantern between his teeth, seized the
+floating man by the collar, and, holding on to the hatch
+with his remaining arm, struck out into the strongest race,
+by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and himself were
+carried down the stream.  As soon as Venn found his feet
+dragging over the pebbles of the shallower part below
+he secured his footing and waded towards the brink.
+There, where the water stood at about the height of
+his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag
+forth the man.  This was a matter of great difficulty,
+and he found as the reason that the legs of the unfortunate
+stranger were tightly embraced by the arms of another man,
+who had hitherto been entirely beneath the surface. 
+
+At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps
+running towards him, and two men, roused by Thomasin,
+appeared at the brink above.  They ran to where Venn was,
+and helped him in lifting out the apparently drowned persons,
+separating them, and laying them out upon the grass. 
+Venn turned the light upon their faces.  The one who had
+been uppermost was Yeobright; he who had been completely
+submerged was Wildeve. 
+
+"Now we must search the hole again," said Venn. 
+"A woman is in there somewhere.  Get a pole."
+
+One of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail.
+The reddleman and the two others then entered the water
+together from below as before, and with their united
+force probed the pool forwards to where it sloped down
+to its central depth.  Venn was not mistaken in supposing
+that any person who had sunk for the last time would
+be washed down to this point, for when they had examined
+to about halfway across something impeded their thrust. 
+
+"Pull it forward," said Venn, and they raked it in with
+the pole till it was close to their feet. 
+
+Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an
+armful of wet drapery enclosing a woman's cold form,
+which was all that remained of the desperate Eustacia. 
+
+When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a
+stress of grief, bending over the two unconscious ones
+who already lay there.  The horse and cart were brought
+to the nearest point in the road, and it was the work
+of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle. 
+Venn led on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm,
+and the two men followed, till they reached the inn.
+
+The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin
+had hastily dressed herself and lighted a fire, the other
+servant being left to snore on in peace at the back
+of the house.  The insensible forms of Eustacia, Clym,
+and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the carpet,
+with their feet to the fire, when such restorative
+processes as could be thought of were adopted at once,
+the stableman being in the meantime sent for a doctor. 
+But there seemed to be not a whiff of life in either
+of the bodies.  Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief
+had been thrust off awhile by frantic action, applied a
+bottle of hartshorn to Clym's nostrils, having tried
+it in vain upon the other two.  He sighed. 
+
+"Clym's alive!" she exclaimed. 
+
+He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did
+she attempt to revive her husband by the same means;
+but Wildeve gave no sign.  There was too much reason
+to think that he and Eustacia both were for ever beyond
+the reach of stimulating perfumes.  Their exertions did
+not relax till the doctor arrived, when one by one,
+the senseless three were taken upstairs and put into
+warm beds. 
+
+Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance,
+and went to the door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange
+catastrophe that had befallen the family in which he took
+so great an interest.  Thomasin surely would be broken
+down by the sudden and overwhelming nature of this event. 
+No firm and sensible Mrs. Yeobright lived now to support
+the gentle girl through the ordeal; and, whatever an
+unimpassioned spectator might think of her loss
+of such a husband as Wildeve, there could be no doubt
+that for the moment she was distracted and horrified
+by the blow.  As for himself, not being privileged to go
+to her and comfort her, he saw no reason for waiting
+longer in a house where he remained only as a stranger. 
+
+He returned across the heath to his van.  The fire was
+not yet out, and everything remained as he had left it.
+Venn now bethought himself of his clothes, which were
+saturated with water to the weight of lead.  He changed them,
+spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep. 
+But it was more than he could do to rest here while excited
+by a vivid imagination of the turmoil they were in at the
+house he had quitted, and, blaming himself for coming away,
+he dressed in another suit, locked up the door, and again
+hastened across to the inn.  Rain was still falling heavily
+when he entered the kitchen.  A bright fire was shining
+from the hearth, and two women were bustling about,
+one of whom was Olly Dowden. 
+
+"Well, how is it going on now?" said Venn in a whisper. 
+
+"Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright
+and Mr. Wildeve are dead and cold.  The doctor
+says they were quite gone before they were out of the water."
+
+"Ah! I thought as much when I hauled 'em up.  And Mrs. Wildeve?"
+
+"She is as well as can be expected.  The doctor had
+her put between blankets, for she was almost as wet
+as they that had been in the river, poor young thing. 
+You don't seem very dry, reddleman."
+
+"Oh, 'tis not much.  I have changed my things.  This is
+only a little dampness I've got coming through the rain again."
+
+"Stand by the fire.  Mis'ess says you be to have whatever
+you want, and she was sorry when she was told that you'd
+gone away."
+
+Venn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames
+in an absent mood.  The steam came from his leggings
+and ascended the chimney with the smoke, while he thought
+of those who were upstairs.  Two were corpses, one had barely
+escaped the jaws of death, another was sick and a widow. 
+The last occasion on which he had lingered by that fireplace
+was when the raffle was in progress; when Wildeve was alive
+and well; Thomasin active and smiling in the next room;
+Yeobright and Eustacia just made husband and wife,
+and Mrs. Yeobright living at Blooms-End. It had seemed at that
+time that the then position of affairs was good for at least
+twenty years to come.  Yet, of all the circle, he himself
+was the only one whose situation had not materially changed. 
+
+While he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. 
+It was the nurse, who brought in her hand a rolled mass
+of wet paper.  The woman was so engrossed with her occupation
+that she hardly saw Venn.  She took from a cupboard some
+pieces of twine, which she strained across the fireplace,
+tying the end of each piece to the firedog, previously pulled
+forward for the purpose, and, unrolling the wet papers,
+she began pinning them one by one to the strings in a
+manner of clothes on a line. 
+
+"What be they?" said Venn. 
+
+"Poor master's banknotes," she answered.  "They were found
+in his pocket when they undressed him."
+
+"Then he was not coming back again for some time?"
+said Venn.
+
+"That we shall never know," said she. 
+
+Venn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested
+him lay under this roof.  As nobody in the house had any
+more sleep that night, except the two who slept for ever,
+there was no reason why he should not remain.  So he retired
+into the niche of the fireplace where he had used to sit,
+and there he continued, watching the steam from the double
+row of banknotes as they waved backwards and forwards
+in the draught of the chimney till their flaccidity
+was changed to dry crispness throughout.  Then the woman
+came and unpinned them, and, folding them together,
+carried the handful upstairs.  Presently the doctor
+appeared from above with the look of a man who could do
+no more, and, pulling on his gloves, went out of the house,
+the trotting of his horse soon dying away upon the road. 
+
+At four o'clock there was a gentle knock at the door. 
+It was from Charley, who had been sent by Captain Vye
+to inquire if anything had been heard of Eustacia.
+The girl who admitted him looked in his face as if she
+did not know what answer to return, and showed him in to
+where Venn was seated, saying to the reddleman, "Will you
+tell him, please?"
+
+Venn told.  Charley's only utterance was a feeble,
+indistinct sound.  He stood quite still; then he burst
+out spasmodically, "I shall see her once more?"
+
+"I dare say you may see her," said Diggory gravely. 
+"But hadn't you better run and tell Captain Vye?"
+
+"Yes, yes.  Only I do hope I shall see her just once again."
+
+"You shall," said a low voice behind; and starting
+round they beheld by the dim light, a thin, pallid,
+almost spectral form, wrapped in a blanket, and looking
+like Lazarus coming from the tomb. 
+
+It was Yeobright.  Neither Venn nor Charley spoke,
+and Clym continued, "You shall see her.  There will be
+time enough to tell the captain when it gets daylight. 
+You would like to see her too--would you not, Diggory?  She
+looks very beautiful now."
+
+Venn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley
+he followed Clym to the foot of the staircase,
+where he took off his boots; Charley did the same. 
+They followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, where there
+was a candle burning, which Yeobright took in his hand,
+and with it led the way into an adjoining room. 
+Here he went to the bedside and folded back the sheet. 
+
+They stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay
+there still in death, eclipsed all her living phases. 
+Pallor did not include all the quality of her complexion,
+which seemed more than whiteness; it was almost light. 
+The expression of her finely carved mouth was pleasant,
+as if a sense of dignity had just compelled her to leave
+off speaking.  Eternal rigidity had seized upon it in a
+momentary transition between fervour and resignation.
+Her black hair was looser now than either of them had ever
+seen it before, and surrounded her brow like a forest. 
+The stateliness of look which had been almost too marked
+for a dweller in a country domicile had at last found an
+artistically happy background. 
+
+Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered
+her and turned aside.  "Now come here," he said. 
+
+They went to a recess in the same room, and there,
+on a smaller bed, lay another figure--Wildeve. Less repose
+was visible in his face than in Eustacia's, but the same
+luminous youthfulness overspread it, and the least
+sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him
+now that he was born for a higher destiny than this. 
+The only sign upon him of his recent struggle for life
+was in his fingertips, which were worn and sacrificed
+in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on the face
+of the weir-wall.
+
+Yeobright's manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so
+few syllables since his reappearance, that Venn imagined
+him resigned.  It was only when they had left the room
+and stood upon the landing that the true state of his
+mind was apparent.  Here he said, with a wild smile,
+inclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay,
+"She is the second woman I have killed this year. 
+I was a great cause of my mother's death, and I am
+the chief cause of hers."
+
+"How?" said Venn. 
+
+"I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. 
+I did not invite her back till it was too late.  It is I who
+ought to have drowned myself.  It would have been a charity
+to the living had the river overwhelmed me and borne her up. 
+But I cannot die.  Those who ought to have lived lie dead;
+and here am I alive!"
+
+"But you can't charge yourself with crimes in that way,"
+said Venn.  "You may as well say that the parents be the
+cause of a murder by the child, for without the parents
+the child would never have been begot."
+
+"Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don't know
+all the circumstances.  If it had pleased God to put
+an end to me it would have been a good thing for all. 
+But I am getting used to the horror of my existence. 
+They say that a time comes when men laugh at misery through
+long acquaintance with it.  Surely that time will soon
+come to me!"
+
+"Your aim has always been good," said Venn.  "Why should
+you say such desperate things?"
+
+"No, they are not desperate.  They are only hopeless;
+and my great regret is that for what I have done no man
+or law can punish me!"
+
+
+
+book six
+
+AFTERCOURSES
+
+
+
+1 - The Inevitable Movement Onward
+
+
+The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told
+throughout Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months.
+All the known incidents of their love were enlarged,
+distorted, touched up, and modified, till the original
+reality bore but a slight resemblance to the counterfeit
+presentation by surrounding tongues.  Yet, upon the whole,
+neither the man nor the woman lost dignity by sudden death. 
+Misfortune had struck them gracefully, cutting off their erratic
+histories with a catastrophic dash, instead of, as with many,
+attenuating each life to an uninteresting meagreness,
+through long years of wrinkles, neglect, and decay. 
+
+On those most nearly concerned the effect was somewhat different. 
+Strangers who had heard of many such cases now merely
+heard of one more; but immediately where a blow falls
+no previous imaginings amount to appreciable preparation
+for it.  The very suddenness of her bereavement dulled,
+to some extent, Thomasin's feelings; yet irrationally enough,
+a consciousness that the husband she had lost ought
+to have been a better man did not lessen her mourning
+at all.  On the contrary, this fact seemed at first
+to set off the dead husband in his young wife's eyes,
+and to be the necessary cloud to the rainbow.
+
+But the horrors of the unknown had passed.  Vague misgivings
+about her future as a deserted wife were at an end. 
+The worst had once been matter of trembling conjecture;
+it was now matter of reason only, a limited badness. 
+Her chief interest, the little Eustacia, still remained. 
+There was humility in her grief, no defiance in her attitude;
+and when this is the case a shaken spirit is apt to
+be stilled. 
+
+Could Thomasin's mournfulness now and Eustacia's serenity during
+life have been reduced to common measure, they would have
+touched the same mark nearly.  But Thomasin's former brightness
+made shadow of that which in a sombre atmosphere was light itself. 
+
+The spring came and calmed her; the summer came and soothed her;
+the autumn arrived, and she began to be comforted,
+for her little girl was strong and happy, growing in size
+and knowledge every day.  Outward events flattered Thomasin
+not a little.  Wildeve had died intestate, and she and
+the child were his only relatives.  When administration
+had been granted, all the debts paid, and the residue
+of her husband's uncle's property had come into her hands,
+it was found that the sum waiting to be invested for her own
+and the child's benefit was little less than ten thousand pounds. 
+
+Where should she live?  The obvious place was Blooms-End. 
+The old rooms, it is true, were not much higher than the
+between-decks of a frigate, necessitating a sinking in the
+floor under the new clock-case she brought from the inn,
+and the removal of the handsome brass knobs on its head,
+before there was height for it to stand; but, such as
+the rooms were, there were plenty of them, and the place
+was endeared to her by every early recollection.
+Clym very gladly admitted her as a tenant, confining his own
+existence to two rooms at the top of the back staircase,
+where he lived on quietly, shut off from Thomasin and
+the three servants she had thought fit to indulge in now
+that she was a mistress of money, going his own ways,
+and thinking his own thoughts. 
+
+His sorrows had made some change in his outward appearance;
+and yet the alteration was chiefly within.  It might have
+been said that he had a wrinkled mind.  He had no enemies,
+and he could get nobody to reproach him, which was why he
+so bitterly reproached himself. 
+
+He did sometimes think he had been ill-used by fortune,
+so far as to say that to be born is a palpable dilemma,
+and that instead of men aiming to advance in life
+with glory they should calculate how to retreat out
+of it without shame.  But that he and his had been
+sarcastically and pitilessly handled in having such
+irons thrust into their souls he did not maintain long.
+It is usually so, except with the sternest of men.
+Human beings, in their generous endeavour to construct
+a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause,
+have always hesitated to conceive a dominant power of lower
+moral quality than their own; and, even while they sit
+down and weep by the waters of Babylon, invent excuses
+for the oppression which prompts their tears. 
+
+Thus, though words of solace were vainly uttered in
+his presence, he found relief in a direction of his own
+choosing when left to himself.  For a man of his habits
+the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a year which he
+had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all
+worldly needs.  Resources do not depend upon gross amounts,
+but upon the proportion of spendings to takings. 
+
+He frequently walked the heath alone, when the past
+seized upon him with its shadowy hand, and held him
+there to listen to its tale.  His imagination would then
+people the spot with its ancient inhabitants--forgotten
+Celtic tribes trod their tracks about him, and he could
+almost live among them, look in their faces, and see
+them standing beside the barrows which swelled around,
+untouched and perfect as at the time of their erection. 
+Those of the dyed barbarians who had chosen the cultivable
+tracts were, in comparison with those who had left their
+marks here, as writers on paper beside writers on parchment. 
+Their records had perished long ago by the plough,
+while the works of these remained.  Yet they all had lived
+and died unconscious of the different fates awaiting
+their relics.  It reminded him that unforeseen factors
+operate in the evolution of immortality. 
+
+Winter again came round, with its winds, frosts, tame robins,
+and sparkling starlight.  The year previous Thomasin had
+hardly been conscious of the season's advance; this year she
+laid her heart open to external influences of every kind. 
+The life of this sweet cousin, her baby, and her servants,
+came to Clym's senses only in the form of sounds through
+a wood partition as he sat over books of exceptionally
+large type; but his ear became at last so accustomed
+to these slight noises from the other part of the house
+that he almost could witness the scenes they signified.
+A faint beat of half-seconds conjured up Thomasin rocking
+the cradle, a wavering hum meant that she was singing the
+baby to sleep, a crunching of sand as between millstones
+raised the picture of Humphrey's, Fairway's, or Sam's
+heavy feet crossing the stone floor of the kitchen;
+a light boyish step, and a gay tune in a high key,
+betokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden break-off
+in the Grandfer's utterances implied the application to
+his lips of a mug of small beer, a bustling and slamming
+of doors meant starting to go to market; for Thomasin,
+in spite of her added scope of gentility, led a ludicrously
+narrow life, to the end that she might save every possible
+pound for her little daughter. 
+
+One summer day Clym was in the garden, immediately outside
+the parlour window, which was as usual open.  He was looking
+at the pot-flowers on the sill; they had been revived
+and restored by Thomasin to the state in which his mother
+had left them.  He heard a slight scream from Thomasin,
+who was sitting inside the room.
+
+"O, how you frightened me!" she said to someone who
+had entered.  "I thought you were the ghost of yourself."
+
+Clym was curious enough to advance a little further
+and look in at the window.  To his astonishment
+there stood within the room Diggory Venn, no longer
+a reddleman, but exhibiting the strangely altered hues
+of an ordinary Christian countenance, white shirt-front,
+light flowered waistcoat, blue-spotted neckerchief,
+and bottle-green coat.  Nothing in this appearance was at
+all singular but the fact of its great difference from
+what he had formerly been.  Red, and all approach to red,
+was carefully excluded from every article of clothes upon him;
+for what is there that persons just out of harness dread
+so much as reminders of the trade which has enriched them?
+
+Yeobright went round to the door and entered. 
+
+"I was so alarmed!" said Thomasin, smiling from one to
+the other.  "I couldn't believe that he had got white
+of his own accord! It seemed supernatural."
+
+"I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas," said Venn. 
+"It was a profitable trade, and I found that by that
+time I had made enough to take the dairy of fifty cows
+that my father had in his lifetime.  I always thought
+of getting to that place again if I changed at all,
+and now I am there."
+
+"How did you manage to become white, Diggory?" Thomasin asked. 
+
+"I turned so by degrees, ma'am."
+
+"You look much better than ever you did before."
+
+Venn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how
+inadvertently she had spoken to a man who might possibly
+have tender feelings for her still, blushed a little. 
+Clym saw nothing of this, and added good-humouredly--
+
+"What shall we have to frighten Thomasin's baby with,
+now you have become a human being again?"
+
+"Sit down, Diggory," said Thomasin, "and stay to tea."
+
+Venn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen,
+when Thomasin said with pleasant pertness as she went
+on with some sewing, "Of course you must sit down here. 
+And where does your fifty-cow dairy lie, Mr. Venn?"
+
+"At Stickleford--about two miles to the right of Alderworth,
+ma'am, where the meads begin.  I have thought that if
+Mr. Yeobright would like to pay me a visit sometimes he
+shouldn't stay away for want of asking.  I'll not bide
+to tea this afternoon, thank'ee, for I've got something
+on hand that must be settled.  'Tis Maypole-day tomorrow,
+and the Shadwater folk have clubbed with a few of your
+neighbours here to have a pole just outside your palings
+in the heath, as it is a nice green place."  Venn waved
+his elbow towards the patch in front of the house. 
+"I have been talking to Fairway about it," he continued,
+"and I said to him that before we put up the pole it would
+be as well to ask Mrs. Wildeve."
+
+"I can say nothing against it," she answered.  "Our property
+does not reach an inch further than the white palings."
+
+"But you might not like to see a lot of folk going crazy
+round a stick, under your very nose?"
+
+"I shall have no objection at all."
+
+Venn soon after went away, and in the evening Yeobright
+strolled as far as Fairway's cottage.  It was a lovely
+May sunset, and the birch trees which grew on this margin
+of the vast Egdon wilderness had put on their new leaves,
+delicate as butterflies' wings, and diaphanous as amber. 
+Beside Fairway's dwelling was an open space recessed
+from the road, and here were now collected all the young
+people from within a radius of a couple of miles. 
+The pole lay with one end supported on a trestle, and women
+were engaged in wreathing it from the top downwards with
+wild-flowers. The instincts of merry England lingered on
+here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs
+which tradition has attached to each season of the year
+were yet a reality on Egdon.  Indeed, the impulses of all
+such outlandish hamlets are pagan still--in these spots
+homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties,
+fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names
+are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived
+mediaeval doctrine. 
+
+Yeobright did not interrupt the preparations, and went
+home again.  The next morning, when Thomasin withdrew
+the curtains of her bedroom window, there stood the Maypole
+in the middle of the green, its top cutting into the sky. 
+It had sprung up in the night, or rather early morning,
+like Jack's bean-stalk. She opened the casement to get
+a better view of the garlands and posies that adorned it. 
+The sweet perfume of the flowers had already spread into
+the surrounding air, which, being free from every taint,
+conducted to her lips a full measure of the fragrance
+received from the spire of blossom in its midst. 
+At the top of the pole were crossed hoops decked with
+small flowers; beneath these came a milk-white zone
+of Maybloom; then a zone of bluebells, then of cowslips,
+then of lilacs, then of ragged-robins, daffodils, and so on,
+till the lowest stage was reached.  Thomasin noticed
+all these, and was delighted that the May revel was to be
+so near. 
+
+When afternoon came people began to gather on the green,
+and Yeobright was interested enough to look out upon
+them from the open window of his room.  Soon after this
+Thomasin walked out from the door immediately below and
+turned her eyes up to her cousin's face.  She was dressed
+more gaily than Yeobright had ever seen her dressed
+since the time of Wildeve's death, eighteen months before;
+since the day of her marriage even she had not exhibited
+herself to such advantage. 
+
+"How pretty you look today, Thomasin!" he said. 
+"Is it because of the Maypole?"
+
+"Not altogether."  And then she blushed and dropped her eyes,
+which he did not specially observe, though her manner
+seemed to him to be rather peculiar, considering that
+she was only addressing himself.  Could it be possible
+that she had put on her summer clothes to please him?
+
+He recalled her conduct towards him throughout
+the last few weeks, when they had often been working
+together in the garden, just as they had formerly done
+when they were boy and girl under his mother's eye.
+What if her interest in him were not so entirely that
+of a relative as it had formerly been?  To Yeobright any
+possibility of this sort was a serious matter; and he
+almost felt troubled at the thought of it.  Every pulse
+of loverlike feeling which had not been stilled during
+Eustacia's lifetime had gone into the grave with her. 
+His passion for her had occurred too far on in his
+manhood to leave fuel enough on hand for another fire
+of that sort, as may happen with more boyish loves. 
+Even supposing him capable of loving again, that love
+would be a plant of slow and laboured growth, and in
+the end only small and sickly, like an autumn-hatched bird.
+
+He was so distressed by this new complexity that when the
+enthusiastic brass band arrived and struck up, which it
+did about five o'clock, with apparently wind enough
+among its members to blow down his house, he withdrew
+from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden,
+through the gate in the hedge, and away out of sight. 
+He could not bear to remain in the presence of enjoyment today,
+though he had tried hard.
+
+Nothing was seen of him for four hours.  When he came back
+by the same path it was dusk, and the dews were coating
+every green thing.  The boisterous music had ceased;
+but, entering the premises as he did from behind, he could
+not see if the May party had all gone till he had passed
+through Thomasin's division of the house to the front door. 
+Thomasin was standing within the porch alone. 
+
+She looked at him reproachfully.  "You went away just
+when it began, Clym," she said. 
+
+"Yes. I felt I could not join in.  You went out with them,
+of course?"
+
+"No, I did not."
+
+"You appeared to be dressed on purpose."
+
+"Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people
+were there.  One is there now."
+
+Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch
+beyond the paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he
+discerned a shadowy figure, sauntering idly up and down. 
+"Who is it?" he said. 
+
+"Mr. Venn," said Thomasin. 
+
+"You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. 
+He has been very kind to you first and last."
+
+"I will now," she said; and, acting on the impulse,
+went through the wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.
+
+"It is Mr. Venn, I think?" she inquired. 
+
+Venn started as if he had not seen her--artful man that he
+was--and said, "Yes."
+
+"Will you come in?"
+
+"I am afraid that I--"
+
+"I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had
+the very best of the girls for your partners.  Is it
+that you won't come in because you wish to stand here,
+and think over the past hours of enjoyment?"
+
+"Well, that's partly it," said Mr. Venn,
+with ostentatious sentiment.  "But the main reason
+why I am biding here like this is that I want to wait till the
+moon rises."
+
+"To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?"
+
+"No. To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens."
+
+Thomasin was speechless with surprise.  That a man who had
+to walk some four or five miles to his home should wait
+here for such a reason pointed to only one conclusion--the
+man must be amazingly interested in that glove's owner. 
+
+"Were you dancing with her, Diggory?" she asked,
+in a voice which revealed that he had made himself
+considerably more interesting to her by this disclosure. 
+
+"No," he sighed. 
+
+"And you will not come in, then?"
+
+"Not tonight, thank you, ma'am."
+
+"Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young
+person's glove, Mr. Venn?"
+
+"O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. 
+The moon will rise in a few minutes."
+
+Thomasin went back to the porch.  "Is he coming in?"
+said Clym, who had been waiting where she had left him. 
+
+"He would rather not tonight," she said, and then passed
+by him into the house; whereupon Clym too retired to his
+own rooms. 
+
+When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and,
+just listening by the cot, to assure herself that the child
+was asleep, she went to the window, gently lifted the corner
+of the white curtain, and looked out.  Venn was still there. 
+She watched the growth of the faint radiance appearing
+in the sky by the eastern hill, till presently the edge
+of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley with light. 
+Diggory's form was now distinct on the green; he was moving
+about in a bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass
+for the precious missing article, walking in zigzags right
+and left till he should have passed over every foot of the ground.
+
+"How very ridiculous!" Thomasin murmured to herself,
+in a tone which was intended to be satirical.  "To think
+that a man should be so silly as to go mooning about
+like that for a girl's glove! A respectable dairyman,
+too, and a man of money as he is now.  What a pity!"
+
+At last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood
+up and raised it to his lips.  Then placing it in his
+breastpocket--the nearest receptacle to a man's heart
+permitted by modern raiment--he ascended the valley
+in a mathematically direct line towards his distant
+home in the meadows. 
+
+
+
+2 - Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road
+
+
+Clym saw little of Thomasin for several days after this;
+and when they met she was more silent than usual.  At length
+he asked her what she was thinking of so intently. 
+
+"I am thoroughly perplexed," she said candidly. 
+"I cannot for my life think who it is that Diggory Venn
+is so much in love with.  None of the girls at the Maypole
+were good enough for him, and yet she must have been there."
+
+Clym tried to imagine Venn's choice for a moment;
+but ceasing to be interested in the question he went
+on again with his gardening. 
+
+No clearing up of the mystery was granted her for some time. 
+But one afternoon Thomasin was upstairs getting ready
+for a walk, when she had occasion to come to the landing
+and call "Rachel."  Rachel was a girl about thirteen,
+who carried the baby out for airings; and she came upstairs
+at the call. 
+
+"Have you seen one of my last new gloves about the house,
+Rachel?" inquired Thomasin.  "It is the fellow to this one."
+
+Rachel did not reply. 
+
+"Why don't you answer?" said her mistress. 
+
+"I think it is lost, ma'am."
+
+"Lost?  Who lost it?  I have never worn them but once."
+
+Rachel appeared as one dreadfully troubled, and at last
+began to cry.  "Please, ma'am, on the day of the Maypole
+I had none to wear, and I seed yours on the table,
+and I thought I would borrow 'em. I did not mean
+to hurt 'em at all, but one of them got lost. 
+Somebody gave me some money to buy another pair for you,
+but I have not been able to go anywhere to get 'em."
+
+"Who's somebody?"
+
+"Mr. Venn."
+
+"Did he know it was my glove?"
+
+"Yes. I told him."
+
+Thomasin was so surprised by the explanation that she quite
+forgot to lecture the girl, who glided silently away. 
+Thomasin did not move further than to turn her eyes
+upon the grass-plat where the Maypole had stood. 
+She remained thinking, then said to herself that she
+would not go out that afternoon, but would work hard at
+the baby's unfinished lovely plaid frock, cut on the cross
+in the newest fashion.  How she managed to work hard,
+and yet do no more than she had done at the end of
+two hours, would have been a mystery to anyone not aware
+that the recent incident was of a kind likely to divert
+her industry from a manual to a mental channel. 
+
+Next day she went her ways as usual, and continued her
+custom of walking in the heath with no other companion
+than little Eustacia, now of the age when it is a matter
+of doubt with such characters whether they are intended
+to walk through the world on their hands or on their feet;
+so that they get into painful complications by trying both. 
+It was very pleasant to Thomasin, when she had carried
+the child to some lonely place, to give her a little
+private practice on the green turf and shepherd's-thyme,
+which formed a soft mat to fall headlong upon them when
+equilibrium was lost.
+
+Once, when engaged in this system of training, and stooping
+to remove bits of stick, fern-stalks, and other such
+fragments from the child's path, that the journey might not
+be brought to an untimely end by some insuperable barrier
+a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by discovering
+that a man on horseback was almost close beside her,
+the soft natural carpet having muffled the horse's tread. 
+The rider, who was Venn, waved his hat in the air
+and bowed gallantly. 
+
+"Diggory, give me my glove," said Thomasin, whose manner
+it was under any circumstances to plunge into the midst
+of a subject which engrossed her.
+
+Venn immediately dismounted, put his hand in his breastpocket,
+and handed the glove. 
+
+"Thank you.  It was very good of you to take care of it."
+
+"It is very good of you to say so."
+
+"O no.  I was quite glad to find you had it.  Everybody gets
+so indifferent that I was surprised to know you thought
+of me."
+
+"If you had remembered what I was once you wouldn't
+have been surprised."
+
+"Ah, no," she said quickly.  "But men of your character
+are mostly so independent."
+
+"What is my character?" he asked. 
+
+"I don't exactly know," said Thomasin simply, "except it
+is to cover up your feelings under a practical manner,
+and only to show them when you are alone."
+
+"Ah, how do you know that?" said Venn strategically. 
+
+"Because," said she, stopping to put the little girl,
+who had managed to get herself upside down, right end
+up again, "because I do."
+
+"You mustn't judge by folks in general," said Venn. 
+"Still I don't know much what feelings are nowadays. 
+I have got so mixed up with business of one sort and t'other
+that my soft sentiments are gone off in vapour like. 
+Yes, I am given up body and soul to the making of money. 
+Money is all my dream."
+
+"O Diggory, how wicked!" said Thomasin reproachfully,
+and looking at him in exact balance between taking his
+words seriously and judging them as said to tease her. 
+
+"Yes, 'tis rather a rum course," said Venn, in the bland
+tone of one comfortably resigned to sins he could
+no longer overcome. 
+
+"You, who used to be so nice!"
+
+"Well, that's an argument I rather like, because what a
+man has once been he may be again."  Thomasin blushed.
+"Except that it is rather harder now," Venn continued. 
+
+"Why?" she asked. 
+
+"Because you be richer than you were at that time."
+
+"O no--not much.  I have made it nearly all over to the baby,
+as it was my duty to do, except just enough to live on."
+
+"I am rather glad of that," said Venn softly, and regarding
+her from the corner of his eye, "for it makes it easier
+for us to be friendly."
+
+Thomasin blushed again, and, when a few more words
+had been said of a not unpleasing kind, Venn mounted
+his horse and rode on. 
+
+This conversation had passed in a hollow of the heath near
+the old Roman road, a place much frequented by Thomasin. 
+And it might have been observed that she did not in future
+walk that way less often from having met Venn there now. 
+Whether or not Venn abstained from riding thither because
+he had met Thomasin in the same place might easily have
+been guessed from her proceedings about two months later
+in the same year. 
+
+
+
+3 - The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin
+
+
+Throughout this period Yeobright had more or less pondered
+on his duty to his cousin Thomasin.  He could not help
+feeling that it would be a pitiful waste of sweet
+material if the tender-natured thing should be doomed
+from this early stage of her life onwards to dribble
+away her winsome qualities on lonely gorse and fern. 
+But he felt this as an economist merely, and not as a lover. 
+His passion for Eustacia had been a sort of conserve
+of his whole life, and he had nothing more of that supreme
+quality left to bestow.  So far the obvious thing was
+not to entertain any idea of marriage with Thomasin,
+even to oblige her. 
+
+But this was not all.  Years ago there had been in his
+mother's mind a great fancy about Thomasin and himself. 
+It had not positively amounted to a desire, but it had
+always been a favourite dream.  That they should be man
+and wife in good time, if the happiness of neither
+were endangered thereby, was the fancy in question. 
+So that what course save one was there now left for any son
+who reverenced his mother's memory as Yeobright did?  It
+is an unfortunate fact that any particular whim of parents,
+which might have been dispersed by half an hour's
+conversation during their lives, becomes sublimated
+by their deaths into a fiat the most absolute, with such
+results to conscientious children as those parents,
+had they lived, would have been the first to decry. 
+
+Had only Yeobright's own future been involved he would
+have proposed to Thomasin with a ready heart.  He had
+nothing to lose by carrying out a dead mother's hope. 
+But he dreaded to contemplate Thomasin wedded to the mere
+corpse of a lover that he now felt himself to be. 
+He had but three activities alive in him.  One was his
+almost daily walk to the little graveyard wherein his
+mother lay, another, his just as frequent visits by night
+to the more distant enclosure which numbered his Eustacia
+among its dead; the third was self-preparation for a vocation
+which alone seemed likely to satisfy his cravings--that
+of an itinerant preacher of the eleventh commandment. 
+It was difficult to believe that Thomasin would be cheered
+by a husband with such tendencies as these. 
+
+Yet he resolved to ask her, and let her decide for herself. 
+It was even with a pleasant sense of doing his duty that
+he went downstairs to her one evening for this purpose,
+when the sun was printing on the valley the same long
+shadow of the housetop that he had seen lying there times
+out of number while his mother lived. 
+
+Thomasin was not in her room, and he found her in the
+front garden.  "I have long been wanting, Thomasin,"
+he began, "to say something about a matter that concerns
+both our futures."
+
+"And you are going to say it now?" she remarked quickly,
+colouring as she met his gaze.  "Do stop a minute, Clym,
+and let me speak first, for oddly enough, I have been
+wanting to say something to you."
+
+"By all means say on, Tamsie."
+
+"I suppose nobody can overhear us?" she went on, casting her
+eyes around and lowering her voice.  "Well, first you
+will promise me this--that you won't be angry and call
+me anything harsh if you disagree with what I propose?"
+
+Yeobright promised, and she continued: "What I want
+is your advice, for you are my relation--I mean, a sort
+of guardian to me--aren't you, Clym?"
+
+"Well, yes, I suppose I am; a sort of guardian.  In fact,
+I am, of course," he said, altogether perplexed as to
+her drift. 
+
+"I am thinking of marrying," she then observed blandly. 
+"But I shall not marry unless you assure me that you approve
+of such a step.  Why don't you speak?"
+
+"I was taken rather by surprise.  But, nevertheless, I am
+very glad to hear such news.  I shall approve, of course,
+dear Tamsie.  Who can it be?  I am quite at a loss to guess. 
+No I am not--'tis the old doctor!--not that I mean to call
+him old, for he is not very old after all.  Ah--I noticed
+when he attended you last time!"
+
+"No, no," she said hastily.  "'Tis Mr. Venn."
+
+Clym's face suddenly became grave.
+
+"There, now, you don't like him, and I wish I hadn't
+mentioned him!" she exclaimed almost petulantly. 
+"And I shouldn't have done it, either, only he keeps
+on bothering me so till I don't know what to do!"
+
+Clym looked at the heath.  "I like Venn well enough,"
+he answered at last.  "He is a very honest and at the same
+time astute man.  He is clever too, as is proved by his
+having got you to favour him.  But really, Thomasin, he is
+not quite--"
+
+"Gentleman enough for me?  That is just what I feel. 
+I am sorry now that I asked you, and I won't think any
+more of him.  At the same time I must marry him if I marry
+anybody--that I WILL say!"
+
+"I don't see that," said Clym, carefully concealing every
+clue to his own interrupted intention, which she plainly
+had not guessed.  "You might marry a professional man,
+or somebody of that sort, by going into the town to live
+and forming acquaintances there."
+
+"I am not fit for town life--so very rural and silly
+as I always have been.  Do not you yourself notice
+my countrified ways?"
+
+"Well, when I came home from Paris I did, a little;
+but I don't now."
+
+"That's because you have got countrified too.  O, I couldn't
+live in a street for the world! Egdon is a ridiculous
+old place; but I have got used to it, and I couldn't
+be happy anywhere else at all."
+
+"Neither could I," said Clym. 
+
+"Then how could you say that I should marry some town man?
+I am sure, say what you will, that I must marry Diggory,
+if I marry at all.  He has been kinder to me than anybody else,
+and has helped me in many ways that I don't know of!"
+Thomasin almost pouted now.
+
+"Yes, he has," said Clym in a neutral tone.  "Well, I
+wish with all my heart that I could say, marry him. 
+But I cannot forget what my mother thought on that matter,
+and it goes rather against me not to respect her opinion. 
+There is too much reason why we should do the little we can
+to respect it now."
+
+"Very well, then," sighed Thomasin.  "I will say no more."
+
+"But you are not bound to obey my wishes.  I merely say
+what I think."
+
+"O no--I don't want to be rebellious in that way,"
+she said sadly.  "I had no business to think of him--I
+ought to have thought of my family.  What dreadfully bad
+impulses there are in me!" Her lips trembled, and she
+turned away to hide a tear. 
+
+Clym, though vexed at what seemed her unaccountable taste,
+was in a measure relieved to find that at any rate the
+marriage question in relation to himself was shelved. 
+Through several succeeding days he saw her at different
+times from the window of his room moping disconsolately
+about the garden.  He was half angry with her for
+choosing Venn; then he was grieved at having put himself
+in the way of Venn's happiness, who was, after all,
+as honest and persevering a young fellow as any on Egdon,
+since he had turned over a new leaf.  In short, Clym did
+not know what to do. 
+
+When next they met she said abruptly, "He is much more
+respectable now than he was then!"
+
+"Who?  O yes--Diggory Venn."
+
+"Aunt only objected because he was a reddleman."
+
+"Well, Thomasin, perhaps I don't know all the particulars
+of my mother's wish.  So you had better use your own discretion."
+
+"You will always feel that I slighted your mother's memory."
+
+"No, I will not.  I shall think you are convinced that,
+had she seen Diggory in his present position, she would
+have considered him a fitting husband for you. 
+Now, that's my real feeling.  Don't consult me any more,
+but do as you like, Thomasin.  I shall be content."
+
+It is to be supposed that Thomasin was convinced;
+for a few days after this, when Clym strayed into a part
+of the heath that he had not lately visited, Humphrey,
+who was at work there, said to him, "I am glad to see
+that Mrs. Wildeve and Venn have made it up again, seemingly."
+
+"Have they?" said Clym abstractedly. 
+
+"Yes; and he do contrive to stumble upon her whenever she
+walks out on fine days with the chiel.  But, Mr. Yeobright,
+I can't help feeling that your cousin ought to have
+married you.  'Tis a pity to make two chimleycorners
+where there need be only one.  You could get her away from
+him now, 'tis my belief, if you were only to set about it."
+
+"How can I have the conscience to marry after having
+driven two women to their deaths?  Don't think such
+a thing, Humphrey.  After my experience I should consider it
+too much of a burlesque to go to church and take a wife. 
+In the words of Job, 'I have made a covenant with mine eyes;
+when then should I think upon a maid?'"
+
+"No, Mr. Clym, don't fancy that about driving two women
+to their deaths.  You shouldn't say it."
+
+"Well, we'll leave that out," said Yeobright.  "But anyhow
+God has set a mark upon me which wouldn't look well
+in a love-making scene.  I have two ideas in my head,
+and no others.  I am going to keep a night-school;
+and I am going to turn preacher.  What have you got to say
+to that, Humphrey?"
+
+"I'll come and hear 'ee with all my heart."
+
+"Thanks. 'Tis all I wish."
+
+As Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came
+down by the other path, and met him at the gate. 
+"What do you think I have to tell you, Clym?" she said,
+looking archly over her shoulder at him. 
+
+"I can guess," he replied. 
+
+She scrutinized his face.  "Yes, you guess right. 
+It is going to be after all.  He thinks I may as well
+make up my mind, and I have got to think so too. 
+It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you
+don't object."
+
+"Do what you think right, dear.  I am only too glad that you
+see your way clear to happiness again.  My sex owes you
+every amends for the treatment you received in days gone by."*
+
+
+* The writer may state here that the original conception
+of the story did not design a marriage between Thomasin
+and Venn.  He was to have retained his isolated and weird
+character to the last, and to have disappeared mysteriously
+from the heath, nobody knowing whither--Thomasin remaining
+a widow.  But certain circumstances of serial publication
+led to a change of intent. 
+
+Readers can therefore choose between the endings,
+and those with an austere artistic code can assume
+the more consistent conclusion to be the true one. 
+
+
+
+4 - Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End,
+    and Clym Finds His Vocation
+
+
+Anybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven
+o'clock on the morning fixed for the wedding would have
+found that, while Yeobright's house was comparatively quiet,
+sounds denoting great activity came from the dwelling
+of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway.  It was chiefly
+a noise of feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over
+the sanded floor within.  One man only was visible outside,
+and he seemed to be later at an appointment than he
+had intended to be, for he hastened up to the door,
+lifted the latch, and walked in without ceremony.
+
+The scene within was not quite the customary one.
+Standing about the room was the little knot of men who formed
+the chief part of the Egdon coterie, there being present
+Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle, Humphrey, Christian, and one
+or two turf-cutters. It was a warm day, and the men were as
+a matter of course in their shirtsleeves, except Christian,
+who had always a nervous fear of parting with a scrap
+of his clothing when in anybody's house but his own.
+Across the stout oak table in the middle of the room
+was thrown a mass of striped linen, which Grandfer
+Cantle held down on one side, and Humphrey on the other,
+while Fairway rubbed its surface with a yellow lump,
+his face being damp and creased with the effort of the labour.
+
+"Waxing a bed-tick, souls?" said the newcomer.
+
+"Yes, Sam," said Grandfer Cantle, as a man too busy to
+waste words.  "Shall I stretch this corner a shade tighter, Timothy?"
+
+Fairway replied, and the waxing went on with unabated vigour.
+"'Tis going to be a good bed, by the look o't," continued Sam,
+after an interval of silence.  "Who may it be for?"
+
+"'Tis a present for the new folks that's going to set
+up housekeeping," said Christian, who stood helpless
+and overcome by the majesty of the proceedings.
+
+"Ah, to be sure; and a valuable one, 'a b'lieve."
+
+"Beds be dear to fokes that don't keep geese, bain't they,
+Mister Fairway?" said Christian, as to an omniscient being.
+
+"Yes," said the furze-dealer, standing up, giving his
+forehead a thorough mopping, and handing the beeswax
+to Humphrey, who succeeded at the rubbing forthwith.
+"Not that this couple be in want of one, but 'twas well
+to show 'em a bit of friendliness at this great racketing
+vagary of their lives.  I set up both my own daughters
+in one when they was married, and there have been feathers
+enough for another in the house the last twelve months.
+Now then, neighbours, I think we have laid on enough wax.
+Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right way outwards,
+and then I'll begin to shake in the feathers."
+
+When the bed was in proper trim Fairway and Christian
+brought forward vast paper bags, stuffed to the full,
+but light as balloons, and began to turn the contents
+of each into the receptacle just prepared.  As bag
+after bag was emptied, airy tufts of down and feathers
+floated about the room in increasing quantity till,
+through a mishap of Christian's, who shook the contents
+of one bag outside the tick, the atmosphere of the room
+became dense with gigantic flakes, which descended upon
+the workers like a windless snowstorm.
+
+"I never saw such a clumsy chap as you, Christian,"
+said Grandfer Cantle severely.  "You might have been
+the son of a man that's never been outside Blooms-End
+in his life for all the wit you have.  Really all the
+soldiering and smartness in the world in the father seems
+to count for nothing in forming the nater of the son.
+As far as that chief Christian is concerned I might as well
+have stayed at home and seed nothing, like all the rest
+of ye here.  Though, as far as myself is concerned,
+a dashing spirit has counted for sommat, to be sure!"
+
+"Don't ye let me down so, Father; I feel no bigger
+than a ninepin after it.  I've made but a bruckle hit,
+I'm afeard."
+
+"Come, come.  Never pitch yerself in such a low key
+as that, Christian; you should try more," said Fairway.
+
+"Yes, you should try more," echoed the Grandfer
+with insistence, as if he had been the first to make
+the suggestion.  "In common conscience every man ought
+either to marry or go for a soldier.  'Tis a scandal
+to the nation to do neither one nor t'other. I did both,
+thank God! Neither to raise men nor to lay 'em low--
+that shows a poor do-nothing spirit indeed."
+
+"I never had the nerve to stand fire," faltered Christian.
+"But as to marrying, I own I've asked here and there,
+though without much fruit from it.  Yes, there's some house
+or other that might have had a man for a master--such
+as he is--that's now ruled by a woman alone.  Still it
+might have been awkward if I had found her; for, d'ye see,
+neighbours, there'd have been nobody left at home to keep
+down Father's spirits to the decent pitch that becomes
+a old man."
+
+"And you've your work cut out to do that, my son,"
+said Grandfer Cantle smartly.  "I wish that the dread
+of infirmities was not so strong in me!--I'd start the
+very first thing tomorrow to see the world over again!
+But seventy-one, though nothing at home, is a high figure
+for a rover....Ay, seventy-one, last Candlemasday.
+Gad, I'd sooner have it in guineas than in years!"
+And the old man sighed.
+
+"Don't you be mournful, Grandfer," said Fairway.  "Empt some
+more feathers into the bed-tick, and keep up yer heart.
+Though rather lean in the stalks you be a green-leaved old
+man still.  There's time enough left to ye yet to fill
+whole chronicles."
+
+"Begad, I'll go to 'em, Timothy--to the married pair!"
+said Granfer Cantle in an encouraged voice, and starting
+round briskly.  "I'll go to 'em tonight and sing
+a wedding song, hey?  'Tis like me to do so, you know;
+and they'd see it as such.  My 'Down in Cupid's Gardens'
+was well liked in four; still, I've got others as good,
+and even better.  What do you say to my
+
+
+          She cal'-led to' her love'
+          From the lat'-tice a-bove,
+    'O come in' from the fog-gy fog'-gy dew'.'
+
+
+'Twould please 'em well at such a time! Really,
+now I come to think of it, I haven't turned my tongue
+in my head to the shape of a real good song since Old
+Midsummer night, when we had the 'Barley Mow' at the Woman;
+and 'tis a pity to neglect your strong point where there's
+few that have the compass for such things!"
+
+"So 'tis, so 'tis," said Fairway.  "Now gie the bed a
+shake down.  We've put in seventy pounds of best feathers,
+and I think that's as many as the tick will fairly hold.
+A bit and a drap wouldn't be amiss now, I reckon.
+Christian, maul down the victuals from corner-cupboard
+if canst reach, man, and I'll draw a drap o' sommat to wet
+it with."
+
+They sat down to a lunch in the midst of their work,
+feathers around, above, and below them; the original
+owners of which occasionally came to the open door
+and cackled begrudgingly at sight of such a quantity
+of their old clothes.
+
+"Upon my soul I shall be chokt," said Fairway when,
+having extracted a feather from his mouth, he found several
+others floating on the mug as it was handed round.
+
+"I've swallered several; and one had a tolerable quill,"
+said Sam placidly from the corner.
+
+"Hullo--what's that--wheels I hear coming?" Grandfer Cantle
+exclaimed, jumping up and hastening to the door.  "Why, 'tis
+they back again--I didn't expect 'em yet this half-hour.
+To be sure, how quick marrying can be done when you are in the
+mind for't!"
+
+"O yes, it can soon be DONE," said Fairway, as if
+something should be added to make the statement complete.
+
+He arose and followed the Grandfer, and the rest also went
+to the door.  In a moment an open fly was driven past,
+in which sat Venn and Mrs. Venn, Yeobright, and a grand
+relative of Venn's who had come from Budmouth for
+the occasion.  The fly had been hired at the nearest town,
+regardless of distance and cost, there being nothing on
+Egdon Heath, in Venn's opinion, dignified enough for such
+an event when such a woman as Thomasin was the bride;
+and the church was too remote for a walking bridal-party.
+
+As the fly passed the group which had run out from the
+homestead they shouted "Hurrah!" and waved their hands;
+feathers and down floating from their hair, their sleeves,
+and the folds of their garments at every motion,
+and Grandfer Cantle's seals dancing merrily in the sunlight
+as he twirled himself about.  The driver of the fly turned
+a supercilious gaze upon them; he even treated the wedded
+pair themselves with something like condescension;
+for in what other state than heathen could people,
+rich or poor, exist who were doomed to abide in such a
+world's end as Egdon?  Thomasin showed no such superiority
+to the group at the door, fluttering her hand as quickly
+as a bird's wing towards them, and asking Diggory,
+with tears in her eyes, if they ought not to alight and speak
+to these kind neighbours.  Venn, however, suggested that,
+as they were all coming to the house in the evening,
+this was hardly necessary.
+
+After this excitement the saluting party returned to
+their occupation, and the stuffing and sewing were soon
+afterwards finished, when Fairway harnessed a horse,
+wrapped up the cumbrous present, and drove off with it
+in the cart to Venn's house at Stickleford. 
+
+
+Yeobright, having filled the office at the wedding
+service which naturally fell to his hands, and afterwards
+returned to the house with the husband and wife,
+was indisposed to take part in the feasting and dancing
+that wound up the evening.  Thomasin was disappointed. 
+
+"I wish I could be there without dashing your spirits,"
+he said.  "But I might be too much like the skull at
+the banquet."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"Well, dear, apart from that, if you would excuse me,
+I should be glad.  I know it seems unkind; but, dear Thomasin,
+I fear I should not be happy in the company--there,
+that's the truth of it.  I shall always be coming to see
+you at your new home, you know, so that my absence now
+will not matter."
+
+"Then I give in.  Do whatever will be most comfortable
+to yourself."
+
+Clym retired to his lodging at the housetop much relieved,
+and occupied himself during the afternoon in noting
+down the heads of a sermon, with which he intended to
+initiate all that really seemed practicable of the scheme
+that had originally brought him hither, and that he
+had so long kept in view under various modifications,
+and through evil and good report.  He had tested and weighed
+his convictions again and again, and saw no reason to
+alter them, though he had considerably lessened his plan. 
+His eyesight, by long humouring in his native air,
+had grown stronger, but not sufficiently strong to warrant
+his attempting his extensive educational project.
+Yet he did not repine--there was still more than enough
+of an unambitious sort to tax all his energies and occupy
+all his hours. 
+
+Evening drew on, and sounds of life and movement in
+the lower part of the domicile became more pronounced,
+the gate in the palings clicking incessantly.  The party was
+to be an early one, and all the guests were assembled long
+before it was dark.  Yeobright went down the back staircase
+and into the heath by another path than that in front,
+intending to walk in the open air till the party was over,
+when he would return to wish Thomasin and her husband good-bye
+as they departed.  His steps were insensibly bent towards
+Mistover by the path that he had followed on that terrible
+morning when he learnt the strange news from Susan's boy. 
+
+He did not turn aside to the cottage, but pushed on to an eminence,
+whence he could see over the whole quarter that had once been
+Eustacia's home.  While he stood observing the darkening
+scene somebody came up.  Clym, seeing him but dimly,
+would have let him pass silently, had not the pedestrian,
+who was Charley, recognized the young man and spoken to him. 
+
+"Charley, I have not seen you for a length of time,"
+said Yeobright.  "Do you often walk this way?"
+
+"No," the lad replied.  "I don't often come outside
+the bank."
+
+"You were not at the Maypole."
+
+"No," said Charley, in the same listless tone.  "I don't
+care for that sort of thing now."
+
+"You rather liked Miss Eustacia, didn't you?"
+Yeobright gently asked.  Eustacia had frequently
+told him of Charley's romantic attachment. 
+
+"Yes, very much.  Ah, I wish--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I wish, Mr. Yeobright, you could give me something
+to keep that once belonged to her--if you don't mind."
+
+"I shall be very happy to.  It will give me very
+great pleasure, Charley.  Let me think what I have of hers
+that you would like.  But come with me to the house,
+and I'll see."
+
+They walked towards Blooms-End together.  When they reached
+the front it was dark, and the shutters were closed,
+so that nothing of the interior could be seen.
+
+"Come round this way," said Clym.  "My entrance is at
+the back for the present."
+
+The two went round and ascended the crooked stair in darkness
+till Clym's sitting-room on the upper floor was reached,
+where he lit a candle, Charley entering gently behind. 
+Yeobright searched his desk, and taking out a sheet
+of tissue-paper unfolded from it two or three undulating
+locks of raven hair, which fell over the paper like
+black streams.  From these he selected one, wrapped it up,
+and gave it to the lad, whose eyes had filled with tears. 
+He kissed the packet, put it in his pocket, and said
+in a voice of emotion, "O, Mr. Clym, how good you are
+to me!"
+
+"I will go a little way with you," said Clym.  And amid
+the noise of merriment from below they descended. 
+Their path to the front led them close to a little side window,
+whence the rays of candles streamed across the shrubs. 
+The window, being screened from general observation
+by the bushes, had been left unblinded, so that a person
+in this private nook could see all that was going on
+within the room which contained the wedding guests,
+except in so far as vision was hindered by the green
+antiquity of the panes. 
+
+"Charley, what are they doing?" said Clym.  "My sight
+is weaker again tonight, and the glass of this window
+is not good."
+
+Charley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred
+with moisture, and stepped closer to the casement. 
+"Mr. Venn is asking Christian Cantle to sing," he replied,
+"and Christian is moving about in his chair as if he were
+much frightened at the question, and his father has struck
+up a stave instead of him."
+
+"Yes, I can hear the old man's voice," said Clym. 
+"So there's to be no dancing, I suppose.  And is Thomasin
+in the room?  I see something moving in front of the candles
+that resembles her shape, I think."
+
+"Yes. She do seem happy.  She is red in the face,
+and laughing at something Fairway has said to her. 
+O my!"
+
+"What noise was that?" said Clym. 
+
+"Mr. Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against
+the beam in gieing a skip as he passed under.  Mrs. Venn
+has run up quite frightened and now she's put her hand
+to his head to feel if there's a lump.  And now they
+be all laughing again as if nothing had happened."
+
+"Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?"
+Clym asked. 
+
+"No, not a bit in the world.  Now they are all holding
+up their glasses and drinking somebody's health."
+
+"I wonder if it is mine?"
+
+"No, 'tis Mr. and Mrs. Venn's, because he is making a
+hearty sort of speech.  There--now Mrs. Venn has got up,
+and is going away to put on her things, I think."
+
+"Well, they haven't concerned themselves about me, and it
+is quite right they should not.  It is all as it should be,
+and Thomasin at least is happy.  We will not stay any
+longer now, as they will soon be coming out to go home."
+
+He accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home,
+and, returning alone to the house a quarter of an
+hour later, found Venn and Thomasin ready to start,
+all the guests having departed in his absence. 
+The wedded pair took their seats in the four-wheeled
+dogcart which Venn's head milker and handy man had driven
+from Stickleford to fetch them in; little Eustacia and
+the nurse were packed securely upon the open flap behind;
+and the milker, on an ancient overstepping pony, whose shoes
+clashed like cymbals at every tread, rode in the rear,
+in the manner of a body-servant of the last century. 
+
+"Now we leave you in absolute possession of your own
+house again," said Thomasin as she bent down to wish
+her cousin good night.  "It will be rather lonely
+for you, Clym, after the hubbub we have been making."
+
+"O, that's no inconvenience," said Clym, smiling rather sadly. 
+And then the party drove off and vanished in the night
+shades, and Yeobright entered the house.  The ticking
+of the clock was the only sound that greeted him, for not
+a soul remained; Christian, who acted as cook, valet,
+and gardener to Clym, sleeping at his father's house. 
+Yeobright sat down in one of the vacant chairs,
+and remained in thought a long time.  His mother's old
+chair was opposite; it had been sat in that evening by
+those who had scarcely remembered that it ever was hers. 
+But to Clym she was almost a presence there, now as always. 
+Whatever she was in other people's memories, in his she
+was the sublime saint whose radiance even his tenderness
+for Eustacia could not obscure.  But his heart was heavy,
+that Mother had NOT crowned him in the day of his
+espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart.
+And events had borne out the accuracy of her judgment,
+and proved the devotedness of her care.  He should have
+heeded her for Eustacia's sake even more than for his own. 
+"It was all my fault," he whispered.  "O, my mother,
+my mother! would to God that I could live my life again,
+and endure for you what you endured for me!"
+
+
+On the Sunday after this wedding an unusual sight was
+to be seen on Rainbarrow.  From a distance there simply
+appeared to be a motionless figure standing on the top
+of the tumulus, just as Eustacia had stood on that lonely
+summit some two years and a half before.  But now it
+was fine warm weather, with only a summer breeze blowing,
+and early afternoon instead of dull twilight. 
+Those who ascended to the immediate neighbourhood of
+the Barrow perceived that the erect form in the centre,
+piercing the sky, was not really alone.  Round him upon
+the slopes of the Barrow a number of heathmen and women
+were reclining or sitting at their ease.  They listened
+to the words of the man in their midst, who was preaching,
+while they abstractedly pulled heather, stripped ferns,
+or tossed pebbles down the slope.  This was the first
+of a series of moral lectures or Sermons on the Mount,
+which were to be delivered from the same place every Sunday
+afternoon as long as the fine weather lasted. 
+
+The commanding elevation of Rainbarrow had been chosen
+for two reasons: first, that it occupied a central position
+among the remote cottages around; secondly, that the
+preacher thereon could be seen from all adjacent points
+as soon as he arrived at his post, the view of him
+being thus a convenient signal to those stragglers
+who wished to draw near.  The speaker was bareheaded,
+and the breeze at each waft gently lifted and lowered
+his hair, somewhat too thin for a man of his years,
+these still numbering less than thirty-three. 
+He wore a shade over his eyes, and his face was pensive
+and lined; but, though these bodily features were marked
+with decay there was no defect in the tones of his voice,
+which were rich, musical, and stirring.  He stated that
+his discourses to people were to be sometimes secular,
+and sometimes religious, but never dogmatic; and that
+his texts would be taken from all kinds of books. 
+This afternoon the words were as follows:--
+
+"'And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her,
+and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set
+for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand. 
+Then she said, I desire one small petition of thee;
+I pray thee say me not nay.  And the king said unto her,
+Ask, on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay.'"
+
+
+Yeobright had, in fact, found his vocation in the career
+of an itinerant open-air preacher and lecturer on morally
+unimpeachable subjects; and from this day he laboured
+incessantly in that office, speaking not only in simple
+language on Rainbarrow and in the hamlets round, but in
+a more cultivated strain elsewhere--from the steps and
+porticoes of town halls, from market-crosses, from conduits,
+on esplanades and on wharves, from the parapets of bridges,
+in barns and outhouses, and all other such places in the
+neighbouring Wessex towns and villages.  He left alone
+creeds and systems of philosophy, finding enough and more
+than enough to occupy his tongue in the opinions and actions
+common to all good men.  Some believed him, and some
+believed not; some said that his words were commonplace,
+others complained of his want of theological doctrine;
+while others again remarked that it was well enough
+for a man to take to preaching who could not see to do
+anything else.  But everywhere he was kindly received,
+for the story of his life had become generally known.
+
+
+
+**End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Return of the Native by Hardy**
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/old/old/nativ10.zip b/old/old/nativ10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e82eaa5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/nativ10.zip